A Spider-Man for each generation

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Yeah, I admit the interpretation is flawed, be it oversimplification or misinterpretation, in itself but it is an interesting topic, regardless of where it came from.

It's a good concept poorly expressed, yeah.

On my point of view, it is interesting on how much of an adaptable character Spidey really is and how he is adaptable to each generation.

Most people become fans of Spider-Man long before they ever know he's Peter Parker. Whether it's small children playing with toys (which is the first exposure for most children to Spider-Man) or watching the float on Macy's Thanksgiving Parade or any number of bumper stickers, signboards and so on. The design of the character by Ditko is just perfect in that regard, we immediately see the character and understand him. Kids know about spiders and insects and bugs, and when they hear Spider-Man, they instantly think he crawls on walls. Likewise, kids can easily doodle Spider-Man's face, just draw a oval, two wide blank eyes, and a web-pattern. Whereas with Batman and Superman, it's more complicated...you need to draw a generic, blank white-dude face for Superman, while with Batman you can get away with the silhouette but it's still more elaborate. So I'd say Spider-Man is a transcendent character and figure. He's someone you know of and understand long before you learn or know anything about him. Whether he's Peter Parker, how old he is, what generation he belongs to, what class background he belongs to, and so on.

Andrew Garfield take of a 2012 teenager is different from Tobey’s 2002/anachronistic take and they are both different from the Gen Z Peter Parker that Tom Holland and the MCU created. It’s just interesting to note differences in personality, living situations and how they act.

Tobey Maguire was 27 when Spider-Man 1 was made. Andrew Garfield was 29 when TASM-1 came out. Tom Holland was about 19-20 when he was cast. In the case of Tobey Maguire, Raimi's Spider-Man was set with the view that Peter would grow older as the movies progressed, and while the first half of SM-1 is set in high school, the second half leaps forward in time. Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man felt poorly conceived in that regard. He's very old looking and he spent the first movie entirely in high school passing as basically 14 years younger, and then the next movie opens with him graduating college while the actor had then aged to 31.

Raimi's Spider-Man 1 has a subtle anachronism throughout. It's intentionally going for a certain timelessness without actually being a period film. So none of the characters use a computer or the internet, the music (outside of the post-credits boyband music) has swing and jazz as well as "Raindrops are falling on my head", the color palette has a kind of warmth and summer glow to it regardless of the seasons, which suggests nostalgia. That allows Raimi's movie to blend different elements of Peter's world without feeling out of place. A kind of alternate '90s. So you don't have to ask questions about Jonah and print media, you don't wonder about elevated trains in Manhattan long after they've been taken down, High School has a kind of '50s ambience by way of Grease, about science experiments and dangerous tech in a populated city. Whereas you don't really see that kind of unity of design in the Garfield and Holland movies, which have a surface realism with nothing else going for it.

What that also means is that Raimi's Spider-Man 1 isn't something that fits any kind of generational thing. It's a timeless Spider-Man that is all things to all people.

When I was a kid, it was Bendis Ultimate Spider-Man, along with the JMS run and a few other takes that made me a fan of the Wall Crawler.

That's similar to me. Both of them were the first ongoing runs of Spider-Man I followed. Bendis' run had a late 90s pre-9/11 2000s teenage ambience, whereas JMS' adult Spider-Man dealt with the post-9/11 world.

[Digifiend]

you don't wonder about elevated trains in Manhattan long after they've been taken down,

Are those completely obsolete then? Spider-Man isn't the only superhero movie to involve those. The 1995 Power Rangers movie comes to mind, an elevated train track had a hole in it which Falconzord had to fill.

[Prof. Warren]

Tobey Maguire was 27 when Spider-Man 1 was made. Andrew Garfield was 29 when TASM-1 came out. Tom Holland was about 19-20 when he was cast. In the case of Tobey Maguire, Raimi's Spider-Man was set with the view that Peter would grow older as the movies progressed, and while the first half of SM-1 is set in high school, the second half leaps forward in time.

The first movie takes place over the course of months, not years.

Raimi's Spider-Man 1 has a subtle anachronism throughout. It's intentionally going for a certain timelessness without actually being a period film. So none of the characters use a computer or the internet, the music (outside of the post-credits boyband music) has swing and jazz as well as "Raindrops are falling on my head", the color palette has a kind of warmth and summer glow to it regardless of the seasons, which suggests nostalgia. That allows Raimi's movie to blend different elements of Peter's world without feeling out of place. A kind of alternate '90s. So you don't have to ask questions about Jonah and print media, you don't wonder about elevated trains in Manhattan long after they've been taken down, High School has a kind of '50s ambience by way of Grease, about science experiments and dangerous tech in a populated city. Whereas you don't really see that kind of unity of design in the Garfield and Holland movies, which have a surface realism with nothing else going for it.

Raimi's Spider-Man isn't in an "alternate '90s" so much as it's overlaying a subtle retro vibe of the '60s onto the early 00's.

Much of that can be attributed to the fact that, in the early '00s, filmmakers were still figuring out what a comic book movie should be like and it was deemed that Spider-Man should operate in a world that wasn't altogether "real," that there had to be a level of artifice for the audience to accept it.

That was fine for the Raimi films but I was glad when the Garfield films showed more grit. Ditko's NYC was always dingy and lived-in, never glamorous.

What that also means is that Raimi's Spider-Man 1 isn't something that fits any kind of generational thing. It's a timeless Spider-Man that is all things to all people.

Well, nothing is all things to all people.

And as much as I enjoy Raimi's Spider-Man, particularly the first film, it's absolutely dated now. Still charming, but dated.

[Prof. Warren]

Are those completely obsolete then? Spider-Man isn't the only superhero movie to involve those. The 1995 Power Rangers movie comes to mind, an elevated train track had a hole in it which Falconzord had to fill.

Elevated trains make their way into movies, whether they still exist in the cities they take place in or not, for the simple fact that they look cool and are perfect to utilize in action scenes.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The first movie takes place over the course of months, not years.

No hard dates are given of course. We are never told which year of high school the three leads are in. But obviously a significant amount of time passes in that movie.
-- Between Uncle Ben's death and Peter, Harry, and MJ graduating.
-- After which you have the montage of Spider-Man in full costume stepping up and then we cut to Jonah's intro scene. And the nature of that conversation suggests that Peter's career as Spider-Man has been going for some time since there are many reports and stuff that Jameson is discussing.
-- This takes place when Peter and Harry are well in college, and it's clear that when Peter runs into MJ on the street and finds out she's working at a diner that they haven't seen each other in a long while, and haven't spoken in depth since graduation.

You can interpret the time passage however you want, but it's there, and to me the fact that it's not mentioned means you can put your own number on it (which by the way is something all movies want you to do anyway). And from an editing and writing perspective, it sells the ages of actors and the character growth well. Like for instance we never get hard numbers about how much Luke/Han/Leia aged between ANH and the start of The Empire Strikes Back. Some time has passed as you can tell from the opening of the second movie, but how much time...that's left for you to figure out. Of the three leads, Kirsten Dunst was 19 during filming (in 2001-2002), the only cast member who's closest to the age her character is. So maybe that's the age she, Peter, and Harry start of in, and then age into the 20s over the course of the first movie?

Much of that can be attributed to the fact that, in the early '00s, filmmakers were still figuring out what a comic book movie should be like

You had 4 Superman and 4 Batman movies by then, you had the first X-Men movie in 2000. So I'd say there was some idea about what a comic book movie should look like. More to the point, Raimi's own earlier film, The Darkman was a homage to pulp serial adventure movies, so he had a background in that.

That was fine for the Raimi films but I was glad when the Garfield films showed more grit. Ditko's NYC was always dingy and lived-in, never glamorous.

Well Raimi isn't adapting just Ditko. His references and ideas range widely (for instance SM-2 adapts whole chunks of Spider-Man No More by Romita Sr.). He apparently read Spider-Man comics from around the 70s and never organized himself (i.e. which issue comes where and when and so on, whose runs and whose artistic style he cares for). A casual reader by definition. In general Ditko's run of Spider-Man hardly had a great many city-landscapes. He did NYC more in interiors and in miniatures, with his 9-Panel grid fitting that well. The artist who made NYC backgrounds a real thing is Ross Andru and when I think of Raimi's great high level NYC background shots and the amber-orange glow everywhere, I think of Andru. Andru had a romanticism about New York City architecture and background and that fits the movie well. Of course Andru was portraying relatively accurately, NY in the 70s, so if that art is referred to in 2001-2002, then that becomes anachronistic by definition.

And I don't know about you, but the Garfield movies and the Holland movies don't feel or look at all gritty. And Marc Webb was definitely not going for Ditko as a reference point.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Raimi's Spider-Man isn't in an "alternate '90s" so much as it's overlaying a subtle retro vibe of the '60s onto the early 00's.

Are those completely obsolete then?

Just to be clear. When I say Raimi's movies are filled with style and has a kind of retro perspective...I am describing a feature, not a bug. I am not saying it's wrong to feature elevated trains or anachronistic elements. Far from it.

On the contrary, I am just pointing out what good direction is. How the visual elements and style the film-maker chooses, what he chooses to emphasize and chooses to remove from the screen, conveys, consciously and subconsciously, the style and feel of the movie. How that works in concert with the casting of the actors (whom Raimi personally chose, having worked with Simmons and Rosemary Harris before, most notably The Gift), the attempt to take comic book elements and make it believable. That's what direction is about, it's about making all the seemingly incongruous elements, all the out-of-place details, cohere and make sense on-screen. And it works best for Marvel comic books, because when you adapt Marvel you are adapting several different runs from different periods with different artists.

Like if you take the Marc Webb movies, you have a confusion there. On one hand he is adapting Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis (already ten years old at the point) but he also mashes on top of that elements from Romita Sr. so Gwen is a rich socialite living in "richer-than-God" real estate. Those two elements don't blend well at all together. A more clear-eyed vision could have made that gap but Webb couldn't. Not that I am saying he's a bad film-maker. His first movie, that Gordon-Levitt comedy is a good movie. But he just couldn't make the jump.

[Prof. Warren]

You had 4 Superman and 4 Batman movies by then, you had the first X-Men movie in 2000. So I'd say there was some idea about what a comic book movie should look like. More to the point, Raimi's own earlier film, The Darkman was a homage to pulp serial adventure movies, so he had a background in that.

A very small pool of films and practically nothing from Marvel so, yes, they were still figuring things out.

This is why Spider-Man takes place in a more stylized world because, with the biggest comic book films prior to it being the Burton/Schumacher Batmans, the mindset at the time was still that this material should be translated into live action with a veneer of fantasy.

Singer's X-Men, taking a more realistic approach, felt the obligation to openly address in the film itself the absence of comic book elements, like individually designed, more colorful costumes.

Well Raimi isn't adapting just Ditko. His references and ideas range widely (for instance SM-2 adapts whole chunks of Spider-Man No More by Romita Sr.). He apparently read Spider-Man comics from around the 70s and never organized himself (i.e. which issue comes where and when and so on, whose runs and whose artistic style he cares for). A casual reader by definition. In general Ditko's run of Spider-Man hardly had a great many city-landscapes. He did NYC more in interiors and in miniatures, with his 9-Panel grid fitting that well. The artist who made NYC backgrounds a real thing is Ross Andru and when I think of Raimi's great high level NYC background shots and the amber-orange glow everywhere, I think of Andru. Andru had a romanticism about New York City architecture and background and that fits the movie well. Of course Andru was portraying relatively accurately, NY in the 70s, so if that art is referred to in 2001-2002, then that becomes anachronistic by definition.

I would bet that Raimi never read an Andru Spidey comic and if he did, he had no specific recollection of it.

Certainly the design team that actually created the look of Spider-Man weren't being influenced by Andru.

Also, many appreciations of Ditko cite his approach to drawing NYC. From Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko: "Another key to identifying with Peter Parker's world was Ditko's gritty New York locales. Superman's Metropolis seemed like a city in the clouds compared to the waterfront vistas of Ditko's suburbs."

And I don't know about you, but the Garfield movies and the Holland movies don't feel or look at all gritty. And Marc Webb was definitely not going for Ditko as a reference point.

No, but both the Garfield and Holland films take place in more firmly in the real world, which feels more Marvel to me - even if they're not specifically evoking or referring to a particular artist - than Raimi's films with its stylized world, imbued with a nostalgic glow, which feels more DC.

Just to be clear. When I say Raimi's movies are filled with style and has a kind of retro perspective...I am describing a feature, not a bug. I am not saying it's wrong to feature elevated trains or anachronistic elements. Far from it.

On the contrary, I am just pointing out what good direction is. How the visual elements and style the film-maker chooses, what he chooses to emphasize and chooses to remove from the screen, conveys, consciously and subconsciously, the style and feel of the movie. How that works in concert with the casting of the actors (whom Raimi personally chose, having worked with Simmons and Rosemary Harris before, most notably The Gift), the attempt to take comic book elements and make it believable. That's what direction is about, it's about making all the seemingly incongruous elements, all the out-of-place details, cohere and make sense on-screen. And it works best for Marvel comic books, because when you adapt Marvel you are adapting several different runs from different periods with different artists.

Like if you take the Marc Webb movies, you have a confusion there. On one hand he is adapting Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis (already ten years old at the point) but he also mashes on top of that elements from Romita Sr. so Gwen is a rich socialite living in "richer-than-God" real estate. Those two elements don't blend well at all together. A more clear-eyed vision could have made that gap but Webb couldn't. Not that I am saying he's a bad film-maker. His first movie, that Gordon-Levitt comedy is a good movie. But he just couldn't make the jump.

You're giving Raimi way too much credit for making Spider-Man some kind of seamless thing and actively trashing Webb for making something disjointed, when the truth is that both have their clunky elements. There's no more confusion, in terms of adaptation and in picking and choosing disparate elements from the comics, in the Webb films than the Raimi ones.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A very small pool of films and practically nothing from Marvel so, yes, they were still figuring things out.

The point is they had enough in terms of reference points of "been done--they tried that in that thing with the thing--we can avoid this". The gap between Superman 1978 and Spider-Man 2002, is 25 years. The gap between Action Comics#1 (1938) and AF#15 (1962) is also 25 years.

This is why Spider-Man takes place in a more stylized world because, with the biggest comic book films prior to it being the Burton/Schumacher Batmans, the mindset at the time was still that this material should be translated into live action with a veneer of fantasy.

Raimi's films are a blend of realism and fantasy, which allows him to tap into a wide audience and juxtapose a range of tones. So it's between extremes of the purely fantastic and style-for-style's-sake and the drab realism of the X-Men movie that came out two years back. On one hand it's got a certain old-fashioned charm and cheese to it, on the other hand it's also incredibly violent. Like the final battle between Goblin and Spider-Man where they beat each to a bloody pulp is closer to the 80s (MacFarlane-Larsen) than anything before. Dafoe's Norman Osborn by the way still holds the record for most number of on-screen deaths for any Spider-Man villain.

I would bet that Raimi never read an Andru Spidey comic and if he did, he had no specific recollection of it.

Him not having "specific recollection of it" wouldn't discount the possibility that Andru influenced him. Film scholars and others have long been able to point out that culture has so much ephemeral content (and comics did count as that in the 60s and 70s, the period of Raimi's childhood and teenage days) that it's hard for any film-maker, especially those working in popular genres, to fully be aware of all that influences them.

And Raimi was definitely a casual comics reader. Not the one who collects stuff, who picks up on trivia, or writes letters. But the one who reads what he likes, picks and chooses. In interviews aside from Stan Lee, he hardly ever references any writer or artist specifically.

Raimi certainly knew Gerry Conway's run for instance. Like an interview from when the first movie came out:
Did the story get changed a few times?
RAIMI: Absolutely. David Koepp who had wrote the first script had a piece with the two villains being Elektro and the Sandman, I think they were leftovers from James Cameron’s treatment – which I like to call a ‘scriptment’. It was an 80-page treatment with these characters, but the thing is these characters weren’t my favorite. My favorite was actually the death of Gwen Stacey. Thing is, I didn’t particularly like the Gwen Stacey character, I liked the element of it, but liked Mary Jane Watson and The Green Goblin. I also tried to put Doctor Octavious in there, but we couldn’t do it justice. Having multiple-storyline arcs just didn’t work, so we decided to stick on just having the one villain and make it a deeper story.
http://www.bookofthedead.ws/hosted/m...0MovieHole.htm

Certainly the design team that actually created the look of Spider-Man weren't being influenced by Andru.

The truth is they drew on a range of references across all of Spider-Man's publication history. Fabien Nicieza mentioned that he got an assignment to read every single Spider-Man comic, all titles, in publication for the Spider-Man production team, simply so he could provide references and summaries for different runs and what distinguished each decade visually and aesthetically. The first Spider-Man movie draws influences from across all Spider-Man titles and not just one specific period. I mean practically ever comic book movie is like that of course. You can't do 1:1 any single period or any single run. Certainly not with that much money where producers will want you to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

Also, many appreciations of Ditko cite his approach to drawing NYC. From Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko: "Another key to identifying with Peter Parker's world was Ditko's gritty New York locales. Superman's Metropolis seemed like a city in the clouds compared to the waterfront vistas of Ditko's suburbs."

That's accurate. Yet that doesn't discount what I said. I meant to say that Ditko evoked NYC more subtly. And even with Ditko, not all his references are NYC. That same book you mention talks about the fact that Ditko modeled Peter's high school architecture on his Pennsylvania alma mater. Ditko's run felt gritty, as did Kirby's, in comparison to what DC did at the time, yeah, but that doesn't mean that artists after him didn't bring something new and different either.

No, but both the Garfield and Holland films take place in more firmly in the real world, which feels more Marvel to me - even if they're not specifically evoking or referring to a particular artist - than Raimi's films with its stylized world, imbued with a nostalgic glow, which feels more DC.

Go back to the '60s -- read Kirby/Lee/Ditko and you'll find that their portrayal of background is based more on their memories of the 20s and 30s, i.e pre-war rather than the contemporary world of the 60s as it was happening. Ditko modeled Peter's high school on his high school in Pennsylvania which he attended in the early 40s. Kirby's portrayal of Ben Grimm and his Lower East Side world was also a nostalgia for his own youth as a street kid during the 20s and 30s. There was a heavy element of nostalgia to Marvel in that period. As opposed to DC, where Siegel and Shuster's 1938 Superman was a New Dealer, and definitely a product of that specific period of FDR's second term. Batman who fought gangsters and whose iconography was based on movies that were still recent and fresh in everyone's memories. The fact is that Joe Simon-Jack Kirby's Captain America which Kirby co-created as a young artist before World War II is far more contemporary and of its spirit than the stuff he did in the '60s, which was based on decades of experience, starts and stops, failures and successes, and a certain distance.

The fact that '60s Marvel caught the zeitgeist of the youth of that time, does not mean that it's actually reflective of that, or made by people who were tied to that. I mean nostalgia was a huge part of the 60s. Alan Moore pointed that out in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1969 where he had older characters talk about the youth scene, and one of them talks about how modern and advanced these kids are, and another said, "No they're just nostalgic for their childhood". Moore of course was a teenager during the '60s, experienced the marvel revolution and the counter-culture at ground-level, so he knows of what he speaks.

[Prof. Warren]

The point is they had enough in terms of reference points of "been done--they tried that in that thing with the thing--we can avoid this". The gap between Superman 1978 and Spider-Man 2002, is 25 years. The gap between Action Comics#1 (1938) and AF#15 (1962) is also 25 years.



Raimi's films are a blend of realism and fantasy, which allows him to tap into a wide audience and juxtapose a range of tones. So it's between extremes of the purely fantastic and style-for-style's-sake and the drab realism of the X-Men movie that came out two years back. On one hand it's got a certain old-fashioned charm and cheese to it, on the other hand it's also incredibly violent. Like the final battle between Goblin and Spider-Man where they beat each to a bloody pulp is closer to the 80s (MacFarlane-Larsen) than anything before. Dafoe's Norman Osborn by the way still holds the record for most number of on-screen deaths for any Spider-Man villain.



Him not having "specific recollection of it" wouldn't discount the possibility that Andru influenced him. Film scholars and others have long been able to point out that culture has so much ephemeral content (and comics did count as that in the 60s and 70s, the period of Raimi's childhood and teenage days) that it's hard for any film-maker, especially those working in popular genres, to fully be aware of all that influences them.

And Raimi was definitely a casual comics reader. Not the one who collects stuff, who picks up on trivia, or writes letters. But the one who reads what he likes, picks and chooses. In interviews aside from Stan Lee, he hardly ever references any writer or artist specifically.

Raimi certainly knew Gerry Conway's run for instance. Like an interview from when the first movie came out:
Did the story get changed a few times?
RAIMI: Absolutely. David Koepp who had wrote the first script had a piece with the two villains being Elektro and the Sandman, I think they were leftovers from James Cameron’s treatment – which I like to call a ‘scriptment’. It was an 80-page treatment with these characters, but the thing is these characters weren’t my favorite. My favorite was actually the death of Gwen Stacey. Thing is, I didn’t particularly like the Gwen Stacey character, I liked the element of it, but liked Mary Jane Watson and The Green Goblin. I also tried to put Doctor Octavious in there, but we couldn’t do it justice. Having multiple-storyline arcs just didn’t work, so we decided to stick on just having the one villain and make it a deeper story.
http://www.bookofthedead.ws/hosted/m...0MovieHole.htm



The truth is they drew on a range of references across all of Spider-Man's publication history. Fabien Nicieza mentioned that he got an assignment to read every single Spider-Man comic, all titles, in publication for the Spider-Man production team, simply so he could provide references and summaries for different runs and what distinguished each decade visually and aesthetically. The first Spider-Man movie draws influences from across all Spider-Man titles and not just one specific period. I mean practically ever comic book movie is like that of course. You can't do 1:1 any single period or any single run. Certainly not with that much money where producers will want you to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.



That's accurate. Yet that doesn't discount what I said. I meant to say that Ditko evoked NYC more subtly. And even with Ditko, not all his references are NYC. That same book you mention talks about the fact that Ditko modeled Peter's high school architecture on his Pennsylvania alma mater. Ditko's run felt gritty, as did Kirby's, in comparison to what DC did at the time, yeah, but that doesn't mean that artists after him didn't bring something new and different either.



Go back to the '60s -- read Kirby/Lee/Ditko and you'll find that their portrayal of background is based more on their memories of the 20s and 30s, i.e pre-war rather than the contemporary world of the 60s as it was happening. Ditko modeled Peter's high school on his high school in Pennsylvania which he attended in the early 40s. Kirby's portrayal of Ben Grimm and his Lower East Side world was also a nostalgia for his own youth as a street kid during the 20s and 30s. There was a heavy element of nostalgia to Marvel in that period. As opposed to DC, where Siegel and Shuster's 1938 Superman was a New Dealer, and definitely a product of that specific period of FDR's second term. Batman who fought gangsters and whose iconography was based on movies that were still recent and fresh in everyone's memories. The fact is that Joe Simon-Jack Kirby's Captain America which Kirby co-created as a young artist before World War II is far more contemporary and of its spirit than the stuff he did in the '60s, which was based on decades of experience, starts and stops, failures and successes, and a certain distance.

The fact that '60s Marvel caught the zeitgeist of the youth of that time, does not mean that it's actually reflective of that, or made by people who were tied to that. I mean nostalgia was a huge part of the 60s. Alan Moore pointed that out in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1969 where he had older characters talk about the youth scene, and one of them talks about how modern and advanced these kids are, and another said, "No they're just nostalgic for their childhood".

Have you ever tried to have an actual enjoyable conversation with anyone?

I mean, just talk casually about a shared interest in a way that is, you know, fun?

That is, opposed to trying to tediously lecture people about things they likely already know?

I had a few ongoing gigs as a film critic for years throughout the '90s and well into the 00's so I'm well aware of Raimi's style.

I've also - shocking on a comic book message board, I know - actually read a lot of comics. As well as a lot of comics history.

I don't need a refresher course on Kirby/Lee/Ditko to be reminded of what their work holds.

So rather than respond to your every point only to have you respond back in the most pedantic fashion possible, I'll simply say "good day."

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Have you ever tried to have an actual enjoyable conversation with anyone?

This is fun and enjoyable for me. This is me having fun. Can you not hear my happy voice as I type these keys?

Anyway, the topic of whether Spider-Man is a generational allegory and so on, is inherently pedantic, requiring some familiarity with history, cultural trivia, and the personal and professional backgrounds of people involved to make any kind of positive response and counter. To bring us back:
-- The fact is that in a medium as ephemeral as monthly comics back in the classic period (30s-80s hereabouts), it's possible to find evidence reflecting current events of that time, but what you also find is layers of previous generations. Marvel in the '60s is also heavily shaped and defined by the memories of the 30s and 40s of the people involved.
-- Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 1 is set in the 90s, but its also based on memories of the '60s and 70s when Raimi read those comics regularly and when those comics actually originated.
-- Marc Webb's Garfield movies is set in 2012-2014 but based on comics that are frozen in amber in 1999-2000 i.e. Pre-9/11 teen culture and suburban life while also drawing from another era (late-60s Lee-Romita) at the same time.

[WebSlingWonder]

This is fun and enjoyable for me. This is me having fun. Can you not hear my happy voice as I type these keys?

Anyway, the topic of whether Spider-Man is a generational allegory and so on, is inherently pedantic, requiring some familiarity with history, cultural trivia, and the personal and professional backgrounds of people involved to make any kind of positive response and counter. To bring us back:
-- The fact is that in a medium as ephemeral as monthly comics back in the classic period (30s-80s hereabouts), it's possible to find evidence reflecting current events of that time, but what you also find is layers of previous generations. Marvel in the '60s is also heavily shaped and defined by the memories of the 30s and 40s of the people involved.
-- Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 1 is set in the 90s, but its also based on memories of the '60s and 70s when Raimi read those comics regularly and when those comics actually originated.
-- Marc Webb's Garfield movies is set in 2012-2014 but based on comics that are frozen in amber in 1999-2000 i.e. Pre-9/11 teen culture and suburban life while also drawing from another era (late-60s Lee-Romita) at the same time.

Just because it's fun for you doesn't mean it's fun for everyone else. You need to be far more considerate than you're acting. Sometimes, we all just want a normal and chill conversation, not a lecture and debate about whatever topic you so deem appropriate. Otherwise, you come across as domineering and uncooperative.