Quote Originally Posted by Alan2099 View Post
You don't speak for me.

Respect is something Spider-man has wanted since BEFORE he became Spider-man. Peter is STARVED for respect. Why do you think the first thing he did when he got powers was to go into show-biz? He wanted respect. Spider-man is the Rodney Dangerfield of superheroes. he gets no respect.

When new Avengers started and Spidey joined the team, he started to get some respect ESPECIALLY from Tony, one of the smartest guys on the planet. Tony looked at Spider-man and what he's done and went "wow. You're actually a pretty smart guy. Want to help me out with some stuff?" And for somebody like Peter, that's very high praise indeed.

Then he was asked "hey, want to be Spider-man completely legally and with the government backing you? Plus I'll give you some really neat gadgets and a awesome place to live," hell you might as well have just asked him if he wanted to be the king of the world.

Now on a more fan-level, yeah I would agree that it does undermine Spider-man's loner status but honestly, EVERYBODY seems to hang out with each other all the time these days. It's more a problem with the industry right now that just Spider-man. Characters can't got more than a few issues without having gueststars and team-ups. It makes them less special.

Yeah you DID read the top part of the post right where I said most in my observation? As in I started my post with that so when I end it with from Spider-Fan’s POVs I obviously still mean ‘most in my observation’, not everyone.


Yeah I can see Spider-Man wanting respect. Here is the thing. What kind of stuff have you been reading to think Spider-Man would value respect for himself over his moral values?


And at the end of the day even if Peter wanted respect he could happily live without it. He isn’t STARVED for it and DESPERATE for it.


Or have we forgotten the teeny, tiny fact that he had more than enough respect as Prodigy and Hornet during the Identity Crisis storyline of the 1990s. Even in losing those costumes, there was no reason Peter couldn’t simply adopt a new identity akin to Prodigy (or just recreate the costume it wasn’t that hard).



But no...he CHOOSES to be Spider-Man, because it’s just who he is. He CHOOSES to adopt the identity he gets disrespected in because ultimately he kind of just likes being Spider-Man and because it’s a part of who he is at this point.


Your argument is premeditated upon the idea that Spider-Man would value respect from the public over his own sense of identity or his moral values. Or that he’s a respect whore and anyone who gives him enough of it can earn his undying loyalty.


He absolutely, provably would not.


It’s also rather questionable to bring up AF #15 considering you know...the moral of the story was that he learned that he was WRONG and changed in response to that.


Let’s talk Tony. Tony especially gave Peter respect sure....but not as much as Steve. History time kids....Iron Man was a dickhead to Spidey when he was initially offered Avengers membership. In fact ALL the Avengers were...except Captain America. Iron Man has even been a dick to Spider-Man since then. Cap, though he’s had his moments, generally speaking was a lot more even handed and respectful towards Spider-Man and gave him plenty of respect when he made him a reserve member even though he said (at that time) he wasn’t cut out for the main team. He was also the guy who recruited Peter in the first place.



So Steve has actually given Peter a lot of respect over the course of over a decade. And that respect is coming from the guy who not only everyobody in general respects (and respects way more than Iron Man, sorry but it’s true) but also someone idolized by Peter as a child. Someone who inspired Peter as a hero and whom Uncle Ben and Aunt May held enormous respect for themselves.



So in terms of who’s respect counts for more in Spider-Man’s eyes Cap>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Iron Man.



Let’s also look at what actually happened during Road to Civil War and Civil War in the Spider-Man titles. In ASM #530, Peter outright argues in Washington AGAINST registration. In ASM #532, he is incredibly uncertain about unmasking, considers going on the run and even almost does it if not for a timely intervention by Aunt May. He even states he isn’t sure that Tony wouldn’t out him if he didn’t unmask publically and side with him. He later begins to change his mind in ASM #534 after a battle with Captain America. Then of course in ASM #535 we get the infamous Guantanamo Bay allegory in the form of the Negative Zone Prison that finally sways Spider-Man against Iron Man. A reminder, that prison specified that heroes were detained there forever unless they agreed to register.



So Spider-Man broke away from Iron Man when he saw heroes like him who’d had their liberties taken away because they refused to comply with the same law he had complied with and would be continued to be denied those liberties until they did decide to comply with them. THAT is what led Spider-Man to leave Stark.



Now call me goddam crazy but it really doesn’t strike me looking at aaaaaaaaaaaall that that Spider-man is such a respect whore for Tony that he’d comply with what Tony wanted of him, go against Captain America, go against maintaining his anonymity which he’d been doing since his origin and go against the moral values he clearly held regarding civil liberties.



He didn’t fully trust Tony. He was going to go against him if not for convincing from MJ and May. He changed his mind in a way that didn’t really make sense if he actually believed in the moral argument of Tony’s side and prior to the Stamford incident he actively spoke out against it.



And this is even during the mischaracterization I was talking about because I think an in character Spider-Man would indeed have registered (because he’d have endangered May and MJ otherwise), but refused to go public (because he’d have again endangered May and MJ along with everyone else) and in his heart have believed in Cap’s side. In fact that would’ve been way more compelling that what we got. Spider-Man finally getting the public recognition and respect he’d been denied due to Jameson but it comes at the price of him begrudgingly selling out on what he believes in and fighting his friends and idol for the sake of his biggest responsibility, his family. From there you could even have had SPIder-Man acting as a SPY for Cap’s side as a way to live with himself and it’d touch upon his parents’ professions as CIA agents. Had he begrudgingly remained with the government things REALLY would’ve gotten interesting once Norman rose to power. See? Something new and interesting utilizing the set up from Civil War that all stems from Spider-Man acting IN character.




You also are frankly painting Spider-Man as egregiously more shallow and pathetic than he is. A few shiny gadgets and a sweet apartment is never going to sway him, he’s not that weak of a person, hence he’s never taken a bribe before. Moreover being Spider-Man legally is all well and good but the price was what wasn’t going to sell it on Peter. Being Spider-Man legally with gadgets and a cool place to live was never ever, ever going to convince him to agree with going against Cap, supporting hunting down other heroes, supporting putting heroes under government control and Jesus Christ was it never ever going to convince him to reveal his secret identity.



I’m sorry Alan but Spider-Man is simply not the shallow easily swayed (frankly kind of pathetic and childish) character you are painting him as in your above quote.



Spider-Man’s loner status wasn’t the issue. His characterization was.



Hell Spider-Man the loner being undermined had NOTHING to do with Civil War, that had been fucked up by New Avengers (and MTU from back in the day).



Whilst it is true everybody seems to hang out together these days...why is that a good thing? Why should we just accept that?



Why do comic book fans on this board have this weird....complacency wherein “Well this is what it is so that’s just it is all.”


Everybody being in everybody else’s book is a bad thing creatively speaking a lot of the time, especially in a series like Spider-Man where a) He’s supposed to be street level so having Thor show up is rather distracting b) he has the best supporting cast and villains in the MU. We literally do not need all these spare heroes showing up and forcing Spidey to share the spotlight. If you wanna do that okay make a MTU book specifically for that but leave ASm as the place where you get Spider-Man and just Spider-Man 99% of the time. c) If everyone is in everyone else’s book it makes guest stars meaningless. Like remember when Daredevil showing up in Spider-Man was something noteworthy like “Oh cool we don’t see that everyday I’ll check that out”. But now it’s like “random cameo from DD and Wolverine and the Torch because why not, gotta remind you to buy their books now.” Which yeah Stan did in Annual #1 but that wasn’t a regular occurrence.