Spidertalk podcast interview with Tom Brevoort

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It gets back to the idea that a happily married and settled down 25 year old is going to read as "older" than a single 25 year old living in a crappy apartment and going to college.

Feature, not a bug, my dude.

[Prof. Warren]

That's not exactly the issue, though. The issue is, if Spider-Man is about youth, and how much of that can be gleaned by Stan Lee's actions. Stan Lee never believed that Spider-Man was simply about youth, is my point.

The issue is merely if Spider-Man should age at all, if even the little he aged should be discounted. Everything else (how much Peter should grow, what changes and milestones he can hit) and all that is secondary.

No one would say that Peter shouldn't age "at all." That's never been asserted by anybody.

[Prof. Warren]

If there's no hard evidence, then it's not a certainty.

It gets back to the idea that a happily married and settled down 25 year old is going to read as "older" than a single 25 year old living in a crappy apartment and going to college.

Yes, exactly. Which, of course is part of the motivation to unmarry him.

[Spider-Tiger]

I might have been a bit unclear about the tradeoffs I was thinking of.

The scenario was something we've seen plenty of times in the comics, where Peter risks his own life to save someone else's. I think we can both agree that this is completely in-character for him.

Oh absolutely, but the outcomes (saving one life vs. saving many lives) aren't as concrete as you make them seem. The choice from Peter's perspective is to act now and save a life or don't act, someone gets harmed or dies, and you are forced to live with the emotional baggage of having not acted. I think I understand what you're trying to say, but choosing to act in this scenario isn't an example of self-sabotage (even if Peter's death and inability to intervene in the future are unfortunate consequences). Regardless, this is a very specific example that begins to obfuscate the main idea: whether Peter using his powers to save lives is self-sabotage. I wasn't arguing that there were no negative outcomes that could come of this behavior or that Peter was incapable of making an error in judgement.

My point wasn't that generosity is self-sabotage, but that excessive generosity can be. The lines between what is self-sabotage and what is productive are sometimes quite obvious, but sometimes fuzzy and impossible to figure out.

Perhaps...but that seems like a separate discussion. I was discussing Peter's characterization specifically rather than the concept of generosity in isolation. Generosity isn't inherently harmful so there would have to be some other underlying maladaptive behavior or cognition that's causing it to manifest to unhealthy degrees.

The lines can be blurry when you have limited information about the individual in question, but I don't think that applies to fleshed out fictional characters like Peter Parker.

I guess you are right. People have told me this before. My feeling was that it seemed more homely and old-fashioned. One weird thing is that there's never a story with MJ's past (and there have been many) which address why she dressed that way on this day. Like the time-travel issue in Defalco's Spider-Girl where Mayday goes back in time and sees her parents as teenagers, does that scene in ASM#25 and shows JRSR's MJ behind the lampshade, but that's not what she wore that day.

I just chalk it up to styles change. Popular women's fashion from the early 60s was very different than that of the mid to late 60s, and mod didn't really take off until around the time MJ made her first appearance under Romita. Being an aspiring model/actress, MJ would have likely been up to date on the latest trends. So she changed up her style some time prior to meeting Peter. Flashbacks like Parallel Lives seem to retcon Romita MJ into the Ditko era for the sake of simplicity.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

No one would say that Peter shouldn't age "at all." That's never been asserted by anybody.

Well the general sentiment that Brevoort voiced is that it was a mistake for Peter to have aged out of high school to start with. So I'd say that, that is being asserted, that Peter "shouldn't age at all". And the mid-90s onwards was certainly a time where Marvel Corporate tried to enforce and propagate that. Starting with Untold Tales, Byrne's Chapter One, and then USM (which finally became big). And also with the cartoons under Disney and so on.

[Spidey_62]

Peter being in high school forever is overrated. Peter's like 30 now in the comics.

It's always the well to go to because it's where the character started out. Some may not like it but fact is he graduated after 28 issues, there are thousands of Spider-Man comics. All his stories don't take place within a span of a few years in high school. Unless you're Ultimate comics Peter and all that somehow takes place in 1 year and he dies...

Spectacular Spider-Man was actually the first cartoon to put Peter in high school, which is surprising as since then it's the only place they keep him. The Ultimate cartoon had him start in Midtown High then inexplicably halfway through has him drop out and transfer to SHIELD superhero school. Because Spider-Man is famous for having a supporting cast of fellow superheroes and no normal kids at normal school.

I like what the PS4 game did in regards to Spidey's career. Spidey fought most of his rogues gallery by age 23, yet meets new folks all the time, and hasn't even fought 3 of his most iconic enemies. It's an adaptation that spreads the wealth.

[Prof. Warren]

Well the general sentiment that Brevoort voiced is that it was a mistake for Peter to have aged out of high school to start with. So I'd say that, that is being asserted, that Peter "shouldn't age at all". And the mid-90s onwards was certainly a time where Marvel Corporate tried to enforce and propagate that. Starting with Untold Tales, Byrne's Chapter One, and then USM (which finally became big). And also with the cartoons under Disney and so on.

You're exaggerating and misrepresenting Brevoort's point. He is simply referring to the idea that ideally Peter should stay as young as possible for as long as possible. He isn't saying that Spider-Man only works in hs or that it was a mistake to ever age him at all.

All the other books and cartoons you mention are meant to be ground level introductions to the character. Why wouldn't they be set at the earliest point in his career?

[Prof. Warren]

Peter being in high school forever is overrated. Peter's like 30 now in the comics.

No. He is not and never will be portrayed as being 30.

[Lee]

That's not exactly the issue, though. The issue is, if Spider-Man is about youth, and how much of that can be gleaned by Stan Lee's actions. Stan Lee never believed that Spider-Man was simply about youth, is my point.

It's not incredibly uncommon for authors to shift focus when they've been working on something for decades, especially when they work with new collaborators, and especially when they move from publications bought by young people (comics in the 1960s) to publications bought by adults (newspapers).

Lee/Ditko/Romita's run on the Spider-Man comic book had the hero dealing with school bullies, first love, balancing his studies and a part time job, being doted on by his overprotective mom, constantly angsting about how unfair his life is. You'd have to tie yourself in knots to argue that youth and growing up weren't major themes of that run.

Were youth and growing up themes of the Spider-Man newspaper strip? Maybe a little, in the early days, but not so much. Certainly not after he got married. It wasn't really about the full life experience of Peter Parker either, in the comic strip he was frozen in amber from 1987-2019. He wasn't moving towards middle age, he wasn't getting older, he wasn't tackling new life experiences. They'd simply swapped one status quo for another, more static status quo, all character development in the rear view mirror.

The powers that be at Marvel think that Stan Lee's earlier approach to Spider-Man makes for a stronger property than the later approach of the newspaper strip.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

All the other books and cartoons you mention are meant to be ground level introductions to the character. Why wouldn't they be set at the earliest point in his career?

Firstly, not all of them are set at the earliest point in his career.

As I mentioned until 2007, every single Spider-Man cartoon, without exception, showed Peter Parker Spider-Man as a non-teenager. They were all set in college and so on. In the case of video-games, there's basically just one game, Ultimate Spider-Man, set in high school. The videogames have even portrayed Peter as a married man multiple times. These two mediums (cartoons and games) obviously have always targeted the real youth, the actual civilians. Likewise the newspaper strip, which until the Raimi movie, was the main entry for most civilians. So the ground level introduction to Spider-Man hasn't always been set at the earliest point in his career. And even then, today's ground level introduction to the character is toys. My little nephew plays with toys and action figures. He's too young to know or care about Spider-Man being a teenager or any such thing (and his parents forbid him from watching TV until he's older), or that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, yet he still loves and plays with Spider-Man because of the colorful costume design and his wall-crawling powers. The majority of young children around the world come to love Spider-Man far before they ever know him as Peter Parker, or him as a teenager, or any such thing. That alone proves that the appeal of Spider-Man doesn't fundamentally rest on him being tied to any single age.

Likewise, the 1967 Spider-Man theme song (which became a legitimate popular standard and sung by people who know zilch about the cartoon or the character), doesn't mention once that he's Peter Parker or that he's a teenager. The only mention is "Wealth and Fame, he's ignored/Action is his reward" which proves that Peter being from a poor background, a working class background is more fundamental than being about youth.

The appeal of Spider-Man when you come down to it, is the same as Superman and Batman's, he has a cool suit, cool set of powers and it's awesome when he swings around and moves. Everything else comes after that, and it doesn't matter especially which order. I was 8 years old and read the newspaper strip and saw Peter as married and I remember thinking how cool that made Spider-Man over Batman and Superman, who in the versions I had seen then, kept lying to people about their secret identity. I mean the idea that Spider-Man being about youth will make him more popular with kids or youth, is essentially insulting to kids. Actual kids want to grow up, and the idea that they would gravitate to one age group of a character over another doesn't make sense. How else could a 40 year old man with a midlife crisis like Iron Man find purchase after RDJ portrayed him? Or a 40 year old Black Panther?

Lee/Ditko/Romita's run on the Spider-Man comic book had the hero dealing with school bullies, first love, balancing his studies and a part time job, being doted on by his overprotective mom, constantly angsting about how unfair his life is.

They deal far more regularly with life-and-death issues, poverty, guilt over causing someone's death, gray moral situations (such as saving people you dislike and who will not be friends with you afterwards), drug addiction, white supremacy, terrorism, collateral damage and so on. And very little time was spent in classrooms in those runs, nor was Peter worrying about grades (as some recent takes do it) ever an issue then. A poster online in another place once put it best to me, "It's essential that Peter be 15 when he gets bitten by the Spider. But it's not at all essential he stay that age afterwards". Look at the Raimi movie. The first half is set in high school and covers AF#15, but the minute that ends, we cut to years later and it's set well after graduation. Raimi cast actors who were a little old looking so that they could age forward with the character.

The powers that be at Marvel think that Stan Lee's earlier approach to Spider-Man makes for a stronger property than the later approach of the newspaper strip.

The problem is that one set of powers-that-be who basically have their position and current status since 2000 are claiming jurisdiction to legislate the entire continuity, that the version they choose is how it not only should be, but is how it will be going forward. Neither Quesada nor Brevoort nor anyone else had involvement in creating Spider-Man, nor were both of them part of the Spider-Man editorial when the marriage happened, so their opinions on what's right for the character are just as subjective as anyone else's. It would be somewhat defensible if they said, "This is just us. Obviously editors, great men, before us disagreed, and people who come after might go back" but they are going out of their way to claim that this will be how it is going forward, claiming that they know better than their predecessors and that they "saved" the character or some nosh like that.

[Prof. Warren]

Firstly, not all of them are set at the earliest point in his career.

The ones you mentioned - books like Untold Tales, Byrne's Chapter One, and USM - are. As are the later cartoons.

As I mentioned until 2007, every single Spider-Man cartoon, without exception, showed Peter Parker Spider-Man as a non-teenager. They were all set in college and so on. In the case of video-games, there's basically just one game, Ultimate Spider-Man, that does that. The videogames have even portrayed Peter as a married man multiple times. These two mediums (cartoons and games) obviously have always targeted the real youth, the actual civilians. Likewise the newspaper strip, which until the Raimi movie, was the main entry for most civilians. So the ground level introduction to Spider-Man hasn't always been set at the earliest point in his career.

No one said "always." Everybody here is well aware of where the different adaptations have placed Spidey. We're simply referring to the examples you gave.

And even then, today's ground level introduction to the character is toys. My little nephew plays with toys and action figures. He's too young to know or care about Spider-Man being a teenager or any such thing (and his parents forbid him from watching TV until he's older), or that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, yet he still loves and plays with Spider-Man because of the colorful costume design and his wall-crawling powers. The majority of young children around the world come to love Spider-Man far before they ever know him as Peter Parker, or him as a teenager, or any such thing. That alone proves that the appeal of Spider-Man doesn't fundamentally rest on him being tied to any single age.

My introduction to Spider-Man was The Electric Company.

So, no - the appeal of Spider-Man doesn't fundamentally rest on him being tied to any age.

But there's also no reason to avoid putting him at a high school age, either.

Likewise, the 1967 Spider-Man theme song (which became a legitimate popular standard and sung by people who know zilch about the cartoon or the character), doesn't mention once that he's Peter Parker or that he's a teenager. The only mention is "Wealth and Fame, he's ignored/Action is his reward" which proves that Peter being from a poor background, a working class background is more fundamental than being about youth.

I don't think you can pin the entire mythology of Spider-Man on the lyrics to the '60s theme song. It's a catchy tune, no need to make it into more than that.

There's also mention of Uncle Ben, or "with great power comes great responsibility." Are those not worth anything because they didn't squeeze them into the lyrics for the cartoon?

And "Wealthy and fame, he's ignored" is not something to point to and say "See? See? This proves he's from a poor background!"

The vast majority of people in America are not wealthy or famous. It doesn't make them, by default, poor.

The appeal of Spider-Man when you come down to it, is the same as Superman and Batman's, he has a cool suit, cool set of powers and it's awesome when he swings around and moves.

If that's the angle you want to come at it from, don't complain about any of the liberties any adaptation takes.

According to what you just said, as long as he's called Spider-Man, looks cool, and has the right power set, it's all good.

So why complain if he's portrayed as a young adult or a teenager? Either way, the appeal is the same.

You can't say it's a waste of time to put him in high school because nobody really cares because you can say the exact same thing about having him be a young adult.

The problem is that one set of powers-that-be who basically have their position and current status since 2000 are claiming jurisdiction to legislate the entire continuity, that the version they choose is how it not only should be, but is how it will be going forward. Neither Quesada nor Brevoort nor anyone else had involvement in creating Spider-Man, nor were both of them part of the Spider-Man editorial when the marriage happened, so their opinions on what's right for the character are just as subjective as anyone else's. It would be somewhat defensible if they said, "This is just us. Obviously editors, great men, before us disagreed, and people who come after might go back" but they are going out of their way to claim that this will be how it is going forward, claiming that they know better than their predecessors and that they "saved" the character or some nosh like that.

Well, here we are again.

You claiming to be victimized by the cruel overlords at Marvel who took the marriage away from you.

You know, when people like Brevoort state their opinions on a character, they don't have to qualify it with "by the way, this is just my opinion." That is accepted going in, that this is their take on the character. Even at the top of Brevoort's "manifesto," which is really just an inter-office memo, he says "none of this is intended to be looked on as hard-and-fast rules. There can always be exceptions. But this is where my mind is at right now."

Hardly the words of someone who isn't aware that their opinions represent their own subjective outlook.

And I can't recall ever reading anyone involved in OMD or BND claiming that they "saved" the character from the hacks that proceeded them.

At best, you might see them defend their choices as doing what they felt was right for the long term health of the character, which they did.

You can disagree with their decision but it's their decision to make. Every time they talk about it they shouldn't be obliged to say "you know, this was just our decision and we want to apologize for anyone that still disagrees with it and, really, we can't say we're sorry enough for proceeding with the character in a way that we see fit. Please understand we're just the temporary custodians of this character."

It's hard not to tell someone to just get over something when they keep complaining so freaking hard about something and continue to frame it in such over-dramatic terms.

And yes, I would say the exact same thing to any fan who complained endlessly about the marriage itself.

If the marriage were to ever come back, I wouldn't flip out. I'd see how they handled it. If I liked it, I'd keep reading. If I didn't, I wouldn't and I'd be happy for anyone who was enjoying it. End of story.

[Spidey5640]

The ones you mentioned - books like Untold Tales, Byrne's Chapter One, and USM - are. As are the later cartoons.



No one said "always." Everybody here is well aware of where the different adaptations have placed Spidey. We're simply referring to the examples you gave.



My introduction to Spider-Man was The Electric Company.

So, no - the appeal of Spider-Man doesn't fundamentally rest on him being tied to any age.

But there's also no reason to avoid putting him at a high school age, either.



I don't think you can pin the entire mythology of Spider-Man on the lyrics to the '60s theme song. It's a catchy tune, no need to make it into more than that.

There's also mention of Uncle Ben, or "with great power comes great responsibility." Are those not worth anything because they didn't squeeze them into the lyrics for the cartoon?

And "Wealthy and fame, he's ignored" is not something to point to and say "See? See? This proves he's from a poor background!"

The vast majority of people in America are not wealthy or famous. It doesn't make them, by default, poor.



If that's the angle you want to come at it from, don't complain about any of the liberties any adaptation takes.

According to what you just said, as long as he's called Spider-Man, looks cool, and has the right power set, it's all good.

So why complain if he's portrayed as a young adult or a teenager? Either way, the appeal is the same.

You can't say it's a waste of time to put him in high school because nobody really cares because you can say the exact same thing about having him be a young adult.



Well, here we are again.

You claiming to be victimized by the cruel overlords at Marvel who took the marriage away from you.

You know, when people like Brevoort state their opinions on a character, they don't have to qualify it with "by the way, this is just my opinion." That is accepted going in, that this is their take on the character. Even at the top of Brevoort's "manifesto," which is really just an inter-office memo, he says "none of this is intended to be looked on as hard-and-fast rules. There can always be exceptions. But this is where my mind is at right now."

Hardly the words of someone who isn't aware that their opinions represent their own subjective outlook.

And I can't recall ever reading anyone involved in OMD or BND claiming that they "saved" the character from the hacks that proceeded them.

At best, you might see them defend their choices as doing what they felt was right for the long term health of the character, which they did.

You can disagree with their decision but it's their decision to make. Every time they talk about it they shouldn't be obliged to say "you know, this was just our decision and we want to apologize for anyone that still disagrees with it and, really, we can't say we're sorry enough for proceeding with the character in a way that we see fit. Please understand we're just the temporary custodians of this character."

It's hard not to tell someone to just get over something when they keep complaining so freaking hard about something and continue to frame it in such over-dramatic terms.

And yes, I would say the exact same thing to any fan who complained endlessly about the marriage itself.

If the marriage were to ever come back, I wouldn't flip out. I'd see how they handled it. If I liked it, I'd keep reading. If I didn't, I wouldn't and I'd be happy for anyone who was enjoying it. End of story.

Well said Professor!

[Lee]

Firstly, not all of them are set at the earliest point in his career.

As I mentioned until 2007, every single Spider-Man cartoon, without exception, showed Peter Parker Spider-Man as a non-teenager. They were all set in college and so on.

This is incorrect. Jonah refers to Peter and Betty as teenagers in the 1967 cartoon.

Is there hard evidence that he wasn't 18 or 19 in the college based cartoons?

They deal far more regularly with life-and-death issues, poverty, guilt over causing someone's death, gray moral situations (such as saving people you dislike and who will not be friends with you afterwards), drug addiction, white supremacy, terrorism, collateral damage and so on.

A story, and more so a series of stories, can cover multiple subjects, can have more than one recurring theme. Youth/teenage life/coming of age/growing up stuff was ever-present in 1960s Spider-Man comics. Teen soap opera.

They did not "far more regularly" touch upon drug addiction and white supremacy. They covered those subjects in one or two stories.

Look at the Raimi movie. The first half is set in high school and covers AF#15, but the minute that ends, we cut to years later and it's set well after graduation. Raimi cast actors who were a little old looking so that they could age forward with the character.

Years later? That is a very strange reading of the film.

In David Koepp's script it says he was 17 at the start of the film. I don't recall if that made it into the dialogue, but in the final film it's more than clear that we're seeing his senior year in high school and the start of his first year of college.

The problem is that one set of powers-that-be who basically have their position and current status since 2000 are claiming jurisdiction to legislate the entire continuity, that the version they choose is how it not only should be, but is how it will be going forward. Neither Quesada nor Brevoort nor anyone else had involvement in creating Spider-Man, nor were both of them part of the Spider-Man editorial when the marriage happened, so their opinions on what's right for the character are just as subjective as anyone else's. It would be somewhat defensible if they said, "This is just us. Obviously editors, great men, before us disagreed, and people who come after might go back" but they are going out of their way to claim that this will be how it is going forward, claiming that they know better than their predecessors and that they "saved" the character or some nosh like that.

After all your apologies in previous posts, you've stepped back to attacking the motivations and characters of the people making the comics.

Why?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So, no - the appeal of Spider-Man doesn't fundamentally rest on him being tied to any age.

Thank you.

But there's also no reason to avoid putting him at a high school age, either.

And I have no problem with USM and for that matter the 2007 Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. Just that I wouldn't want that to be the only reference point going forward. In the same way for instance that the Superboy comics of the 50s (a teenage version of Clark Kent/Superman) didn't supplant or displace the default adult version of Superman that was published side-by-side. Imagine if after the success of Superboy, DC continually made cartoons, TV, and movies focused just on that version...i.e. the Smallville TV-Show for all time.

I don't think you can pin the entire mythology of Spider-Man on the lyrics to the '60s theme song. It's a catchy tune, no need to make it into more than that.

The point is that song is still how people think of Spider-Man, and it came to define him among non-comics fans. And unlike the theme music of the Adam West Batman, it's known and liked for its lyrics first and foremost.

If that's the angle you want to come at it from, don't complain about any of the liberties any adaptation takes.

I guess that's fair. I would qualify that it's worth bringing up if an adaptation is seen as quote unquote faithful or has a danger of being seen as representative. My primary objection is more that I don't think MCU Spider-Man or other stuff is good. As a counter-example, the Fox Spider-Man is more faithful to Spider-Man, but I don't think it's a good cartoon nor has it aged well.

And I can't recall ever reading anyone involved in OMD or BND claiming that they "saved" the character from the hacks that proceeded them.

Quesada said multiple times that he saw the marriage was a mistake. He also said that the Wedding Annual was a bad issue...which again the writer of OMD and especially OMIT is not in any position to judge. I mean the art and writing of the Wedding Annual spliced in OMIT is by far the best part of the comic, because otherwise you have Quesada's typical limited faces and proportions, his love for campy chiaroscuro and amber lighting and of course his utterly risible writing. Next to that Paul Ryan's understated classicism looks divine. This idea that the OMD and BND weren't implicitly and explicitly slagging the marriage era is revisionist. They openly told people multiple times that the marriage was a mistake and that it didn't have good stories. Tom Brevoort referred once to OMD as "medicine" that was bitter but made you better, which, while not explicit, equates the marriage to a kind of sickness. I don't know why people pretend that Quesada and others aren't actively insisting that their take on the character be lasting, going forward.

Quesada has definitely gone out of his way to associate his personal brand with Spider-Man. Like in the 2017 Marvel Spider-Man cartoon currently on Disney, he even voices a character and appears regularly (he plays a coffee-shop owner called Joe). This is the first time any editor other than Stan Lee cameo'd in Spider-Man, not once did Shooter and Defalco ever do that. Nor Roy Thomas. Even Kevin Feige doesn't do cameos or appearances like that in the MCU movies.

[Alan2099]

This is the first time any editor other than Stan Lee cameo'd in Spider-Man, not once did Shooter and Defalco ever do that. Nor Roy Thomas. Even Kevin Feige doesn't do cameos or appearances like that in the MCU movies.

Don't act like comic book pros making cameos is some new thing or huge act of ego.

Jim Starlin cameod in Avengers: Endgame.
Ed Brubaker cameod in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
J. Michael Straczynski cameod in Thor.
Walt Simonson cameod in Thor.
Kelly Sue DeConnick cameod in Captain Marvel.
Chris Claremont cameod in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Len Wein cameod in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Frank Miller cameod in Daredevil.
Kevin SMith cameod in Daredevil.
Rob Liefeld cameos in Deadpool.

I'm sure you're going to point out how somehow those are different and none of them count though. Just to save you some time, nobody will buy into your explanation whatever it is.

Also Miley Cyrus and Rob Zombie provided voices in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. This has nothing to do with anything, but I found it out while looking up cameos and thought it was neat.