How important is Spidey's corner is to the MU's worldbuilding overall?

[Snoop Dogg]

Spider-Man should not be one of the smartest, strongest, skilled, greatest, or most important characters in the universe because many characters can be that, but no character can offer the everyman/little guy perspective as efficiently as Spider-Man. We've seen stories about what he could be, but he can't go there for any prolonged period of time. That's the curse of being the most popular character and not Woodgod, who could be rebooted as a cosmic god tomorrow without issue.

[Agent Z]

The Marvel Shared Universe has its charms when you have a character like Doom. Doctor Doom is the most versatile character there is. Doom can work against any hero, any genre, any setting. He can get in anyone and everyone's face from no-powered nuts like the Punisher all the way to the Mighty Thor. From Luke Cage to Doctor Strange. Doom works brilliantly in Spider-Man's corner the few times he has crossed over.

But most Marvel characters don't have that versatility, among both heroes and villains.

--Iron Man for instance would not be interesting if you put him against street criminals and gangsters. Dude with the arsenal and ordinance of an entire aircraft carrier versus street punks, not so interesting. Iron Man also doesn't work well when you have him deal with X-Men related stuff since aside from throwing money, there's not much Iron Man can do, aside from getting wasted by Magneto with a single sway of his hand.
--Captain America works well in street settings, political settings, and cosmic settings. But put him in an X-Men story where you have the loyalty to nothing but the dream confront the fact that he doesn't seem to do much for mutants. I am not sure if that's an issue with him or the X-Men since the X-Men's entire issue of mutant persecution and being on the margins rests awkwardly within the Marvel Universe for reasons many people have pointed out.

Spider-Man's a fairly versatile character in a lot of respects I'll say. Spider-Man's run has worked well when squared off with the street criminals, with super-criminals, and even cosmic and supernatural stuff. Spider-Man becoming Captain Universe is a classic story, as is JMS' Spider-Totem saga.



If you look at Spider-Man's publication history. His major shared universe events and stories is stuff like "Nothing can stop the Juggernaut!", "Spider-Man Versus Firelord", the "Captain Universe Saga", "Doomed Affairs", "The Death of Jean deWolff", Slott's 'Spider-Man/Human Torch". I'd also add that wonderful and charming two-parter with Loki that Fiona Avery co-worked with JMS, where Spider-Man and Loki prove to have better chemistry than Spider-Man and Thor ever did. From Ultimate Spider-Man, you have the romance with Ultimate Kitty Pryde.

But aside from that, there's not much. The majority of Spider-Man's stuff works best with him as a solo hero.

The Spider Totem saga is considered a classic story?

[Agent Z]

SuperiorIronman is right: there's been a few times where that's happened in DC: teams like the Justice League don't handle foes like the Fearsome Five or Dr. Light (not usually).

But I do agree with the point that the whole "superhero caste system" is kinda bogus. The Avengers, in most things besides the movies, still take on street crime, not just aliens and gods and monsters. Heck, in Avengers: EMH, the Avengers would often stop a random supervillain robbing a bank - whether it was Mandrill, the Wrecking Crew, Whirlwind, or whoever. I don't know why the movies cemented this idea that the street crime is "too small" for the big time heroes.

It isn't so much that street crime is unimportant, it's that the fire power the Avengers are packing would make them tackling street crime a cannon against flies situation. We saw this in Civil War where them going after Crossbones did more harm than help.

[WebSlingWonder]

It isn't so much that street crime is unimportant, it's that the fire power the Avengers are packing would make them tackling street crime a cannon against flies situation. We saw this in Civil War where them going after Crossbones did more harm than help.

Personally, I think that being superheroes means you fight the big stuff and the small stuff. You can fight Galactus, the Skrulls, the Builders, Kang and Loki, but you can also stop a mugging or a bank robbery. It should encompass all of it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The Spider Totem saga is considered a classic story?

By Zdarsky, Ginocchio, Gvozden, Allen Scherstahl and others. Coming Home is genuinely considered a classic and that has Peter going to high school as a teacher, meeting Ezekiel and fighting Morlun.

[Mister Mets]

It's important although that's mainly because the series is so prolific, there's stuff that affects the rest of the Marvel U.

There are various spider-based heroes to join teams.
The Daily Bugle is a major news source. Its employees pop up in other titles.
Symbiotes are cosmic entities that sometimes affect other characters.
The totems are sometimes relevant in titles about characters with animal-based powers (IE- Black Panther.)

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I remember that story and it kinda proves my point. Doom used a fraction of his powers and still beat Spider-Man into a Pulp.

There's no shame in losing to Dr. Doom. And Doom hardly ever loses his cool and goes postal like that. That was the most vicious Doom was until Waid's Unthinkable.

Yeah, Doomed Affairs was a great story, but had Captain America in it.

And Spider-Man saves Captain America's life and also, as-far-as-he-knew, his identity (not sure if Steve went public then).

Personally, I think that being superheroes means you fight the big stuff and the small stuff. You can fight Galactus, the Skrulls, the Builders, Kang and Loki, but you can also stop a mugging or a bank robbery. It should encompass all of it.

Superman for instance would never say quote-unquote is below his paygrade. Superman tackles street crime and cosmic stuff.

The fact is when you have characters who are so powerful, you need people who are less so to magnify that, and conjure that sense of distance and special nature. JMS talked about this when he worked on Thor, and his decision to bring Asgard to Broxton, Oklahoma. If you put Thor in a group of Avengers, next to the Hulk, or other heavy hitters, he's not gonna feel like a godlike figure. Put Thor next to regular people and suddenly you get the sense of "The norse pantheon walks among us". Jason Aaron tapped that in his run, especially that scene where Thor talks to that prisoner on death row. And of course Thor in his run does tackle corporate villainy that would otherwise be seen as out of his wheelhouse.

I was reading JMS' run and one thing that came out is that JMS always gives a sense of personality to every walk-on extra or character, never making anyone feel like a bystander. No other writer has managed that as well as he did.

One of the major problems in the MCU is that it's a very insular universe, where you don't have a lot of room for civilian supporting characters and players. Like in IW and Endgame, when the snap happened we hardly ever saw the common people and how they were affected. We saw a bit of that in Far From Home but it was played for laughs. And that's basically aristocratic...the snap is tragic, somber and melodramatic when it happens to people with powers but civilians getting snapped...jokes around. That's how Far From Home treated it. That cultivates this sense that average people and its problems are meant to be laughed at and not taken seriously.

[Frontier]

But I do agree with the point that the whole "superhero caste system" is kinda bogus. The Avengers, in most things besides the movies, still take on street crime, not just aliens and gods and monsters. Heck, in Avengers: EMH, the Avengers would often stop a random supervillain robbing a bank - whether it was Mandrill, the Wrecking Crew, Whirlwind, or whoever. I don't know why the movies cemented this idea that the street crime is "too small" for the big time heroes.

Although part of the reason for that on the show was that they were hunting down all the villains who escaped from prison in the premier, but The Avengers were definitely much more in-tune with the smaller scale stuff on that show since they had Avengers Mansion and everything.

Spider-Man should not be one of the smartest, strongest, skilled, greatest, or most important characters in the universe because many characters can be that, but no character can offer the everyman/little guy perspective as efficiently as Spider-Man. We've seen stories about what he could be, but he can't go there for any prolonged period of time. That's the curse of being the most popular character and not Woodgod, who could be rebooted as a cosmic god tomorrow without issue.

I thought the point was that Spider-Man was all those things in his own universe and people in-universe take that for granted?

[Beaddle]

It is not as important as MCU has made it out to be. MCU made Spiderman too dependent on the MCU. Spiderman is not that way in the comics, he has many run in with other heroes but he does not need to be that interwoven with other heroes in his stories.

[Snoop Dogg]

I thought the point was that Spider-Man was all those things in his own universe and people in-universe take that for granted?

[Agent Z]

There's no shame in losing to Dr. Doom. And Doom hardly ever loses his cool and goes postal like that. That was the most vicious Doom was until Waid's Unthinkable.



And Spider-Man saves Captain America's life and also, as-far-as-he-knew, his identity (not sure if Steve went public then).



Superman for instance would never say quote-unquote is below his paygrade. Superman tackles street crime and cosmic stuff.

The fact is when you have characters who are so powerful, you need people who are less so to magnify that, and conjure that sense of distance and special nature. JMS talked about this when he worked on Thor, and his decision to bring Asgard to Broxton, Oklahoma. If you put Thor in a group of Avengers, next to the Hulk, or other heavy hitters, he's not gonna feel like a godlike figure. Put Thor next to regular people and suddenly you get the sense of "The norse pantheon walks among us". Jason Aaron tapped that in his run, especially that scene where Thor talks to that prisoner on death row. And of course Thor in his run does tackle corporate villainy that would otherwise be seen as out of his wheelhouse.

I was reading JMS' run and one thing that came out is that JMS always gives a sense of personality to every walk-on extra or character, never making anyone feel like a bystander. No other writer has managed that as well as he did.

One of the major problems in the MCU is that it's a very insular universe, where you don't have a lot of room for civilian supporting characters and players. Like in IW and Endgame, when the snap happened we hardly ever saw the common people and how they were affected. We saw a bit of that in Far From Home but it was played for laughs. And that's basically aristocratic...the snap is tragic, somber and melodramatic when it happens to people with powers but civilians getting snapped...jokes around. That's how Far From Home treated it. That cultivates this sense that average people and its problems are meant to be laughed at and not taken seriously.

It's about specializing your heroes and using appropriate threats.

You wouldn't call the National Guard to deal with a shoplifter so there's no reason to call in the Avengers to deal with street crime that other heroes equipped for that can handle. You yourself said Iron Man isn't interesting in that context anyway so why is him saying it's below his pay grade a problem?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's about specializing your heroes and using appropriate threats;.

On a Doylist level. But that's something that should never be made into a Watsonian thing. It makes the characters look and act like narcissists.

Imagine if Batman says that the reason he doesn't invest money in mental health care in Gotham is that he doesn't think insane people can be cured. On a Watsonian level, in a Batman comic, no one with mental illness will be cured since that's built into the stories that Batman fights nutcases. But on a Doylist level...it makes the character look like an open and overt uncaring ******* when in fact Batman works best as a closet and covert uncaring *******.

You wouldn't call the National Guard to deal with a shoplifter so there's no reason to call in the Avengers to deal with street crime that other heroes equipped for that can handle.

Superheroes are supposed to do all of the jobs. Since they're around at the nick of time just when stuff's going down.

You yourself said Iron Man isn't interesting in that context anyway so why is him saying it's below his pay grade a problem?

It makes Tony look like a tool that's why. It makes him look condescending and smug and arrogant. It makes him unworthy and undeserving to be Spider-Man's mentor.

[Snoop Dogg]

deyeeted post

[Vakanai]

While most people were understandably upset that Sony pulled the plug on Spider-Man in the MCU for no good reason

That's not true, Sony had a very good reason - Disney wanted to take some of their profits.

[Agent Z]

On a Doylist level. But that's something that should never be made into a Watsonian thing. It makes the characters look and act like narcissists.

Imagine if Batman says that the reason he doesn't invest money in mental health care in Gotham is that he doesn't think insane people can be cured. On a Watsonian level, in a Batman comic, no one with mental illness will be cured since that's built into the stories that Batman fights nutcases. But on a Doylist level...it makes the character look like an open and overt uncaring ******* when in fact Batman works best as a closet and covert uncaring *******.

This is a false equivalency. In Tony’s scenario it isn’t that he doesn’t think street crime can be fought, it’s that he doesn’t want to bring cannons to kill flies. Look at what happened in Lagos when the Avengers decided to do a job that could easily have been handled by a regular SWAT team. In Bruce’s case he’s saying no one can be helped while in Tony’s 0case he just simply believes the person that should be helping is someone else.

Superheroes are supposed to do all of the jobs.

Black Panther protects Wakanda but doesn’t fight street crime. Dr Strange is a magic based hero. Thor deals with myth etc. These characters are not lessened by not playing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.