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One interesting details I've found about Spider-man being on teams (when he's well written) is that on a team of older veterans, he's the trouble maker and the wiseguy.
On a team of rookies and young heroes, he tries to play mentor and voice of reason, whether they want it or not.
I think trying to walk the line is a vital aspect of his character, much like how he tries to balance his time as Spider-man and Peter and often ends up focusing too much on one at the expense of the other.
The idea that he would STAY a member of a team for a long period of time isn't one I can get into. He wants to do his own thing too much.
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[QUOTE=Alan2099;4934918]One interesting details I've found about Spider-man being on teams (when he's well written) is that on a team of older veterans, he's the trouble maker and the wiseguy. [/quote]
The problem is also that he's only ever that. He never gets to be the Avenger who saves the day. So as a Spider-Man fan, you get nothing watching Spider-Man in any team. You are not rewarded.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4930695]I have to say I prefer the idea of Eddie Brock just being this random guy who gets sucked into the world of Spider-Man and introduced out of nowhere as in the original Michelinie-MacFarlane run.
Having Eddie Brock connected to Peter and potentially dropping in and out of his supporting cast has the air of the usual problems of Peter's supporting cast gradually becoming villains or heroes and getting to be part of the other side of the his double life. Obviously, mileage varies on how much is too much, and not everyone can or will agree.
Sometimes people, complete strangers, just barge into your life all of a sudden, out of random. That was part of the terror in the original Venom story.[/QUOTE]
The problem with Eddie being a random guy, is they made him a personal enemy, with a personal grudge against Spidey, which does not work if Eddie is just some random guy, Eddie being some random guy would work if he was just a regular criminal with no grudge against Spidey, a personal grudge needs some set up to work.
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[QUOTE=The Overlord;4934934]The problem with Eddie being a random guy, is they made him a personal enemy, with a personal grudge against Spidey, which does not work if Eddie is just some random guy, Eddie being some random guy would work if he was just a regular criminal with no grudge against Spidey, a personal grudge needs some set up to work.[/QUOTE]
[B][I][U]First of all, in reality, random people have personal grudges on people they have no connection to all the time[/U][/I][/B]. That's what stalking is all about, it's what twitter fights and online behavior where some handle keeps following you across boards and so on are based on. It's also the result of celebrity and so on. I mean the current president had no connection, personal or otherwise to Obama, and yet somehow he's dedicated himself to becoming Obama's arch-enemy and that obsession led him where he is. 45 is the Venom to Obama's Spidey.
I mean look at Batman and Joker. In the classical versions and most common ones, Joker has no personal connection or interest in Batman, who he is and so on. And yet after one random encounter, where some random dude gets dropped into a vat of acid, you have a guy dedicated to humiliating and making a mockery of Batman's crusade, and doing a pretty successful job of it too.
The opposite of that, i.e. some dude who is your friend or so on, suddenly becoming a villain and attacking you...that's a little rarer. And it usually happens in very heightened situations rather than the everyday world Peter is in.
In the original story...Brock was a hack journalist with a nasty personality, whose plagiarism got exposed because of Spider-Man's actions in a way Spider-Man didn't know, and that led him to being there when the Venom symbiote, who btw does have a personal connection to Peter, was expunged, and so bonding with it, and through that learning about Spider-Man's secret identity. That's actually scary...a random dude, a perfect stranger, suddenly knows who Peter Parker is and knows all your secrets and has the power to act on that information.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4934930]The problem is also that he's only ever that. He never gets to be the Avenger who saves the day. So as a Spider-Man fan, you get nothing watching Spider-Man in any team. You are not rewarded.[/QUOTE]
And you don't really get much from Spider-Man leading a team other then seeing him turn other heroes into his sidekicks.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;4935034]And you don't really get much from Spider-Man leading a team other then seeing him turn other heroes into his sidekicks.[/QUOTE]
I mean, it's not really Spider-Man's thing. He has enough difficulty balancing his personal life and heroics without taking on the added responsibility of a protegee.
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[QUOTE=David Walton;4935054]I mean, it's not really Spider-Man's thing. He has enough difficulty balancing his personal life and heroics without taking on the added responsibility of a protegee.[/QUOTE]
Which is probably why, in my opinions, adaptions continually struggle to justify or explain the presence of other spider-heroes in Peter's orbit. Especially Miles.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;4935062]Which is probably why, in my opinions, adaptions continually struggle to justify or explain the presence of other spider-heroes in Peter's orbit. Especially Miles.[/QUOTE]
Yes they do. The franchise mentality is at odds with Peter's characterization.
ITSV is the only one IMO that really nailed it.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4931781]I like Defalco-Frenz's [I]Spider-Girl[/I], but to me the draw of the book was never Peter and MJ's relationship. Hardly any of the issues dealt with them as a couple, and mostly they were just presented as "Mom" and "Dad". There were many cool moments for Peter and for MJ with their daughter, yes, but with each other not so much. I find the older versions of Peter and MJ convincing visually and in terms of voice and character, it's just that Defalco-Frenz felt that going into that version of Peter-MJ was more for the main books to do, and also I guess they didn't think there was an audience for showing a middle-aged married couple deal with their relationship in a story centered on a teenage superheroine.
There was never an issue in Spider-Girl like, Jody Houser's [I]Renew Your Vows #19[/I]. That issue is a great one that shows their relationship and how it changed after being together for so long and becoming parents.[/QUOTE]
RYV was about the Peter, MJ and Annie. Spider-Girl was really just about Spider-Girl, with Peter and MJ as supporting characters. So the subject matter is going to be different. DeFalco could have chosen to go the same route as RYV, with the Parkers as a crime-fighting family ala the Fantastic Four. He did not, and thats something I really appreciated.
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[QUOTE=David Walton;4935132]Yes they do. The franchise mentality is at odds with Peter's characterization.
ITSV is the only one IMO that really nailed it.[/QUOTE]
And even then that movie made it apparent that none of these characters were meant to be on the same Earth, hence the urgency with getting them back. Miles had to make sure Peter went to his own Earth instead of staying on Miles'.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;4935164]And even then that movie made it apparent that none of these characters were meant to be on the same Earth, hence the urgency with getting them back. Miles had to make sure Peter went to his own Earth instead of staying on Miles'.[/QUOTE]
Yes, exactly!
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[QUOTE=Alan2099;4934918]One interesting details I've found about Spider-man being on teams (when he's well written) is that on a team of older veterans, he's the trouble maker and the wiseguy.
On a team of rookies and young heroes, he tries to play mentor and voice of reason, whether they want it or not.
I think trying to walk the line is a vital aspect of his character, much like how he tries to balance his time as Spider-man and Peter and often ends up focusing too much on one at the expense of the other.
The idea that he would STAY a member of a team for a long period of time isn't one I can get into. He wants to do his own thing too much.[/QUOTE]
I like your point there. I'd say, though, that Spider-Man tends to be the "little brother" figure among other adult heroes, but more of a "big brother" figure with teenage or younger adult heroes, though in either case, he ends up endearing himself to them by a combination of sheer well-meaning earnestness with genuine heroism, even if his humor often grates on them. I'd also add that, as seen in the recent Daredevil series by Chip Zdarsky, he gets the most respect among so-called street-level heroes, because he's down there with them taking on the worst of the worst when it comes to ordinary human criminality and wickedness that the more big-time heroes like the Avengers and Fantastic Four don't normally deal with, which I think is a really interesting touch regarding his relationship with the broader superhero community.
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4934930]The problem is also that he's only ever that. He never gets to be the Avenger who saves the day. So as a Spider-Man fan, you get nothing watching Spider-Man in any team. You are not rewarded.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I can see that point. It's why I've argued that Marvel needs a good, solid Spider-Man-centric event, or at least one where he does get to be the one who proves pivotal to saving the day in full sight of the rest of the hero community (and general public, optionally).
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4934944][B][I][U]First of all, in reality, random people have personal grudges on people they have no connection to all the time[/U][/I][/B]. That's what stalking is all about, it's what twitter fights and online behavior where some handle keeps following you across boards and so on are based on. It's also the result of celebrity and so on. I mean the current president had no connection, personal or otherwise to Obama, and yet somehow he's dedicated himself to becoming Obama's arch-enemy and that obsession led him where he is. 45 is the Venom to Obama's Spidey.
I mean look at Batman and Joker. In the classical versions and most common ones, Joker has no personal connection or interest in Batman, who he is and so on. And yet after one random encounter, where some random dude gets dropped into a vat of acid, you have a guy dedicated to humiliating and making a mockery of Batman's crusade, and doing a pretty successful job of it too.
The opposite of that, i.e. some dude who is your friend or so on, suddenly becoming a villain and attacking you...that's a little rarer. And it usually happens in very heightened situations rather than the everyday world Peter is in.
In the original story...Brock was a hack journalist with a nasty personality, whose plagiarism got exposed because of Spider-Man's actions in a way Spider-Man didn't know, and that led him to being there when the Venom symbiote, who btw does have a personal connection to Peter, was expunged, and so bonding with it, and through that learning about Spider-Man's secret identity. That's actually scary...a random dude, a perfect stranger, suddenly knows who Peter Parker is and knows all your secrets and has the power to act on that information.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that's actually a pretty good point.
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I always read Alistair Smythe in a British accent ala the 90's cartoon, and imagine him and Kingpin as this bickering odd couple even though that is pretty far from their actual comic dynamic.
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[QUOTE=Huntsman Spider;4935380]Yeah, I can see that point. It's why I've argued that Marvel needs a good, solid Spider-Man-centric event, or at least one where he does get to be the one who proves pivotal to saving the day in full sight of the rest of the hero community (and general public, optionally).[/QUOTE]
I feel like Spidey saving the day in full view of the hero community wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as readers think it would.
IMO his interactions with the hero community should be scaled back to smaller team-ups. The heroes he's worked with closely know he's extremely competent--more so than he gives himself credit for, actually. But therein lies the problem. You don't really want Spidey vindicated on such a large scale that it's obvious to everyone just how awesome he is. Spidey's biggest victories are either of a personal nature, go largely unnoticed, or are misinterpreted as a criminal act. And that's why we love him!
Most of us feel like our struggles, whatever those might be, aren't fully known or appreciated. We try to be decent, responsible human beings all while dealing with the things that others don't see; every day people heroically hold it together as best they can while dealing with depression, or caring for a sick relative, or holding down a full time job and going to school, or any number of potentially crippling problems. And that's why Peter Parker is our guy, the everyman's hero. Once he's vindicated on a national or international stage he's moved beyond us.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4934944][B][I][U]First of all, in reality, random people have personal grudges on people they have no connection to all the time[/U][/I][/B]. That's what stalking is all about, it's what twitter fights and online behavior where some handle keeps following you across boards and so on are based on. It's also the result of celebrity and so on. I mean the current president had no connection, personal or otherwise to Obama, and yet somehow he's dedicated himself to becoming Obama's arch-enemy and that obsession led him where he is. 45 is the Venom to Obama's Spidey.
I mean look at Batman and Joker. In the classical versions and most common ones, Joker has no personal connection or interest in Batman, who he is and so on. And yet after one random encounter, where some random dude gets dropped into a vat of acid, you have a guy dedicated to humiliating and making a mockery of Batman's crusade, and doing a pretty successful job of it too.
The opposite of that, i.e. some dude who is your friend or so on, suddenly becoming a villain and attacking you...that's a little rarer. And it usually happens in very heightened situations rather than the everyday world Peter is in.
In the original story...Brock was a hack journalist with a nasty personality, whose plagiarism got exposed because of Spider-Man's actions in a way Spider-Man didn't know, and that led him to being there when the Venom symbiote, who btw does have a personal connection to Peter, was expunged, and so bonding with it, and through that learning about Spider-Man's secret identity. That's actually scary...a random dude, a perfect stranger, suddenly knows who Peter Parker is and knows all your secrets and has the power to act on that information.[/QUOTE]
Aren't the vast majority of his rogues total strangers till they met in battle? To me a true personal foe needs more than, Spidey stopped me from robbing banks and now I want revenge on him.
Venom as deranged stalker could work, but it would need a setup and a good execution, they tried doing that with Electro in the films and it did not work. Professor Zoom from the Flash has that as his motive and if Spidey was doing superheroes and some random creepy guy was always in the background.
The problem is Venom's motive is just weak, he is mad Spidey exposed his own sloppy journalism, what should Spidey have done instead, simply let a serial killer go on the loose? Venom says he is about protecting the innocent, but apparently didn't want Spidey to catch a serial killer. It's a dumb motive, it's not sympathetic and it's not creepy or scary, it's just stupid. The original character concept was better, where Venom was a pregnant woman who's husband got distracted while Spidey was swinging around, crashed the car, died and the woman lost her baby too. That is not Spidey's fault either, but its easier to see why she would blame Spidey for her woes and really I could see something like that happen.
Also, another change I like in other media is Shocker's suit being provided to him by a third party, rather than inventing it, because most professional criminals do not have technical skills, most professional criminals come from poverty and a lack of means to the higher education needed to develop and refine technical skills. A professional criminal being given technology that can be used to further his criminal career is more believable than some guy who can make potentially useful commercial tech but seems to want to use it to rob banks for no real good reason. Shocker getting his tech from another party makes a more relatable blue-collar villain, rather than another guy who could have a ton of money legitimately but didn't, for no real reason and Shocker could still be street smart in more of a contrast to Spidey's book smarts.
