Top 10 Problems With Spider Man Fans Will Never Admit

[Dr. Skeleton]

Totally agree with number one. Especially, accidental or not, people act like Peter striking MJ, especially while pregnant, was no big deal.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Actually, Spidey's rogues' gallery is considered second only to Batman's. That has no place here.

That's actually one of the parts of the video that made me squint. Because the video said, "Spider-Man's second-tier villains are bad". He said once you move past the big villains in Spider-Man's corner, you don't have many great ones. But that's also true for Batman. Like who takes Film Freak seriously. And again Batman's villains have been rebooted multiple times so that people no longer remember the silly early versions. Like if not for Neal Adams and Denny O'Neill, Joker would still be stuck in the Cesare Romero world.

A feature, not a bug

Yeah. I agree with that.

One thing I have huge problems with is people seeing the Parker Industries arc as progression. You see this in many places and also this video.

1) Earning material wealth is not the same as character development and growth. It's appalling that corporate values have tainted people this much.

2) Peter didn't start Parker Industries on his own. Ock started it in his body. And Ock starting a company under Peter's name doesn't prove that other people can live Peter's life better, it proves that Peter doesn't have a talent for identity theft, fraud, and being human garbage that Otto has. After all, as Erik Larsen pointed out, Otto never could start any business when he was in his own body. In either case, this was never anything Peter created or built on his own. Peter didn't develop the qualities that made him into an inventor/entrepreneur, for that we need to see Peter the plucky start-up creator and so on.

I never felt that Peter was being irresponsible because he wasn't rich. For one thing, relative to time-and-place, Peter wasn't far away from the average experiences of people his age. He was young mid-20s in the 70s and 80s in a time when New York was still affordable. Today he's a millennial who is struggling and not done as much as compared to the baby boomers, making him typical of millennials. And it's not true that everyone with a genius brain or inventive skills becomes rich and famous and we judge them on that. You have to be More-Randian-Than-Ditko to say that the likes of Nikola Tesla is a failure because he didn't make it rich, or Preston Tucker, or other figures and so on.

And even that idea that inventors become rich is based on a false idea. Elon Musk didn't invent anything. He's seen as this great inventor and so on...but the Tesla car was invented by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Slott was saying that Peter was like Elon Musk in his Parker Industries, an assertion based on zero research on his part (a simple wikipedia search was all he needed to find time for), because Musk never invented anything.

[Agent Z]

No. 9 seems like a non-argument. Just about every superhero rogues gallery, even Batman and the X-Men has villains that the fandom is embarrassed by.

[Snoop Dogg]

No. 9 seems like a non-argument. Just about every superhero rogues gallery, even Batman and the X-Men has villains that the fandom is embarrassed by.

Yeah, like every X-Men villain except Magneto

[Zeitgeist]

1. Failure to live by his rule

But that's where part of the drama comes from...

[Snoop Dogg]

TOP 10 PROBLEMS WITH SPIDER-MAN FANS WILL NEVER ADMIT

10. Artists don't draw web-wings
9. Editors don't force artists to draw web-wings
8. The local authorities don't arrest artists who don't draw web-wings
7. The FBI and CIA aren't investigating artists who don't draw web-wings
6. The public does not name and shame artists who don't draw web-wings
5. Congress does not pass laws banning the publication of Spider-Man without web-wings
4. The Pope has not made a statement endorsing web-wings
3. The U.N. has done nothing to secure the presence of web-wings
2. WWIII has not broken out over the lack of web-wings
1. God has not flooded the Earth for forgoing web-wings

[Starter Set]

For those who hate trudging through unnecessary videos and excessive narrative for a simple list

Thanks for that man, those videos are so boring.

[Agent Z]

TOP 10 PROBLEMS WITH SPIDER-MAN FANS WILL NEVER ADMIT

10. Artists don't draw web-wings
9. Editors don't force artists to draw web-wings
8. The local authorities don't arrest artists who don't draw web-wings
7. The FBI and CIA aren't investigating artists who don't draw web-wings
6. The public does not name and shame artists who don't draw web-wings
5. Congress does not pass laws banning the publication of Spider-Man without web-wings
4. The Pope has not made a statement endorsing web-wings
3. The U.N. has done nothing to secure the presence of web-wings
2. WWIII has not broken out over the lack of web-wings
1. God has not flooded the Earth for forgoing web-wings

Wait, I'm confused. Do you like web-wings?

[Snoop Dogg]

Wait, I'm confused. Do you like web-wings?

We'll be tackling this subject at the next bi-monthly meeting of the Ditko Death Cult. Bring your own coaster (to prove that you respect wood) and don't forget your personally-annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged.

[Nathan84]

I found this on You Tube it is about Problems with Spider-Man that That WatchMojo Thinks He Has. I wondering how you fix them in a way that benefits the Character and Marvel?

The Thousand was not that bad as a villain.

[exile001]

For those who hate trudging through unnecessary videos and excessive narrative for a simple list:

10. Constant major events
9. Silly villains
8. His place with the Avengers
7. Aunt May being immortal, essentially
6. His way with women
5. Constants attempts to make him a public enemy
4. Refusal to let him age
3. Irreparable damage of One More Day
2. His finances
1. Failure to live by his rule

Silly video, silly premise. They are wrong about everything. Even OMD. Its not irreparable!

Thanks for writing this out, I didn't find time to watch this over the weekend. I don't have the full context surrounding the entries, so I'll be general in my thoughts (and ignore those that need more context).

10. Constant major events - Company-wide events effect every Marvel character. Get used to it, this has been the case for almost 20 years. If they mean the yearly Spider-event, then say hello to Spider-Island, Superior Spider-man and Spider-Verse, some of the most beloved Spider-man stories in decades. I am also partial to Ends of the Earth, which I actually prefer to Spider-Island. This year was Hunted, and that turned out pretty well, too.

9. Silly villains - He is always in the conversation for best rogues gallery, so I don't get this. If they're talking 2nd or even 3rd tier, they are still a lot more interesting than most. Superior Foes of Spider-man anyone?

7. Aunt May being immortal, essentially - Aunt May is an important part of the Spider-man mythos. I do feel she gets too much focus these days, in the 80's-90's she appeared much more infrequently, but how would we benefit from getting rid of her altogether? ASM #400 was excellent, but if that stuck we wouldn't have had JSM's run with her discovering Peter's secret and adapting to it.

6. His way with women - he is FAR from perfect, but he managed to marry MJ and they had a stable, happy relationship/marriage for many years. A part of the problem with Peter and women is the US's strange relationship with sex and relationships. Carnage can rip a guys head off on panel, but Peter can't have a one night stand (or when he does, it is played for laughs). He can't start a relationship by sleeping with someone. He can't just date a series of people like a normal human, eg go on 2-3 dates, have some fun but it doesn't work out/there's no real chemistry, so they both move on. The writers, too, have issue with him. he is either mooning like a schoolboy, or is a dismissive, neglectful jerk because Spider-man must come first.

5. Constants attempts to make him a public enemy - I'll agree, this needs to go. It is an overused trope from the early days, and that's the only reason it's still about. It has been done to death. Also, Spider-man has provably saved New York on numerous occasions.

4. Refusal to let him age - I never get this argument, he is one of the only main-line heroes to have aged. When we first met him he was 15 (IIIRC), he is now early-mid 20's. Aging is different to growing up, however, which he slowly did (in fits and starts) over the decades but most of this growth was reverted by BND.

3. Irreparable damage of One More Day - I don't mean to be harsh, but get over it or read something else. It happened. 17 odd years ago. Nothing we fans do or say will change time and make it so this was never published. The "damage" is that part of the fan-base who just can't let it go and feel the need to constantly bring it up.

2. His finances - Another overused trope from the early days that rears it's ugly head every few years. Kill it with fire.

[kingaliencracker]

For those who hate trudging through unnecessary videos and excessive narrative for a simple list:

10. Constant major events
9. Silly villains
8. His place with the Avengers
7. Aunt May being immortal, essentially
6. His way with women
5. Constants attempts to make him a public enemy
4. Refusal to let him age
3. Irreparable damage of One More Day
2. His finances
1. Failure to live by his rule

Silly video, silly premise. They are wrong about everything. Even OMD. Its not irreparable!

10. As others have pointed out, this is a problem with the entire industry at the moment, not just Spider-Man.

9. Spider-Man has one of the best rogue's galleries in all of comics. Obviously there are some silly ones that have popped up over the years but no worse than any other superhero.

8. I actually agree with this - Spider-Man should not be an Avenger.

7. Aunt May provides Peter a constant or beacon in his life, especially with the marriage being dissolved.

6. Yeah, Peter's a bad boyfriend. So what? That's part of who the character is.

5. It makes sense that half the people love Spider-Man, while half of them don't. This is a reflection of how we are as a society - not anything specific to Spider-Man.

4. If I had my way Spider-Man would never have left high school, or at the very least be very, very early in his college days.

3. Sales and critical reception to Spider-Man comic books have been great (relative to the market anyway) since OMD. Almost all of us acknowledge OMD was awful but Spider-Man certainly hasn't been irreparably damaged because of it.

2. Again, I prefer a hard-luck, getting-through-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth Spider-Man.

1. As I've pointed out elsewhere, Peter becoming a crime-fighter because of Uncle Ben's death is only a facet of why he fights crime. It was well established in the Lee/Ditko stories that Peter actually enjoyed being Spider-Man.

[WebLurker]

That's actually one of the parts of the video that made me squint. Because the video said, "Spider-Man's second-tier villains are bad". He said once you move past the big villains in Spider-Man's corner, you don't have many great ones. But that's also true for Batman. Like who takes Film Freak seriously. And again Batman's villains have been rebooted multiple times so that people no longer remember the silly early versions. Like if not for Neal Adams and Denny O'Neill, Joker would still be stuck in the Cesare Romero world.

Yeah, I don't get that point, either; not counting common sense of the reputation of the rogues' gallery in general, as another poster pointed out, all superhero characters have their weak villains and it's kinda like complaining about too many events.

Yeah. I agree with that.

One thing I have huge problems with is people seeing the Parker Industries arc as progression. You see this in many places and also this video.

1) Earning material wealth is not the same as character development and growth. It's appalling that corporate values have tainted people this much.

2) Peter didn't start Parker Industries on his own. Ock started it in his body. And Ock starting a company under Peter's name doesn't prove that other people can live Peter's life better, it proves that Peter doesn't have a talent for identity theft, fraud, and being human garbage that Otto has. After all, as Erik Larsen pointed out, Otto never could start any business when he was in his own body. In either case, this was never anything Peter created or built on his own. Peter didn't develop the qualities that made him into an inventor/entrepreneur, for that we need to see Peter the plucky start-up creator and so on.

I never felt that Peter was being irresponsible because he wasn't rich. For one thing, relative to time-and-place, Peter wasn't far away from the average experiences of people his age. He was young mid-20s in the 70s and 80s in a time when New York was still affordable. Today he's a millennial who is struggling and not done as much as compared to the baby boomers, making him typical of millennials. And it's not true that everyone with a genius brain or inventive skills becomes rich and famous and we judge them on that. You have to be More-Randian-Than-Ditko to say that the likes of Nikola Tesla is a failure because he didn't make it rich, or Preston Tucker, or other figures and so on.

And even that idea that inventors become rich is based on a false idea. Elon Musk didn't invent anything. He's seen as this great inventor and so on...but the Tesla car was invented by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Slott was saying that Peter was like Elon Musk in his Parker Industries, an assertion based on zero research on his part (a simple wikipedia search was all he needed to find time for), because Musk never invented anything.

I personally don't like the idea of Parker Industries being the progression for the character, since I personally think that it's not a logical outcome or works with the theme of the character, but if other people disagree, all the power to them.