10 Ways The Amazing Spider-Man Was Better Than Homecoming

[Frontier]

The whole thing is that the Avengers WEREN'T keeping their eye son people like Vulture and that Spider-man could. The Avengers are already saving the people the Avengers can save. Nobody is doing the things Spider-man is doing.

None of the movie Avengers actually fight crime, at least street-level crime that doesn't involve Hydra or terrorists.

You don't see Iron Man, Cap, or Thor going out on patrol for crimes to stop.

The Netflix heroes do but they're persona non grata as far as the movies are concerned (and vice-versa for Spider-Man in their world).

Spider-Man is effectively the only guy who'll swing by and stop a purse snatcher or help the police foil a bank robbery.

[blackspidey2099]

Okay, fair enough.

(The issue regarding Spider-Man wanting to joint the Avengers in the first place makes sense; the movie is drawing mostly from the Ultimate comics where Spidey did want to join the Avengers, not as much ASM where he was more on the fence. It wasn't the pestering every day we saw in the film, but the motivation was there.)

It's been a couple years since I read USM, but I distinctly remember Fury wanting Peter to join SHIELD/the Ultimates once he turned 18, and Peter absolutely did NOT want to.

The whole thing is that the Avengers WEREN'T keeping their eye son people like Vulture and that Spider-man could. The Avengers are already saving the people the Avengers can save. Nobody is doing the things Spider-man is doing.

Sure, but there's nothing saying that Spider-Man couldn't have been an Avenger as well as a street-leevl hero. I mean, he was still a high school kid so it's not like he could disappear from school at random to go jet-setting for the low-key Avengers missions. Overall, I just thought that was a poorly done plot point.

[WebLurker]

I never really got the sense that Peter in USM wanted to join the Ultimates until Fury put the idea in his head, but even then he really didn't seem that focused on it.

Fair enough.

[WebLurker]

It's been a couple years since I read USM, but I distinctly remember Fury wanting Peter to join SHIELD/the Ultimates once he turned 18, and Peter absolutely did NOT want to.

Yes and no.

The first time Peter heard any inkling about the idea was in USM #27 (trade papeback Vol. 4: Legacy). Unhappy with Fury's handling of the latest Green Goblin scheme, he says that he wants nothing to do with him or S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury says: "Well... you hardly have any choice, kid. You're an illegal, unnatural genetic mutation. You turn eighteen -- you belong to me. That's the way it is. Unless you turn yourself into a menace to society... there's nothing we can do about you now. But when you turn eighteen...

Peter at that point leaves in a pretty bad state of mind. Next time he encounters Fury in USM #39 (Vol. 6: Venom), they have a conversation, where Peter brings up the implied threat. Fury's clarification is: "What I said was: when you get of age... you'll be a part of my team. I said that you were in line to be part of the one of the finest organizations this world has ever seen. You'll work alongside Tony Stark. Doctor Bruce Banner. Captain America. You're going to be one of the greats, kid. One of the greats." (I suspect it might've been a retcon, but whatever.)

Then come the Ultimate Clone Saga's Issue#105, after the chaos is over, Fury (who'd been trying to arrest Peter for reasons that were never really fair in the first place), traces him to the Baxter Building. Mary Jane ends up talking him down by saying that Peter wanted to join the Ultimates.

So, yes, Peter didn't initially want to join, but he also misunderstood what Fury had in mind in the first place.

[blackspidey2099]

Yes and no.

The first time Peter heard any inkling about the idea was in USM #27 (trade papeback Vol. 4: Legacy). Unhappy with Fury's handling of the latest Green Goblin scheme, he says that he wants nothing to do with him or S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury says: "Well... you hardly have any choice, kid. You're an illegal, unnatural genetic mutation. You turn eighteen -- you belong to me. That's the way it is. Unless you turn yourself into a menace to society... there's nothing we can do about you now. But when you turn eighteen...

Peter at that point leaves in a pretty bad state of mind. Next time he encounters Fury in USM #39 (Vol. 6: Venom), they have a conversation, where Peter brings up the implied threat. Fury's clarification is: "What I said was: when you get of age... you'll be a part of my team. I said that you were in line to be part of the one of the finest organizations this world has ever seen. You'll work alongside Tony Stark. Doctor Bruce Banner. Captain America. You're going to be one of the greats, kid. One of the greats." (I suspect it might've been a retcon, but whatever.)

Then come the Ultimate Clone Saga's Issue#105, after the chaos is over, Fury (who'd been trying to arrest Peter for reasons that were never really fair in the first place), traces him to the Baxter Building. Mary Jane ends up talking him down by saying that Peter wanted to join the Ultimates.

So, yes, Peter didn't initially want to join, but he also misunderstood what Fury had in mind in the first place.

Yeah, the issue from Legacy was what I was thinking of when I said that, I didn't really remember the other parts. But from what you said, Peter didn't even want to join the Ultimates in 105, MJ just said that so Peter doesn't get arrested?

[SpiderClops]

Peter did want to join the Fantastic Four in Amazing Spider-Man #1(1963), and only refused after finding out that the FF don't get paid for what they do.

I say Avengers are good replacement in the case of Homecoming.

[blackspidey2099]

Peter did want to join the Fantastic Four in Amazing Spider-Man #1(1963), and only refused after finding out that the FF don't get paid for what they do.

I say Avengers are good replacement in the case of Homecoming.

Yeah, but Peter only wanted to join them so he could have a stable income he could use to support Aunt May, not because he was a F4 fanboy, as I covered in my post. And even if that was the case, it just makes Peter declining the invitation at the end of the movie even stupider than it already was, lol.

[WebLurker]

Yeah, the issue from Legacy was what I was thinking of when I said that, I didn't really remember the other parts. But from what you said, Peter didn't even want to join the Ultimates in 105, MJ just said that so Peter doesn't get arrested?

Based on my memories of later comics, he really did want join by that point. It might not've been his main life goal, but I think MJ was telling the truth in that scene.

[vhm74]

I love Holland as Peter Parker and the costume design is awesome. That said, there's a lot of stuff that felt wrong in Homecoming, previous movies were way more faithful to the character imo.

[AJBopp]

Fury's clarification is: "What I said was: when you get of age... you'll be a part of my team. I said that you were in line to be part of the one of the finest organizations this world has ever seen. You'll work alongside Tony Stark. Doctor Bruce Banner. Captain America. You're going to be one of the greats, kid. One of the greats." (I suspect it might've been a retcon, but whatever.)

I took that to mean Fury was playing him. He changed his message to suit his purposes, but he never seemed like he could be taken at his word. Yes, Peter could be part of the team, but part of being on that team means you're going to do stuff most teenagers are going to be uncomfortable with. Probably rightly so.

[AJBopp]

YAnd even if that was the case, it just makes Peter declining the invitation at the end of the movie even stupider than it already was, lol.

I think declining the offer would have made more sense if it was done in the context of a hidden self-confidence issue. After the rubble scene, nearly losing his entire class at the Washington Monument, his fight to a standstill with a guy who wasn't really a serious threat on the Avengers-level, I could forgive a 15-year-old having second thoughts about joining a group the goes off fighting an outer space army or killer robots. Preferring to stick with smaller-scale issues may have seemed like a pretty good fit for him at that point.

But it wasn't presented that way.

[WebLurker]

I took that to mean Fury was playing him. He changed his message to suit his purposes, but he never seemed like he could be taken at his word. Yes, Peter could be part of the team, but part of being on that team means you're going to do stuff most teenagers are going to be uncomfortable with. Probably rightly so.

That could be the case. Ultimate Nick Fury was a far more corrupt character than his movie counterpart was and did manipulate people. One of the weirdest discrepancies in the Ultimate comics is how Spidey seemed to trust Fury throughout the comics to the end, ignoring the Ultimate Power miniseries, where Spidey not only sees firsthand how bad Fury is, but is also the one who suggests he's held accountable for it. (In fact, Spidey's involvement in Ultimate Power is contradicted at every point in the main USM series. Which is a shame since it's very fun in the mindless blockbuster action story sense and has some of Spidey's funniest moments.)

[Dr. Jay]

--I have two minor complaints and one major regarding Homecoming

Minor-- Both Mary Jane and Gwen are college girlfriends of Peter's. I have no problem with neither being in the highschool based movie. I liked seeing Liz Allen and Betty Brant as the potential girls in Peter's life. I disliked that ending of Zendaya saying she's "MJ"--I didn't like the character at all. She was basically an antisocial ahole the entire movie and then for her to say "I'm MJ" at the end. irritating

The high school itself annoyed me particularly Flash Thompson. I'm just a traditionalist. I think there is something poignant about Peter being isolated due to his intelligence and physically bullied. Peter stopped being as special as he just one among many overachievers there. I never heard the term Disneyization of high school. But I like and it seemed to nail my complaint about the high school. Amazing's high school was more accurate (I would imagine) and fit in better with even the Ultimate mythos.

Major complaint--I really hated that Spider-man owes his superherodom really to Tony Stark. I mean I would have liked a couple of scenes of advice and consternment, but the fact that his suit is provided for him by Stark really reduces Peter IMO.


Both were very flawed in my opinion (with the second amazing being horrendous). Amazing suffers that I never really liked Garfield. I'm immediately more on board with Holland. But Homecoming didn't have Emma Stone and that really interesting romance. Least Keaton did a better job as the villain than anything in either Amazings.