What did you think of Parker Industries?

[Killerbee911]

A natural extension of what Spiderman/Peter Parker would be if he was allowed to grow past a certain stage. But books have their niches/tropes/standards/status quo that they have to stay in . Now Admittedly every hero as Iron Man style tech hero is boring so I guess it is cool to artificial hold them back to have differences but it is nice when once a while they appeal to logic you know should be happening Peter is smart and he can invent stuff yeah it makes sense that could make money off his intelligence.

That said at some point in time Spiderman/Peter Parker is going to be screwed by holding him back. One day you are going to wake up Miles Morales is going to be an core part of the Avengers and leader in it to boot, He is going to have tech company,He is going to have family, he is going have tech heavy suit. Fans are going to ask themselves why isn't that Peter yeah because Peter parker Spiderman can't progress forward in meaningfully way because they are scared he will lose his essence.

[Snoop Dogg]

Spider-Man being a globe-trotting superspy is fun for Spider-Man for a while but is bad for the universe because most characters can be slotted in to do that but most can't give you a consistent view of NYC like Spider-Man. So that was why Worldwide had to go. It also had the added novelty of modern Marvel not giving Shield/spy stuff much love so writers just do it through other books.

Now as for the secondary concept of the rich CEO, we have a metric assload of those. When people remember that Iron Fist is rich he and CEO Peter are practically the same doof. I'm sad science editor died because that could have been a fun way of getting him into situations while giving stories some sci-fi sprinkles, but back to school I guess.

[SuperiorIronman]

Both concept and execution are awful and there lowest point of Dan Slott's run.

Peter does not need to be Tony Stark.
It is no coincidence that Slott was asked to work on Iron man.

From what we know of the timeline it was due to Bendis.

Dan wanted to go over to Iron man but Bendis beat him to the punch, so Dan Slott had an extended stay over on Spider-man. Since he wanted to write Iron man his Spider-man run became his test bed for Iron man. So all that **** we gave him about Tony Stark-lite during that was absolutely what he was doing and we all knew it long before we heard about the writers retreat. Once Bendis announced he was leaving or maybe Dan got first-dibs, he of course got Iron man.

[Hybrid]

Interesting, I didn't know that. I find it funny that Iron Man was his dream project, though. I guess he wanted to explore more sci-fi elements, just like with Fantastic Four.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Slott tends to be drawn to a certain high concept flavor. This is evident in his work on Justice League Adventures and Batman Adventures (or Batman Gotham Knights as it is sometimes called). DC Comics runs on high concepts more consistently than Marvel does, which is why I always feel that Slott is better suited to DC than Marvel.

Iron Man and Fantastic Four lend themselves to high concepts naturally. Spider-Man to an extent does so as well but never completely in that direction.

[Frontier]

Slott tends to be drawn to a certain high concept flavor. This is evident in his work on Justice League Adventures and Batman Adventures (or Batman Gotham Knights as it is sometimes called). DC Comics runs on high concepts more consistently than Marvel does, which is why I always feel that Slott is better suited to DC than Marvel.

Iron Man and Fantastic Four lend themselves to high concepts naturally. Spider-Man to an extent does so as well but never completely in that direction.

I think a predilection for high concept storylines was ultimately one of the issues I felt Slot had on Spider-Man.

[Hybrid]

That's the thing about Spider-Man that might make him hard to write for others. He's comparatively realistic to other superheroes, where the sci-fi that's there is perceived through the eyes of the mundane. There's a large "like reality unless noted" effect, where Peter struggles with everyday life and goes through the motions that we do when he's not fighting bad guys. That means one has to exercise restraint in writing him and his setting, the kind of restraint that must be hard for someone wanting to lean more in the fantasy of the medium. Slott's preference for going into the high concept territory is a rather bad fit, and he seems better writing Iron Man and the Fantastic Four which fully embraces the sci-fi element.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That's the thing about Spider-Man that might make him hard to write for others. He's comparatively realistic to other superheroes, where the sci-fi that's there is perceived through the eyes of the mundane. There's a large "like reality unless noted" effect, where Peter struggles with everyday life and goes through the motions that we do when he's not fighting bad guys. That means one has to exercise restraint in writing him and his setting, the kind of restraint that must be hard for someone wanting to lean more in the fantasy of the medium. Slott's preference for going into the high concept territory is a rather bad fit, and he seems better writing Iron Man and the Fantastic Four which fully embraces the sci-fi element.

The key is to balance it somewhat.

JMS in his run introduced a high-concept (the Spider-Totem) but that was balanced with Peter becoming a high school teacher. So there it's like magical realism, i.e. the South American kind where the fantasy elements exist separate and apart from the reality and don't challenge or overwrite it.

Or go back to the Master Planner Saga, where it's a pretty high concept situation, Peter is chasing a radioactive isotope that happens to be in Doctor Octopus' possession in his underwater base but what drives Peter is his poor aunt hospitalized and dying and the fact that this is happening during Peter's first day in college, and the big payoff is Peter negotiating a small increase from Jonah.

In Slott, it's all high-concept all the time. If you look at Go Down Swinging, what struck me is how many people in Peter's supporting cast have become garish and unrecognizable and how all of them are basically no longer ciivlians. So you have Jonah who comes to the rescue in a Spider-Slayer robot, Liz Allan is now some Boss-Girl CEO, MJ uses Iron Man tech casually (which she didn't in Bendis' run) and her apartment has special defenses and so on (again not there in Bendis'), Flash is Agent Venom, and so on. Basically nobody's left who is normal in any sense in that story at the end of Slott's run.

[Inversed]

In Slott, it's all high-concept all the time. If you look at Go Down Swinging, what struck me is how many people in Peter's supporting cast have become garish and unrecognizable and how all of them are basically no longer ciivlians. So you have Jonah who comes to the rescue in a Spider-Slayer robot, Liz Allan is now some Boss-Girl CEO, MJ uses Iron Man tech casually (which she didn't in Bendis' run) and her apartment has special defenses and so on (again not there in Bendis'), Flash is Agent Venom, and so on. Basically nobody's left who is normal in any sense in that story at the end of Slott's run.

In contrast, when you've been telling a constant story for almost 60 years, over 800 issues (+ hundreds of satellite, spin-offs, alt universes, etc.), the characters are going to grow and change and eventually the writers are going to want to do their best to bring something different and not just repeat what others did. It just comes down to the writing and execution.

There comes a point where you're going to have to take characters to bigger and weirder directions, sometimes they'll revert, somethings they'll change again, but honestly being stuck in say "the civilian" role the entire time would just be boring in the long run (which is ironic considering MANY people have criticized Marvel doing this same thing to Spider-Man himself and not letting him grow or letting him grow too much)

[Frontier]

In contrast, when you've been telling a constant story for almost 60 years, over 800 issues (+ hundreds of satellite, spin-offs, alt universes, etc.), the characters are going to grow and change and eventually the writers are going to want to do their best to bring something different and not just repeat what others did. It just comes down to the writing and execution.

There comes a point where you're going to have to take characters to bigger and weirder directions, sometimes they'll revert, somethings they'll change again, but honestly being stuck in say "the civilian" role the entire time would just be boring in the long run (which is ironic considering MANY people have criticized Marvel doing this same thing to Spider-Man himself and not letting him grow or letting him grow too much)

I think the key is that the changes or ways you try to change the character need to feel genuine to who they are and their story.

Some of what Slott did with Spider-Man, in my opinion, did not effectively convey that. Spider-Verse is not really a Spider-Man story and Parker Industries wasn't really much of a Peter Parker story.

[PCN24454]

Peter Parker's place is with the Daily Bugle.

Yeah no...

That’s a horrible idea

It would be a step backwards for the character.

[Agent Z]

The key is to balance it somewhat.

JMS in his run introduced a high-concept (the Spider-Totem) but that was balanced with Peter becoming a high school teacher. So there it's like magical realism, i.e. the South American kind where the fantasy elements exist separate and apart from the reality and don't challenge or overwrite it.

Or go back to the Master Planner Saga, where it's a pretty high concept situation, Peter is chasing a radioactive isotope that happens to be in Doctor Octopus' possession in his underwater base but what drives Peter is his poor aunt hospitalized and dying and the fact that this is happening during Peter's first day in college, and the big payoff is Peter negotiating a small increase from Jonah.

In Slott, it's all high-concept all the time. If you look at Go Down Swinging, what struck me is how many people in Peter's supporting cast have become garish and unrecognizable and how all of them are basically no longer ciivlians. So you have Jonah who comes to the rescue in a Spider-Slayer robot, Liz Allan is now some Boss-Girl CEO, MJ uses Iron Man tech casually (which she didn't in Bendis' run) and her apartment has special defenses and so on (again not there in Bendis'), Flash is Agent Venom, and so on. Basically nobody's left who is normal in any sense in that story at the end of Slott's run.

Liz being a CEO doesn't mean she isn't a civilian. MJ and Jameson using technology to come to Peter's aid once in a while doesn't make them any less civilians either. It didn't make MJ less of a civilian when she beat up the Chameleon with a baseball bat.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think the key is that the changes or ways you try to change the character need to feel genuine to who they are and their story.

Some of what Slott did with Spider-Man, in my opinion, did not effectively convey that. Spider-Verse is not really a Spider-Man story and Parker Industries wasn't really much of a Peter Parker story.

The way that could have worked is if we got a sense that Parker Industries was something a) Peter wanted and/or enjoyed doing, b) believably good at.

That means that readers are happy to enjoy it while it lasts and will feel sufficiently invested to feel sad when it ends. When JMS made Peter a teacher, you got the sense that Peter enjoyed doing that. It wasn't exactly an ideal job but it was one he was happy to do and he was believably good at doing it. And it did feel sad when that ended, which you got in Back in Black when Peter briefly visits the school at night. To Slott's credit, Peter working at Horizon Labs was established and we did get a sense that he enjoyed being there and his boss Max Modell at least seemed to like Peter.

Neither was the case with the way Slott did Parker Industries. Peter treated that job as a burden, kept skiving away, and basically amounted to being in office and then telling employees to "science this into existence". Peter had an interest in science/technology yes but him being a businessman was never part of it. So again, we didn't get a real sense that this was something A) Peter wanted/enjoyed, B) He was good at. So there was no real sense of loss or tragedy when that ended.

I mean Nick Spencer's first issue is all about what a mistake it was for Peter to accept something he didn't earn and then deciding, "no that wasn't Parker Luck" it was entirely justified losing that and he's a much happier guy since than before.

[Vaegrin]

I mean Nick Spencer's first issue is all about what a mistake it was for Peter to accept something he didn't earn and then deciding, "no that wasn't Parker Luck" it was entirely justified losing that and he's a much happier guy since than before.

Peter's return to college is one of the lowkey interesting things going on right now. Wherever it leads, it seems like Spencer wants Peter to earn it. That's a good thing. Change can be fun when it feels like a natural, earned progression.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

Dan Slott really wanted to write Iron Man by this point.

This.

What is Marvel's weird obsession with turning Spider-Man into Iron Man?