A Spider-Man for each generation

[ironman2978]

So the latest topic comes from a quote I came across on Reddit:



https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comm...tm_name=iossmf

I'm really appreciating how Spiderman constantly gets reset every so often so that he represents the new youngest generation.

60’s-80’s: You have Boomer Spidey who distrusted authority while it was cool and had financial problems as a young kid, but still ended up marrying a supermodel, living in an expensive apartment in a good part of NYC, and is able to turn down lucrative lab jobs to pursue higher degrees at his own expense while conveniently ignoring all of those anti-mutant protestors being virulent racists.

80-2000: You have Gen X Spidey who moves back in with Aunt May due to finances when he's in college but later goes on to enjoy a comfortable domestic life with his pregnant wife without too many mundane problems, despite the occasional mental breakdown and midlife crisis that causes Peter to make new problems for himself, and he eventually makes a deal with Satan so that he can return to a more comfortable past where he didn't have to think too hard about things or make complicated moral decisions.

Early 2000-2010’s: You have Millenial Spidey, who finds out that this "print journalism" thing that was his career path is dead in the water and has to find roommates in order to barely make rent, his plan to join the Avengers runs into the tiny problem that they're now illegal and basically don't exist as an organization, and he has to fight and scrape to find a job that can keep him afloat and maybe let him also continue doing good deeds. Meanwhile, all of the other heroes are older than him, don't get his sense of humor, and the only super who seems to remotely understand him is the mentally unstable lunatic who nobody trusts. Also Doc Oct shows up at random times to tell him that he's weak and has no drive or follow-through, just like the rest of Today's Youth.

Mid 2000-Now: And then there's Gen-Z Spidey who's awkward, kinda weird, and really just wants to help people and maybe get to know this one girl that he likes. He's too young and middle-classish to be worrying about money problems yet, but every adult figure around him seems to have plans and agendas for him that they have no intention of asking his opinion on, and want him to be responsible for things that he has absolutely no business being responsible for. He's aware that all of this **** getting dumped on his shoulders is essentially a massive ticking time bomb and is roughly .002 seconds from cracking under the pressure if he thinks too much about it, but tries his best to just enjoy spending time with his friends and family while he still can. But yo, he's going to meme with the best of them until the very millisecond that ish hits the fan, and then he's going to ironically meme about how much it sucks.

And then this review of Brian Michael Bendis’s writing of Ultimate Spider-Man :

Brian Michael Bendis retools Ol' Spidey for a generation that has grown up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, creating a comic that is as hip and 'postmodern' as it gets.
Bendis has fleshed out the core characters, changing the way they dress and talk to reflect contemporary mallrat culture, but not altering their core. In this case, the supportive M.J., the concerned Aunt May, and the 'drama queen' Gwen are used as comic foils to amplify Peter's struggle to escape the gravitational pull of his high school. Bendis also reconceptualized some members of the Spider-man rogue's gallery to up their 'coolness' factor - turning the usually dorky Rhino into a powerful mecha-man who tosses city buses through Starbuck's windows. The well-crafted issue maintains a frantic pace that keeps you turning pages. It contrasts with previous issues, coming right after an angsty story arc that took us inside the head of the Green Goblin and almost cost M.J. her life. It builds on evolving character's relations, such as M.J.'s new involvement in Peter's superhero life; and it prepares for future plot developments, such as the growing rift in Gwen's family.

The topic question is how do you feel about these two quotes? What do you think of how Spidey’s voice for each generation is written? What do you think is the best way to depict or describe Spidey’s characterization as time goes on or how do you describe or feel like Spidey should be depicted? This is just two different point of views and honestly I just want a peaceful discussion about how people feel about these P.O.V.’s on Everyone’s favorite web-head

[HypnoHustler]

The 2000s are listed for 3 different Spideys....

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So the latest topic comes from a quote I came across on Reddit

Yes, because Reddit is who we want to turn to of all places for topic ideas.

60’s-80’s: You have Boomer Spidey who distrusted authority while it was cool and had financial problems as a young kid, but still ended up marrying a supermodel, living in an expensive apartment in a good part of NYC, and is able to turn down lucrative lab jobs to pursue higher degrees at his own expense while conveniently ignoring all of those anti-mutant protestors being virulent racists.

That's not what happened.

80-2000: You have Gen X Spidey who moves back in with Aunt May due to finances when he's in college but later goes on to enjoy a comfortable domestic life with his pregnant wife without too many mundane problems, despite the occasional mental breakdown and midlife crisis that causes Peter to make new problems for himself, and he eventually makes a deal with Satan so that he can return to a more comfortable past where he didn't have to think too hard about things or make complicated moral decisions.

This is almost absurdly inaccurate.

Early 2000-2010’s: You have Millenial Spidey, who finds out that this "print journalism" thing that was his career path is dead in the water and has to find roommates in order to barely make rent, his plan to join the Avengers runs into the tiny problem that they're now illegal and basically don't exist as an organization, and he has to fight and scrape to find a job that can keep him afloat and maybe let him also continue doing good deeds. Meanwhile, all of the other heroes are older than him, don't get his sense of humor, and the only super who seems to remotely understand him is the mentally unstable lunatic who nobody trusts. Also Doc Oct shows up at random times to tell him that he's weak and has no drive or follow-through, just like the rest of Today's Youth.

Projection is magnificent isn't it. The actual so-called "millenial Spidey" this guy talks about is the era where Peter Parker had a steady paying gig doing what he liked (Horizon Labs), and later became a big time successful businessman (Parker Industries), ended that company laying off many low-income employees, failed upwards into a job he wasn't qualified for (editor), all the while blithely ignorant of the fact that he committed plagiarism. The so-called "millennial Spidey" represents the Boomer Spidey far more than the actual stories published in those eras.

What do you think of how Spidey’s voice for each generation is written?

Monthly comics being what they are (conceptualized, written in bulk, and planned a year or several months in advance), they are often imperfect reflections of the era they are contemporary too. Likewise, a lot of the writers on Spider-Man tend to be people who are very old and don't have the best grasp of contemporary era. Go back to the Lee-Ditko era, you will find that their attitude to high school and college was still rooted in the 30s and 40s when both men were in high school then in the late 50s or early 60s.

So again it depends. Gerry Conway was 19 when he started work on Spider-Man and his run on Spider-Man reflects the actual 70s and changes in America in that decade, at least to some extent. So I'd say it's true of his run that Spider-Man reflected the zeitgeist youth as it happened, but only to a limited extent. I'd also argue that JMS' run even after the special issue he did, was very much about 9/11 and his run reflected that period very well.

But in general, no, it's not the case that every run of Spider-Man 1:1 reflects stuff happening in that time and place, or that they serve as a kind of generational allegory. That's fun rhetoric maybe, but poor interpretation.

[Alan2099]

I refuse to acknowledge anything that uses the term "Boomer Spidey".


As for this quote...

Brian Michael Bendis retools Ol' Spidey for a generation that has grown up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, creating a comic that is as hip and 'postmodern' as it gets.
Bendis has fleshed out the core characters, changing the way they dress and talk to reflect contemporary mallrat culture, but not altering their core. In this case, the supportive M.J., the concerned Aunt May, and the 'drama queen' Gwen are used as comic foils to amplify Peter's struggle to escape the gravitational pull of his high school. Bendis also reconceptualized some members of the Spider-man rogue's gallery to up their 'coolness' factor - turning the usually dorky Rhino into a powerful mecha-man who tosses city buses through Starbuck's windows. The well-crafted issue maintains a frantic pace that keeps you turning pages. It contrasts with previous issues, coming right after an angsty story arc that took us inside the head of the Green Goblin and almost cost M.J. her life. It builds on evolving character's relations, such as M.J.'s new involvement in Peter's superhero life; and it prepares for future plot developments, such as the growing rift in Gwen's family.

"Frantic pace" is the opposite of how I'd describe his writing style. Likewise I think he did alter the core of a lot of characters and many of his villains ended up far less cool than their original versions.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Likewise I think he did alter the core of a lot of characters and many of his villains ended up far less cool than their original versions.

Yeah Bendis' revisions of villains have definitely proven a lot less lasting than his other revisions.

In the case of Bendis, even his Ultimate Spider-Man isn't really all that perfect a glimpse of the 90s and 2000s. Outwardly in terms of marketing, and an updated teen slang and visual look, it did have that, but it's mostly a sitcom version of the time, like the TV Show Friends -- Everyone's white, nobody's gay, "no homo" or "lesbian teasing" appear as jokes. It came out in 2000 before the September 11 attacks and USM's total lack of comic book time means, that Peter's world still has a kind of late '90s vibe to it.

Bendis himself said that it was only with Miles that he actually got around to conceptualizing what a 21st Century Spider-Man really meant, and it took Obama's election to make that happen.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

In any case it's more accurate to say Spider-Man is for All Seasons or All Generations than that there's a unique distinct Spider-Man for each generation.

[Prof. Warren]

I refuse to acknowledge anything that uses the term "Boomer Spidey".

Co-signed.

"Frantic pace" is the opposite of how I'd describe his writing style. Likewise I think he did alter the core of a lot of characters and many of his villains ended up far less cool than their original versions.

Haha, yes - how anyone could describe Bendis' work as moving at "frantic pace" is beyond me.

All of these descriptions are about as off as you can get.

However, I fully agree with the premise that Spider-Man has changed over the years as the culture has changed.

How you divide those eras up and how you characterize those changes is up for debate but Spidey is, like every other serialized character, always changing with the times.

Sometimes subtly so, sometimes not so much.

[Frontier]

"Frantic pace" is the opposite of how I'd describe his writing style. Likewise I think he did alter the core of a lot of characters and many of his villains ended up far less cool than their original versions.

The Spectacular cartoon did a much better job updating Spidey's Rogues Gallery then USM ever did. I'd say it even did a much better job at USM's mandate then USM did, although I still enjoyed it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The Spectacular cartoon did a much better job updating Spidey's Rogues Gallery then USM ever did. I'd say it even did a much better job at USM's mandate then USM did, although I still enjoyed it.

Bendis did get one over with Miles, who caught the post-Obama zeitgeist big time. The Spectacular Cartoon had the advantage of appearing several years in the mid-2000s whereas Bendis started in 1999 and wrote for 2000. It's not always clear in the moment of things what will or will not last. There's also the fact that Bendis is not a native New Yorker, and that he modeled Peter's high school environment on Portland, where his wife taught high school and which he used as his base. So that explains a kind of North-West Pacific vibe to it, the kind of grungy look that USM had in that time, the more suburban flavor in those stories.

Fact is that any given contemporary era has a mix of stuff that's ephemeral and stuff that proves to be a decade-defining thing. That makes it hard to impossible to actually represent the contemporary era or catch "lightning-in-the-bottle". And not every writer/artist is up to that or interested in doing that. Someone like Ross Andru for instance was obsessed with photo-realistic backgrounds and representing the real New York in the backgrounds of his art. But other artists, not so much. It doesn't seem to be an interest for Marcos Martin, let's say. Not that I am judging him for it.

So it's impossible to read anything into this. Like obviously the music scene decade-to-decade is a good barometer of generational shifts and changes. But monthly comics for an ongoing IP owned by a corporation dating to the 30s...not a great deal.

[Frontier]

Bendis did get one over with Miles, who caught the post-Obama zeitgeist big time. The Spectacular Cartoon had the advantage of appearing several years in the mid-2000s whereas Bendis started in 1999 and wrote for 2000. It's not always clear in the moment of things what will or will not last.

Miles is a completely different beast. If we're talking about a modernizing or updated take on Peter Parker, his cast, villains, mythos, etc., that was the original USM and Spectacular.

Fact is that any given contemporary era has a mix of stuff that's ephemeral and stuff that proves to be a decade-defining thing. That makes it hard to impossible to actually represent the contemporary era or catch "lightning-in-the-bottle". And not every writer/artist is up to that or interested in doing that. Someone like Ross Andru for instance was obsessed with photo-realistic backgrounds and representing the real New York in the backgrounds of his art. But other artists, not so much. It doesn't seem to be an interest for Marcos Martin, let's say. Not that I am judging him for it.

It's hard to be evergreen...

[your_name_here]

I find Spencer has taken a lot of inspiration from the version we see in the insomniac game. Same sort of circumstances in terms of MJ and potentially age. Serious but also very, very quippy lighthearted.

Disagree that Bendis made Ultimate villains more boring than the originals. He didn’t have the years to put into them. I really like the Osborn/Peter dynamic.

[Mutant God]

Golden Age - The Spider

Silver Age - Peter

Bronze Age - Ben Reilly

Dark Age - Kaine

Modern Age - Miles

Digital Age - Spider-Gwen

[Frontier]

I find Spencer has taken a lot of inspiration from the version we see in the insomniac game. Same sort of circumstances in terms of MJ and potentially age. Serious but also very, very quippy lighthearted.

Not to mention Jonah now has a podcast.

Disagree that Bendis made Ultimate villains more boring than the originals. He didn’t have the years to put into them. I really like the Osborn/Peter dynamic.

Other then Osborn and Ock (and maybe Shocker) he really didn't develop them much, which might be part of it.

[Mister Mets]

There are going to be some interesting consequences to the sliding timeline, but these interpretations are really flawed, especially with attributing editorial decisions to what a character wanted.

There is a complicating factor that after Stan Lee the series was dominated by writers who were a few years older than Gerry Conway, or a few years younger. Conway was born in September 10, 1952. Len Wein, the next Spider-Man writer, was born in June 12, 1948. Marv Wolfman was born in May 13, 1946. Bill Mantlo was born in November 9, 1951. Roger Stern was born in September 17, 1950. Tom Defalco was born in June 26, 1950. Peter David was born in September 23, 1956. JM Dematteis was born in December 15, 1953. Howard Mackie was born in January 22, 1958. J. Michael Straczynski was born in July 17, 1954, making him two years younger than Conway, a guy whose seventh Spider-Man issue touched on social controversies of 1973 with a feminist villain named Man-Killer.



So, I get why someone thinks the pre-One More Day Peter Parker felt like a boomer. He was usually written by baby boomers, and had been about 35 years.

[ironman2978]

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.

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. Of course, Peter was written by people who are considerably older than the characters they were writing(with a few exceptions here or there), as well as what is happening at the time which also affects the writing. Not just with comics, but cartoons and movies too. 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 Halland and the MCU created. It’s just interesting to note differences in personality, living situations and how they act.

As for Ultimate Peter, I feel like it did create a good foundation for other adaptations that had done a better job with the original material, especially Spectacular Spider-Man, but that didn’t mean Bendis did a bad job capturing a younger voice and teenage Peter. 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.