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  1. #1
    Mighty Member Hybrid's Avatar
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    Default Spider-Man: Major in real life, Minor in-universe?

    I covered this in the Missed Opportunities thread in the General Marvel forum, and it really got me thinking, how true is this, and what do you think of it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hybrid View Post
    This is a core difference between Spider-Man and Batman. The real world popularity of Spider-Man never influences the narrative of where Spidey stands in the world. He’s just another hero, not an icon of his own. Doctor Doom’s main beef is with the FF, and following that is his plot for world conquest that puts him at odds with other big teams and heroes. Whenever he meets Spider-Man, he views him as some D-lister not worth his time. In most events that aren’t Spider-based that he appears in, he’s a minor character. I think the most important was Civil War, where he was a supporting character but far from a main one.

    Batman on the other hand has become “that guy” of DC, because his popularity means that he’ll be the center of the DC Universe. He’s often a driving force, even for stories that should be way above his weight class. Batman is DC to lot of people in real life, and in-universe as well.

    It’s a mixed bag in my opinion. I would like to see Spider-Man be more important especially since elements of his lore have been important before. I think the Parker Industries arc, if handled by a better writer could have been a much longer lasting shift and well earned, but it wasn’t handled well and thus was reverted fast. It would be cool to see a big event or Spiderman saves the world. But we’re unlikely to see that Because Spider-Man is defined as a “street level” hero even if that tag is a bit of a spotty title.
    This came after I said a missed opportunity was in Dark Reign, where Norman Osborn's rise from being Spider-Man's villain to the big bad of the General MU did not have a reverse effect on Peter in a similar way. Osborn grew out of the corner and menaced everyone, while Spider-Man remained in that corner the whole time. The end of Dark Reign was the traditional "Avengers suit up and defeat the bad guy" story of many events, whereas Spider-Man was there but was just another character despite Osborn being his eternal nemesis. We did get a bit of fanservice with Spidey shutting Osborn up with a punch to the face, but that was after he had already lost. Spidey could've elevated in a reverse level similar to Osborn, where he became a big good like figure to counter him. That... didn't happen.

    I even said that the Parker Industries arc could've had potential if it was handled better than how Slott did it, because that was a chance for Spidey to really branch out and become something new. But it was done badly, and illusion of change set in.

    So that brings me to the main point. Spider-Man in-universe may occupy his own corner that's massive to us, but not to the others. He's just another hero, rather than some big A-lister. It's interesting because, as mentioned in the quote, it directly contrasts how DC let the real world popularity of Batman influence his standing in the universe to the point where he's "that guy" of DC. Spider-Man just isn't quite "that guy" of Marvel even with a comparable popularity to Bats. I don't think there's ever been a big crossover event where Spider-Man was absolutely essential to saving the world and was a major character.

    On one hand, I do like it because it allows the universe to feel complete without anyone being "that guy" like Batman, and the different areas of Marvel feel distinct as they should be. Plus, I like Spidey as a humble, small steps hero who might be the strongest street leveler there is. On the other, I would like Peter to finally catch a break and be something greater because the "Parker Luck" of constantly seeing him down can make you feel bad. Hence, it's a mixed bag.

    What are your overall thoughts? Do you think this is better, or should Spider-Man's status elevate? Is it a mixed bag to anyone else? Discuss.

  2. #2
    Astonishing Member Inversed's Avatar
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    I'm a little mixed on the subject. For one, I do like that Spider-Man hasn't been too elevated through his success and they've kept him relatively down to earth. He's supposed to be the most "relatable" of the main MU heroes, and his strengths work the best when he's taking on the smaller more intimate problems (being the friendly neighbourhood spider-man etc etc).

    It's also good because then he doesn't face the over exposure issue that Batman has. Having him at the centre of every single conflict just starts to feel dragged out and forced after too long.

    On the other hand, I do think Spider-Man is someone who does deserve more credit and attention, for how long he's been around (in universe) and through everyone he's helped with. I mean when you consider team ups and cross overs, he's probably interacted with more heroes and villains than anybody. Though among his peers he's still just considered as just "the other guy", mostly just to emphasis that underdog status he's supposed to have, even though by now everyone should already know what he's all about.

    It's one of the reasons I loved Spider-Island (and also Ends Of The Earth), because they are some of the very very few "Spidey Saves The World" stories, and those help to demonstrate his power, convictions, and ideals among his contemporaries and the public. And I really wanna see another story like that in the future, showing his power on a large scale and getting others to see or recognize him in a different light. (It looks like Venom's probably gonna get this chance for himself whenever Knull ends up showing up)

  3. #3
    Mighty Member Hybrid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inversed View Post
    I'm a little mixed on the subject. For one, I do like that Spider-Man hasn't been too elevated through his success and they've kept him relatively down to earth. He's supposed to be the most "relatable" of the main MU heroes, and his strengths work the best when he's taking on the smaller more intimate problems (being the friendly neighbourhood spider-man etc etc).

    It's also good because then he doesn't face the over exposure issue that Batman has. Having him at the centre of every single conflict just starts to feel dragged out and forced after too long.

    On the other hand, I do think Spider-Man is someone who does deserve more credit and attention, for how long he's been around (in universe) and through everyone he's helped with. I mean when you consider team ups and cross overs, he's probably interacted with more heroes and villains than anybody. Though among his peers he's still just considered as just "the other guy", mostly just to emphasis that underdog status he's supposed to have, even though by now everyone should already know what he's all about.

    It's one of the reasons I loved Spider-Island (and also Ends Of The Earth), because they are some of the very very few "Spidey Saves The World" stories, and those help to demonstrate his power, convictions, and ideals among his contemporaries and the public. And I really wanna see another story like that in the future, showing his power on a large scale and getting others to see or recognize him in a different light. (It looks like Venom's probably gonna get this chance for himself whenever Knull ends up showing up)
    Yeah, those stories were good, but they were explicitly marked as being Spider-Man stories rather than wide crossovers. I feel like any given crossover that's on a large scale with many tie-ins will have Spidey as just another character rather than a main one. It's when he's in his own books does he get to shine.

    Come to think of it, logically shouldn't he be a bigger deal than he is? He's actually one of the longest running superheroes in-universe. It was the Fantastic Four who effectively started the modern Marvel Universe, and Spider-Man was one of the very first superheroes to emerge after the FF, and I think the only other ones to predate him after the FF are Ant-Man and the Hulk. Other than that, you had Jim Hammond, Cap, and Namor from WWII. But really, Spider-Man must've been like one of the early superheroes before it really caught on from an in-universe perspective. He predates the Avengers, the X-Men, and almost all the other heroes. Sliding timeline makes it hard to keep track, especially since only around 15 years have passed in-universe since the FF debuted, but still.

    Plus, given that Spidey has been close to the Fantastic Four, right up to being a member of the Future Foundation, and has been a member of the Avengers both reserve and full-time, those close connections should also have rubbed off on him in the community. I feel like logically, he should be more than just "another superhero" if there was to be a hierarchy and credit. They actually go back and forth, because in Civil War you had him unmasking himself to the world, and it was a massive event that made him bigger than Elvis according to Tony Stark (before OMD happened of course) -- so clearly he had some cred because any random hero unmasking themselves wouldn't have been such a big deal.

    I'm not saying that him being a humble hero is bad in this case, I was just wondering if it made sense in-universe when looking at it as a whole.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hybrid View Post
    I covered this in the Missed Opportunities thread in the General Marvel forum, and it really got me thinking, how true is this, and what do you think of it?
    Mostly, I don't care, nor do I think most will because very few people read Spider-Man's team-up appearances in The Avengers or what have you so it's not something that is going to affect Spider-Man's standing in his main titles and stories. It would bother me more if The Avengers outsold ASM by a wide margin and the Spider-Man of the Avengers becomes the default version/take on the character. That has happened to a lot of characters sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse but not Spider-Man.

    At the end of the day, Spider-Man is a lot more Major than the following : Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Ms. Marvel, The Punisher and a good deal more. He also has held his own title, continuously without cancellation when the same cannot be said of Doctor Strange, Hulk, The Mighty Thor, the Fantastic Four among others. He's a big time superhero for sure.

    The bigger problem is that people need to get over this concept of the shared universe as some status symbol. It wasn't that way for the longest time. At heart, Avengers is a trashy team of rejects who can't sell their own stories because they are, with few exceptions, not especially interesting characters. That's how the Avengers began as, it's what they still are in their titles, and the MCU hasn't drastically increased sales of Avengers comics, and with HoX/PoX succeeding after the X-Men aren't fenced in anymore, the Avengers will go back from whenst it came, happily. The truth is that a good writer and concept can make the smallest stories radiate with the biggest importance.

    Spider-Man is about the importance of ordinary life and regular people. Thanks to Spider-Man, characters like J. Jonah Jameson and Mary Jane Watson are as famous, and in some cases, more famous than a lot of big name superheroes. That's pretty cool.

    This came after I said a missed opportunity was in Dark Reign, where Norman Osborn's rise from being Spider-Man's villain to the big bad of the General MU did not have a reverse effect on Peter in a similar way.
    Yeah, in the case of Dark Reign that should have been Spider-Man who had the major play in the finale, but Bendis wanted the ending to close the curtain on the Civil War era (albeit it didn't do that since it was Hickman who finally did that in his far-better-in-every-possible-way run) so the ending had to be a Cap/Tony/Thor show, albeit Avengers almost always seems to devolve into that.

    About the only real exception is back in the JMS run, with Spider-Man's first showing with the Avengers he just signs on with. This is a story told in ASM rather than the main New Avengers book at the time. Peter leads in an assault on a Hydra base and plays a major part in shutting it down. That's I think the best portrayal of Spider-Man in the Avengers, what Spider-Man can bring to the Avengers and what the Avengers could do with him. Unfortunately Bendis's New Avengers run, mostly because he doesn't have a lot of feel for 616 Spider-Man as a character (he certainly prefers Ultimate Peter to 616), didn't give him many moments there.

    I mean that's my problem with Marvel in general, it's far less democratic than DC where in the Justice League or whoever you will have a story where someone on the smaller part of the team gets to save the day, and not every story is the Superman and Batman or Wonder Woman show. But in the Avengers, it's almost always a story about the Big Three, or a story about love affairs between the middle tier group that drives the action.

    Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers kind of did break that where the focus was on the Illuminati so it's a Reed Richards, T'Challa, and Namor story mainly, minor figures like Starbrand and Sunspot get to have a big say, as does Beast, and at the end of it Cap and Tony were a sideshow and afterthought in Secret Wars 2015. That felt like righting the balance after a long while.

    What are your overall thoughts? Do you think this is better, or should Spider-Man's status elevate? Is it a mixed bag to anyone else? Discuss.
    I don't think Spider-Man should go to Batgod level ridiculousness, where Batman has become so overexposed that there's really nothing more to do or say with that character, and in the case of DC, Batman has hampered them properly developing other characters. I mean Batman is the biggest title in the comics market but Marvel is the bigger publisher than DC, which seems to be because Marvel has had more success in developing titles beyond the flagship than DC has. I mean on a Doylist level, Marvel is more democratic as a publisher, but on a Watsonian level, i.e. In-Universe, DC is more democratic. It would be nice to have it all, right?

    At the same time, maybe a writer can come in and have Spider-Man do a big scale story. Roger Stern in his run on Spider-Man felt he had been nerfed too much and restored his super-strength and pit him against Juggernaut, The Mad Thinker, Mr. Hyde and others. JMS in his run on Spider-Man had Peter defeat Morlun, a character as strong as Thor, and had him defeat Tony Stark in battle and make Captain America bleed in his tie-in issues to Civil War, likewise, he had Peter established as Alpha over Kingpin, ending Fisk for good as a physical threat in 616.

  5. #5
    Astonishing Member David Walton's Avatar
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    Spider-Man should be a mostly 'grounded' character. If he saves the universe, few should be aware, including him (like the Secret Wars II tie-in where Mephisto and the Beyonder gambled the fate of the cosmos on whether Spider-Man would allow assassins to kill the Kingpin). So really the only exception to the rule (in my mind) is a 'the microcosm is the macrocosm' kind of deal where more intimate stakes are unknowingly tied to larger ones.

    Peter is a (mostly) reactionary hero. He sees a fire, he puts it out. He doesn't generally go looking for trouble, other than routine patrols to help where he can, and most of his biggest battles have been grudge matches by villains seeking him out because of his past interference with their plans.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Walton View Post
    Peter is a (mostly) reactionary hero.
    All Marvel heroes are fundamentally that, no.

    He sees a fire, he puts it out. He doesn't generally go looking for trouble, other than routine patrols to help where he can, and most of his biggest battles have been grudge matches by villains seeking him out because of his past interference with their plans.
    Not all of them. Like Juggernaut didn't have a grudge against Spider-Man, nor did Firelord. Most of Spider-Man's villains became villains independent of Peter Parker.



    I will say that if and when Marvel get around to doing a crossover story where Mephisto gets punk'd and benched, maybe "killed" for a few years (after all there's a One Below All who is worse than Mephisto established by Ewing, so there's no more need for Mephisto)...it has to be Spider-Man who lands the biggest blow (maybe not the killing blow) but the big splash image and so on.

  7. #7
    Kinky Lil' Canine Snoop Dogg's Avatar
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    spider-man should come back to the avengers as their janitor

  8. #8
    Uncanny Member Digifiend's Avatar
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    That job would be beneath Peter.
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  9. #9
    Astonishing Member Inversed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    At the same time, maybe a writer can come in and have Spider-Man do a big scale story. Roger Stern in his run on Spider-Man felt he had been nerfed too much and restored his super-strength and pit him against Juggernaut, The Mad Thinker, Mr. Hyde and others. JMS in his run on Spider-Man had Peter defeat Morlun, a character as strong as Thor, and had him defeat Tony Stark in battle and make Captain America bleed in his tie-in issues to Civil War, likewise, he had Peter established as Alpha over Kingpin, ending Fisk for good as a physical threat in 616.
    By "big scale" story, I don't think we need another one of Spider-Man secretly soloing a super powerful big bad to demonstrate his strength. We know how powerful he is, and we know what he's able to accomplish. I think the best way to highlight his physical and cognitive abilities, both to himself and to the rest of his world, is to take charge of a much grander threat.

    That's why I used Spider-Island and Ends Of The Earth as examples, since those are major world-effecting threats (the Spider virus infecting New York and Doc Ock's burn the Earth plan), in which we see people's reactions, both the public and superhero community, on a much greater scope, and through this scope it highlights Peter's experiences, his abilities, leadership skills, overall knowledge, and his ethics and morals that are what make him standout among some of his peers.

    One of my favourite Spidey moments is in the New Avengers tie-in for Avengers Vs. X-Men, where Spider-Man's told to teach Hope some stuff, and Hope flips out at him because she assumes he's just useless, but then he tells her the Uncle Ben story and explains his ideals on why he does everything, leading her to chase after him to hear more. Most underestimate him, but when the chips are down, they reveal their respect for his humble wisdom.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post



    I mean that's my problem with Marvel in general, it's far less democratic than DC where in the Justice League or whoever you will have a story where someone on the smaller part of the team gets to save the day, and not every story is the Superman and Batman or Wonder Woman show. But in the Avengers, it's almost always a story about the Big Three, or a story about love affairs between the middle tier group that drives the action.

    There have been plenty of stories where a smaller character gets to save the day. And the Avengers was about taking under utilized characters and turning them into something bigger. The Justice League was about taking DC's already big characters and that club was always a lot harder to break into than the Avengers.

    Hell, you yourself said that Marvel has been able to develop more titles beyond their flagship books than DC has.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    There have been plenty of stories where a smaller character gets to save the day.
    Not in the modern era I think. The days where Rick Jones played a big part in ending the Kree-Skrull War are long gone.

    Hell, you yourself said that Marvel has been able to develop more titles beyond their flagship books than DC has.
    I said

    I don't think Spider-Man should go to Batgod level ridiculousness, where Batman has become so overexposed that there's really nothing more to do or say with that character, and in the case of DC, Batman has hampered them properly developing other characters. I mean Batman is the biggest title in the comics market but Marvel is the bigger publisher than DC, which seems to be because Marvel has had more success in developing titles beyond the flagship than DC has. I mean on a Doylist level, Marvel is more democratic as a publisher, but on a Watsonian level, i.e. In-Universe, DC is more democratic. It would be nice to have it all, right?
    I was simply wondering if you can have a situation where it can be democratic in both the Watsonian and Doylist sense. I believe so.

  12. #12
    Astonishing Member Inversed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    I agree in principle but in practice the number of stories with Spider-Man on the Avengers which provide major Spider-Man moments are close to zero. And in the case of Avengers, it's not a very democratic team book since it all devolves into being a Tony/Cap/Thor story eventually.
    There is still a paradox to it all when you try to look at it too hard. Spider-Man is a popular character, he's been around for a long time and people feel he should get some attention in-universe among the superhero community, so put him on the Avengers. But they don't want him to lose his underdog status, and to take all the attention away from the other characters, so just have him be around or for comedic relief. Bendis' Avengers is really the only time we got to see him on the team for a significant amount of time, and I thought he was used decently well, wasn't really a major focus but bounced off the rest of the cast pretty good. (And I would say JMS and Slott both made great use of his Avengers status in their books). Hickman's Avengers he was almost immediately replaced by Otto, the Mighty Avengers he actually proved very effective, especially during the Axis crisis, and he left the Unity Squad in the first issue. Waid's Avengers did make a good reason for him to be involved, being the new funder through Parker Industries, the problem was how he was mainly treated as an ineffectual dope and punching bag for Nadia "Loves Everyone" Pym (all for a repeated joke that never made sense)

    I like other Marvel heroes and characters too, I just don't like the idea we think of solo stories and solo heroes, or standalone characters as being lesser just because they aren't connected.
    But the thing is, I wouldn't say this is really about solo heroes being lesser because they don't connect to other characters because that's far from the truth. I mean really, no matter how hard you try, you can't look that way with Spider-Man, especially 616 Spider-Man. ISSUE 1 of ASM is him trying to join the Fantastic Four, he pops up in so many other books, and others pop up in his all the time. And then you have Marvel Team-Up, which is a whole book of just Spider-Man interacting with other MU characters. Pretty much everyone has interacted with him at some point or another, he's been everywhere. And I think that's what makes this question of the OP most interesting, because based on his history, it is understandable why some would wonder why it is not more respected or recognized among the community given his relationships, no matter what they may be exactly.

  13. #13
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inversed View Post
    There is still a paradox to it all when you try to look at it too hard. Spider-Man is a popular character, he's been around for a long time and people feel he should get some attention in-universe among the superhero community, so put him on the Avengers. But they don't want him to lose his underdog status, and to take all the attention away from the other characters, so just have him be around or for comedic relief. Bendis' Avengers is really the only time we got to see him on the team for a significant amount of time, and I thought he was used decently well, wasn't really a major focus but bounced off the rest of the cast pretty good. (And I would say JMS and Slott both made great use of his Avengers status in their books). Hickman's Avengers he was almost immediately replaced by Otto, the Mighty Avengers he actually proved very effective, especially during the Axis crisis, and he left the Unity Squad in the first issue. Waid's Avengers did make a good reason for him to be involved, being the new funder through Parker Industries, the problem was how he was mainly treated as an ineffectual dope and punching bag for Nadia "Loves Everyone" Pym (all for a repeated joke that never made sense)

    But the thing is, I wouldn't say this is really about solo heroes being lesser because they don't connect to other characters because that's far from the truth. I mean really, no matter how hard you try, you can't look that way with Spider-Man, especially 616 Spider-Man. ISSUE 1 of ASM is him trying to join the Fantastic Four, he pops up in so many other books, and others pop up in his all the time. And then you have Marvel Team-Up, which is a whole book of just Spider-Man interacting with other MU characters. Pretty much everyone has interacted with him at some point or another, he's been everywhere. And I think that's what makes this question of the OP most interesting, because based on his history, it is understandable why some would wonder why it is not more respected or recognized among the community given his relationships, no matter what they may be exactly.
    I think the issue of him being recognized is different then him needing to be on an A-list team like The Avengers.

    Because, yeah, it really doesn't make sense that the hero community would treat him like dirt like they have been portrayed as in the past, but the counter to that doesn't necessarily mean he needs to be on The Avengers or out there on a team.

    Frankly I am of the opinion that Spider-Man doesn't really work, at his best, in a team setting. He can bounce off characters well, but functionally he doesn't really work on a team and trying to make him into a team character just doesn't work, whether you do it with Avengers, random teen heroes, or other spider characters.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inversed View Post
    There is still a paradox to it all when you try to look at it too hard. Spider-Man is a popular character, he's been around for a long time and people feel he should get some attention in-universe among the superhero community, so put him on the Avengers. But they don't want him to lose his underdog status, and to take all the attention away from the other characters, so just have him be around or for comedic relief.
    Well in the original "Why Spider-Man can't be with the Avengers" story that Stan Lee did in an ASM Annual, the reason Spider-Man doesn't stay with the Avengers is that he's too moral. Like they sent him to find the Hulk (which as gang initiation rites go, is very much in the Walter Hill territory) but Spider-Man feels bad when he reverts to Bruce Banner and then lies to the Avengers about failing the mission.

    The Doylist reason is that the Avengers weren't an exciting or interesting team at the time. And putting Spider-Man in Avengers didn't help either title very much. Because obviously the Avengers can't make too big a difference in Spider-Man's life, and Spider-Man has little bond or connection to figures like Vision.

    But the thing is, I wouldn't say this is really about solo heroes being lesser because they don't connect to other characters because that's far from the truth. I mean really, no matter how hard you try, you can't look that way with Spider-Man, especially 616 Spider-Man. ISSUE 1 of ASM is him trying to join the Fantastic Four,
    Issue #1 of Spider-Man also has J. Jonah Jameson and the start of their long relationship. Obviously Lee and Ditko in that first issue were setting off paper boats on a pond to see which one would stick and last longest. On the whole Spider-Man's relationship with Jonah, and so his personal story as Peter Parker became by far the most defining feature of the stories going forward as opposed to Spider-Man being part of the shared universe. Maybe if Spider-Man didn't sell he could be folded into the FF as a side character, not unlike how Hulk's stories and villains (like the Ringmaster) were repurposed when his original series went under.

    People need to be reminded of this these days, the shared universe as per Lee and others, was a glorified dumping ground to use as many IP as Marvel had and market and make it prominent, it was never entirely about good storytelling. Steve Ditko for instance bristled at Stan's attempts to constantly force the FF and Johnny Storm into the stories. Ditko wasn't opposed to the odd team-up but he certainly felt that Spider-Man was largely a solo and standalone story.

    And then you have Marvel Team-Up, which is a whole book of just Spider-Man interacting with other MU characters. Pretty much everyone has interacted with him at some point or another, he's been everywhere.
    That was done for the benefit of other characters rather than Spider-Man himself. Spider-Man as a flagship character and its smaller satellite titles could be used to launch lesser known characters. This was the reason the FF showed up in Spider-Man's early issues. Like for instance, Monica Rambeau the first female Captain Marvel was launched in a Spider-Man annual that Stern wrote. An Annual is almost always filler so Stern thought he could use it to try out a character to take the mantle of Captain Marvel who had just died.

    And I think that's what makes this question of the OP most interesting, because based on his history, it is understandable why some would wonder why it is not more respected or recognized among the community given his relationships, no matter what they may be exactly.
    And I think Doylist reasons ultimately matter more than Watsonian ones. It matters if you think a more integrated shared universe opens more stories as opposed to solo stories. In truth each approach opens some stories while closing others, and there's always a trade-off. I think on the whole the solo stories provide a more complete Spider-Man than the shared universe one.

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    Spider-Man is an underdog character. It never works for me when other heroes treat him with great reverence, or when he's fighting alongside the Avengers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    It wasn't that way for the longest time. At heart, Avengers is a trashy team of rejects who can't sell their own stories because they are, with few exceptions, not especially interesting characters. That's how the Avengers began as
    That is absolutely not what the Avengers began as. Thor, Iron Man and Ant-Man headlined Journey into Mystery, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish at the time Avengers launched.

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