Do you think oversaturation is catching up to Peter?

[emmafrosting]

Not Spider-Man, but Peter Parker. I've seen some people mention that storytelling wise, Peter is about to reach a narrative dead end since he has done almost everything and writers are still struggling to maintain the "freshness" unless they revamp him completely or actually go to a new route which is to finally have kids in 616.

What do you guys think is left for him to do and what kind of stories do you want see?

[Celgress]

Not yet, time will tell.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Not Spider-Man, but Peter Parker.

I think Peter Parker is always gonna be popular and in demand. For the same reasons that Donald Duck, Darth Vader, the Disney characters from the 90s renaissance and so on, are all in demand. He's a transcendent figure. His comics have been the most consistently maintained in Marvel, with only two rough patches (90s Clone Saga, OMD-BND).

What do you guys think is left for him to do and what kind of stories do you want see?

I don't know in terms of "kind of stories". To me doing the Peter Parker story in the classic 616 continuity from AF#15 to the JMS era and so on is the only kind of story I want. Anything else is just cheap novelties and fads that come and go, which become dated.

[Snoop Dogg]

he has not become a male stripper yet, which is why i will be the greatest asm writer of all time

[Zeitgeist]

I don't think they're at a dead end for the character at all, but there's a great resistance from a segment of fans to see anything wildly different done with him. See: Parker Industries.

[Mister Mets]

Things change enough in modern society that this problem can be avoided as new story opportunities are opened up.

[Zeitgeist]

Things change enough in modern society that this problem can be avoided as new story opportunities are opened up.

That and said changes in society provide an example to filter older stories through a new lens. ie, dating in the 60's versus dating in the 00's. What's old is new again.

[jblogo]

I don't think they're at a dead end for the character at all, but there's a great resistance from a segment of fans to see anything wildly different done with him. See: Parker Industries.

I wholeheartedly agree. THIS is the problem. There is a large contingent of fans that only see Peter as the down-on-his-luck everyman, and do not want him to change. Personally, I absolutely loved Parker Industries and "Billionaire Spidey". It opened up huge new story opportunities. It created a path to creating a Spider-Man family, similar to the Flash family or the Bat-Family. Peter was training Miles, was employing Miguel Ohara and Hobie Brown, and provided real competition to Tony Stark. We finally got to see how smart Peter was, and that he was more than just spider powers and a sad story. I have been reading Spider-Man since 1985, and that version of Peter Parker is my favorite.

Unfortunately, because Peter was different than he was in the past, there were a number of fans who rejected the new direction.

[emmafrosting]

I wholeheartedly agree. THIS is the problem. There is a large contingent of fans that only see Peter as the down-on-his-luck everyman, and do not want him to change. Personally, I absolutely loved Parker Industries and "Billionaire Spidey". It opened up huge new story opportunities. It created a path to creating a Spider-Man family, similar to the Flash family or the Bat-Family. Peter was training Miles, was employing Miguel Ohara and Hobie Brown, and provided real competition to Tony Stark. We finally got to see how smart Peter was, and that he was more than just spider powers and a sad story. I have been reading Spider-Man since 1985, and that version of Peter Parker is my favorite.

Unfortunately, because Peter was different than he was in the past, there were a number of fans who rejected the new direction.

I wholeheartedly agree. THIS is the problem. There is a large contingent of fans that only see Peter as the down-on-his-luck everyman, and do not want him to change. Personally, I absolutely loved Parker Industries and "Billionaire Spidey". It opened up huge new story opportunities. It created a path to creating a Spider-Man family, similar to the Flash family or the Bat-Family. Peter was training Miles, was employing Miguel Ohara and Hobie Brown, and provided real competition to Tony Stark. We finally got to see how smart Peter was, and that he was more than just spider powers and a sad story. I have been reading Spider-Man since 1985, and that version of Peter Parker is my favorite.

Unfortunately, because Peter was different than he was in the past, there were a number of fans who rejected the new direction.

I think the criticisms for Parker Industries were about how bad the conception/writing was and how unnecessary it seemed to be because it came across as a case of ego by proxy of a writer. That - and the fact that Parker Industries was first presented in OMD as a 'worst reality' for Spider-Man. A soulless commercial entity with a billionaire Peter.

I had no problem with PI alone, but it wasn't done well and could have been handled better. I still enjoyed BND and thought some parts were decent, but I definitely noticed how Peter's characterization did a major downslide post-Superior and once they introduced Parker Industries. So I'm not surprised people hated it.

[Vegeta]

he has not become a male stripper yet, which is why i will be the greatest asm writer of all time

Could have sworn that was used as the climax of the Spider-Man/ Deadpool "double date" issue.

[Huntsman Spider]

Could have sworn that was used as the climax of the Spider-Man/ Deadpool "double date" issue.

Yeah, but it was a onetime thing to appease their dates, not something I think either of them would make a regular thing . . . though it could be fun, I must admit.

That said, Spider-Man is a tentpole character/franchise for Marvel and thus they will never actually (read: permanently) kill him off or suspend the publication of his comics for any real extended period of time. As for a narrative dead end, only because certain people insist that Spider-Man is first and foremost about "youth" and therefore he can't stray too far from that, i.e. get married, hold down a fairly steady job, have kids . . . or else he'll be "unrelatable" to the audience. Really. It's that kind of B.S. mentality that's putting Spider-Man in a narrative dead end, the fear of him "aging" too much or straying too far from his roots, even though they've had no problem pushing most of the other major Marvel characters beyond their initial boundaries. It's a double standard that needs to be put to rest, quite frankly.

[Frontier]

I mean...Spencer's run seems to be going over pretty well, so I can't really look at Peter and see him as being at a creative "dead end," anymore then other characters who've had comics running for decades upon decades and are still getting published.

[Mister Mets]

Yeah, but it was a onetime thing to appease their dates, not something I think either of them would make a regular thing . . . though it could be fun, I must admit.

That said, Spider-Man is a tentpole character/franchise for Marvel and thus they will never actually (read: permanently) kill him off or suspend the publication of his comics for any real extended period of time. As for a narrative dead end, only because certain people insist that Spider-Man is first and foremost about "youth" and therefore he can't stray too far from that, i.e. get married, hold down a fairly steady job, have kids . . . or else he'll be "unrelatable" to the audience. Really. It's that kind of B.S. mentality that's putting Spider-Man in a narrative dead end, the fear of him "aging" too much or straying too far from his roots, even though they've had no problem pushing most of the other major Marvel characters beyond their initial boundaries. It's a double standard that needs to be put to rest, quite frankly.

But there's a narrative dead end in having him age/ going too far from his roots.

I am curious about what characters have gone radically beyond their initial boundaries. It's worth noting Spider-Man is outselling them.

[Lee]

That said, Spider-Man is a tentpole character/franchise for Marvel and thus they will never actually (read: permanently) kill him off or suspend the publication of his comics for any real extended period of time. As for a narrative dead end, only because certain people insist that Spider-Man is first and foremost about "youth" and therefore he can't stray too far from that, i.e. get married, hold down a fairly steady job, have kids . . . or else he'll be "unrelatable" to the audience. Really. It's that kind of B.S. mentality that's putting Spider-Man in a narrative dead end, the fear of him "aging" too much or straying too far from his roots, even though they've had no problem pushing most of the other major Marvel characters beyond their initial boundaries. It's a double standard that needs to be put to rest, quite frankly.

As you said, they'll never kill him off. So at some point, he has to stop aging. What age do you think he should stop aging?