Has Spider-Man become Marvel's poor man version of Batman?

[Darthfury78]

The title says it all. Over the years, Spider-Man has grown into the Spider-Family. But consist of Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Silk, and Ayna. The problem is that so many Spider-People has been added over the years. Yet none of them are friends with Peter Parker. The question is why did Marvel decide to add Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales to Earth-616 when they should be in their own respective universe, like Spider-Man 2099? I just do not see the point of adding Miles and Gwen to Marvel-616.

Does anyone here believe that Spider-Man has become the poor man's version of Batman? We have to thank Dan Slott for this, as well as Bendis for bringing Miles Morales to Marvel-616...

[HypnoHustler]

The title says it all. Over the years, Spider-Man has grown into the Spider-Family. But consist of Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Silk, and Ayna. The problem is that so many Spider-People has been added over the years. Yet none of them are friends with Peter Parker. The question is why did Marvel decide to add Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales to Earth-616 when they should be in their own respective universe, like Spider-Man 2099? I just do not see the point of adding Miles and Gwen to Marvel-616.

Does anyone here believe that Spider-Man has become the poor man's version of Batman? We have to thank Dan Slott for this, as well as Bendis for bringing Miles Morales to Marvel-616...

Yes. I’m not sure I’d use that term, but I am also not a fan of the “Spider Family” or Order of the Web, or whatever people want to call it. It’s overdone with Batman as well, but it’s even more jarring with Spidey.

If it were up to me, I’d just keep Ben Reilly, Kaine, 2099 and Miles. I’m not personally a fan of Miles, but I understand how important that character is to some in the fan base. I’m personally a fan of Ben, Kaine and 2099, but I could understand someone wanting to get rid of them too. The others, like NotGwen, Silk, the new Madame Web, Arana, etc. are just awful and useless with very little personality or presence.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Considering that Spider-Man in terms of merchandise makes more than Batman, his PS4 game outsold Arkham City as the bestselling superhero game of all time (even though it's a Platform Exclusive), and that Spider-Man comics continue to sell very well and in the top 10 every month far more consistently than Batman comics have (Tom King's later run sold very poorly and had a really steep drop).

...considering all that, I am not quite sure "poor man's version" makes any sense because it implies Batman to start with is somehow bigger than Spider-Man when evidence suggests the opposite.

Marvel after all is the industry leader in comics sales and it's been that way for a long long time. Spider-Man is their biggest character and that's true for a long long time.

[Snoop Dogg]

A diverse selection of Spider books + bad Venom comics is better than 5 Peter books + bad Venom comics

[Darthfury78]

Yes. I’m not sure I’d use that term, but I am also not a fan of the “Spider Family” or Order of the Web, or whatever people want to call it. It’s overdone with Batman as well, but it’s even more jarring with Spidey.

If it were up to me, I’d just keep Ben Reilly, Kaine, 2099 and Miles. I’m not personally a fan of Miles, but I understand how important that character is to some in the fan base. I’m personally a fan of Ben, Kaine and 2099, but I could understand someone wanting to get rid of them too. The others, like NotGwen, Silk, the new Madame Web, Arana, etc. are just awful and useless with very little personality or presence.

IMO, the best example of a Spider-Family is as follows(because their powers and background are not tied to the radioactive spider that bit him)

1. Julia Carpenter
2. Jessica Drew
3. Kaine Parker
4. Black Widow
5. Peter Parker

I could see them working well together. I feel that Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen belong in their own universe. I never cared for Silk because the character is just a copy of Ultimate Universe Spider-Woman's powers. I really wished that Julia Carpenter and Jessica Drew appeared in Spider-Man's world as often as Black Cat does because I would like to see more character developments between them and Peter Parker in terms of the story.

As of now, Spider-Man is excluded on The Avengers. In addition, I do not see him making a cameo or guest spot in Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Aaron's Avengers where the character would be a great fit to the team's dynamic. Marvel wants to attract readers to CM and Spider-Woman. Yet, they refused to use Spider-Man in their stories as a way of getting more unique readers to the book..

At least, we see Batman on the Justice League, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, and Superman in a cameo and guest spot respectively. I wish that Marvel would do the same with Spider-Man. I can't understand why the writers of Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel, Avengers, and Black Widow won't use Spider-Man in their stories as they have done with Batman.

[Scott Taylor]

Only similar in popularity and in their outcast status. Otherwise, Batman is actually a leader and Spider-Man is not. Its more like the Bat-family and the loose association of Spiders.

[Frontier]

Only similar in popularity and in their outcast status. Otherwise, Batman is actually a leader and Spider-Man is not. Its more like the Bat-family and the loose association of Spiders.

If anything the Spiders are like the polar opposite of the Batfamily where the Batfamily are a tight-knit group of people closely associated with and inspired by Batman while the Spiders are people who are generally independent and only really have shared powers and designs associating them with each other.

It's why attempts to try and make them more like the Batfamily or be closer just come off as hamfisted and clunky.

[Killerbee911]

My head hurts at the logic of this thread, Marvel added Miles and Gwen to 616 therefore Spiderman is trying to be Batman, Even though we have seen Spiderman isn't really taking these characters under his wings as sidekicks. Both characters were designed to be Spiderman main and both still operate that way not subservient to Spiderman. Marvel added Miles and Gwen to the main universe because they want those popular properties where they could be used in the biggest stories.

The premise of the thread makes no sense, Maybe when Spiderman did the Parker Industries thing was a period where you could have thrown out that argument but as everyone can see Marvel clear has path and tone for Spiderman and it is not being Batman-like. Every character that has been popular over the last couple of years has expanded their family of characters. I guess I need to run to the X-men forums and put Marvel is trying to make Wolverine Batman lite because he has a family characters now. So let's do this

Kitty-Nightwing
Daken- Red Hood
Jubliee-Tim Drake
X-23-Damian

It is confirmed ,Marvel trying to make this happen

[Frontier]

My head hurts at the logic of this thread, Marvel added Miles and Gwen to 616 therefore Spiderman is trying to be Batman, Even though we have seen Spiderman really talk these characters under his wings as sidekicks. Both characters were designed to be Spiderman main and both still operate that way not subservient to Spiderman. Marvel added Miles and Gwen to the main universe because they want those popular properties where they could be used in the biggest stories.

Aside from outside media, although we occasionally get adaptions where it's either just Gwen or ITSV where Miles gets to be the lead without any Insomniac hijinks.

Not that it stops Marvel from doing big event stories where all the Spiders show up to basically just job or not really do anything of note. Or Spider-Verse.

The premise of the thread makes no sense, Maybe when Spiderman did the Parker Industries thing was a period where you could have thrown out that argument but as everyone can see Marvel clear has path and tone for Spiderman and it is not being Batman-like. Every character that has been popular over the last couple of year has expanded their family of characters. I guess to run into the X-men forums and put Marvel is trying to make Wolverine Batman lite because he has family characters now. So let's do this

Kitty-Nightwing
Daken- Red Hood
Jubliee-Tim Drake
X-23-Damian

It is confirmed ,Marvel trying to make this happen

There's also Honey Badger, Armor, Amiko...

[Captain Nostalgia]

The title says it all. Over the years, Spider-Man has grown into the Spider-Family. But consist of Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Silk, and Ayna. The problem is that so many Spider-People has been added over the years. Yet none of them are friends with Peter Parker. The question is why did Marvel decide to add Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales to Earth-616 when they should be in their own respective universe, like Spider-Man 2099? I just do not see the point of adding Miles and Gwen to Marvel-616.

Does anyone here believe that Spider-Man has become the poor man's version of Batman? We have to thank Dan Slott for this, as well as Bendis for bringing Miles Morales to Marvel-616...

Outside of the fact that they both have super cool rogues galleries, they don't have a lot in common. Batman is dark gritty and serious, where Spiderman tends to be a fun optimistic college kid.

There are a lot of families in the DCU, (Batman, Arrow Family, Marvel family, Flash family) its a phenomenon I'm not overly fond of because it creates too many clone heroes with the same powers....so I feel your angst.

[CosmiComic]

I honestly don't get the problem with heroes with the same power set in the same "family" I mean, there are a bunch of guys with basically the same power sets that aren't related, so I'm not sure why groups like the Spider-family receive such backlash

[wleakr]

Considering that Spider-Man in terms of merchandise makes more than Batman, his PS4 game outsold Arkham City as the bestselling superhero game of all time (even though it's a Platform Exclusive), and that Spider-Man comics continue to sell very well and in the top 10 every month far more consistently than Batman comics have (Tom King's later run sold very poorly and had a really steep drop).

...considering all that, I am not quite sure "poor man's version" makes any sense because it implies Batman to start with is somehow bigger than Spider-Man when evidence suggests the opposite.

Marvel after all is the industry leader in comics sales and it's been that way for a long long time. Spider-Man is their biggest character and that's true for a long long time.

Batman comic sales has been used as the anchor to determine the top selling comics across all companies for a long time, at least when everything was going through Diamond. Not sure if that's the case currently.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Batman comic sales has been used as the anchor to determine the top selling comics across all companies for a long time, at least when everything was going through Diamond. Not sure if that's the case currently.

You mean the "benchmark" but yeah he used to be. But the X-Men were the defining benchmark in the '80s. And then Immortal Hulk became the benchmark. So Batman's had his highs but he's also had lows lately, and then the Pandemic happened and DC pulled out of Diamond to "go it alone".

Who knows how things are now.

[PCN24454]

The title says it all. Over the years, Spider-Man has grown into the Spider-Family. But consist of Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Silk, and Ayna. The problem is that so many Spider-People has been added over the years. Yet none of them are friends with Peter Parker. The question is why did Marvel decide to add Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales to Earth-616 when they should be in their own respective universe, like Spider-Man 2099? I just do not see the point of adding Miles and Gwen to Marvel-616.

You say this and also ignore the biggest problem with it: he doesn't actually consider them allies which is something that the worst interpretations of Batman always do. Rather than complaining that they're there, why don't we actually add them to Peter's book, so that he can interact with them properly?

[Immortal Hulk]

Considering that Spider-Man in terms of merchandise makes more than Batman, his PS4 game outsold Arkham City as the bestselling superhero game of all time (even though it's a Platform Exclusive), and that Spider-Man comics continue to sell very well and in the top 10 every month far more consistently than Batman comics have (Tom King's later run sold very poorly and had a really steep drop).

...considering all that, I am not quite sure "poor man's version" makes any sense because it implies Batman to start with is somehow bigger than Spider-Man when evidence suggests the opposite.

Marvel after all is the industry leader in comics sales and it's been that way for a long long time. Spider-Man is their biggest character and that's true for a long long time.

Exactly. He's simply too big.