Thoughts On Organic Webbing?

[CosmiComic]

But isn't he stuck being a so-called loser but Marvel avoids changing the status quo? Same reason Reed is "useless"

Also, I don't think Tony was in his 40s when he became Iron man in the comics

[Revolutionary_Jack]

But isn't he stuck being a so-called loser but Marvel avoids changing the status quo?

There are obviously all kinds of Doylist reasons.

Also, I don't think Tony was in his 40s when he became Iron man in the comics

They never gave a specific age but he was definitely not a young man, well past early '30s. In the movies he was about 40 in IM-1 (RDJ was 41 during filming) and the character aged into his 50s until ENDGAME. The story of Tony Stark is a metaphor for a mid-life crisis and that doesn't work unless you have a character reaching what people consider to be the midlife age bracket, the period in time when you look back and feel regrets and make decisions about how you want to spend the rest of your life.

That's specific to Iron Man in a way it isn't for other characters. Reed Richards is the man who has the American Dream (think Talking Heads' ONCE IN A LIFETIME, Reed embodies the lifestyle satirized in that song). Whereas Iron Man is a tragic take on that.

[CosmiComic]

Ok. My main point though it it can be hard to ascribe in-universe characteristics influenced by out-of-universe company politics, in this case peter Parker never progressing or changing because Marvel is obsessed with one image of him

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Ok. My main point though it it can be hard to ascribe in-universe characteristics influenced by out-of-universe company politics, in this case peter Parker never progressing or changing because Marvel is obsessed with one image of him

To be specific, it's the Marvel regime since 2000 obsessed with one image of him. Before that, Peter's character did experience progress and change across comics. When we say "Marvel" that gives an impression that [a]Marvel is a sentient being when it isn't, [b]That it always and at all times had the set idea. Neither is true, different editors/publishers thought differently about Spider-Man from the current regime and new regimes with other ideas will one day come. Maybe someday the character enters public domain in which case it'll be our turn.

But yeah...you hit the nail on the head. A lot of the commentary on Peter attributes external out-of-universe company politics ideas on to the character.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I haven't implied that at all. You're perfectly welcome to quote those particular "assertions" of mine, if you'd like. Otherwise, I think this is simply a case of you assuming things.

Then please elaborate how Peter's scientific genius is redundant while Reed and Tony's are not, even though all three characters have used their genius pretty consistently since the Stan Lee era and none have ever been portrayed as 'couch bum potatoes'.

[marhawkman]

Well that's something that varies per writer. The Four aren't as rich as Iron Man or Charles F. Xavier for that matter, but some have said that the Four earn a lot of money from patents, merchandise and so on. JMS' CIVIL WAR tie-ins had shown Reed Richards making money by selling hero-catching tech to the government (and offering an amazing defense by invoking an Uncle of his who refused to rat out to HUAC and concluding from the backlash he faced that, maybe he should have...Civil War-era Reed was a seriously weird dude).

Reed is widely renowned in-universe as one of the most brilliant scientists in the world. The Baxter Building... is his own private laboratory that occupies an entire skyscraper. It's not entirely known how he gets the money, but apparently at least some of the tech used by SHIELD is designed by Richards.

But yeah Richards is hard core lawful good. Which means being excessively authoritarian, and that's where Pete has issues with him. Richards is also one of the brains behind the Initiative. Training young heroes is good. Forcing young people with powers to be heroes just because they have powers is not so much.....

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Reed is widely renowned in-universe as one of the most brilliant scientists in the world. The Baxter Building... is his own private laboratory that occupies an entire skyscraper. It's not entirely known how he gets the money, but apparently at least some of the tech used by SHIELD is designed by Richards.

Reed is an academic and respected physicist, so class-wise, he's meant to represent upper-middle class affluence. He represents the classic American dream of the mid 20th Century: he has a large automobile, a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, and asks himself well "how did I get here" (my headcanon is that Reed Richards' favorite song is "Once in a Lifetime"). He's WASP.

That makes him a contrast to Victor von Doom who represents the poor Eastern European immigrant who failed to assimilate into America and instead decided to make himself into Reed's bitterest foe, while also adding this subtext in the relationships between Reed and Ben Grimm, with Ben representing the Jewish working-class scrapper transformed into a monstrous being thanks to being involved in Reed's adventures. That probably explains why Reed Richards has always been this problematic character for readers, because the stories and adventures has a subtext of white male entitlement. Jack Kirby named Ben Grimm after his father, Benjamin Kurtzberg (Susan Storm was named after his daughter Susan). His parents were Austrian Jews who emigrated from the Hapsburg era (a time when you had a big multicultural empire in Central-Eastern Europe lorded by a German speaking oligarchy) and the stories about the old country his mother told him inspired the Ruritanian world of Latveria. His father Ben worked in the garment district in terrible conditions without safety and Jack had terrible memories of seeing his father prematurely age and getting sick as a result of that work. And that informs a lot of Kirby's work, his fascination with monsters, and characters fixated on ugliness and so on.

So yeah, fundamentally this is all about class.

[Thundershot]

Nope. That was Miguel’s thing. Doesn’t need to be Peter’s.

[CosmiComic]

To be specific, it's the Marvel regime since 2000 obsessed with one image of him. Before that, Peter's character did experience progress and change across comics. When we say "Marvel" that gives an impression that [a]Marvel is a sentient being when it isn't, [b]That it always and at all times had the set idea. Neither is true, different editors/publishers thought differently about Spider-Man from the current regime and new regimes with other ideas will one day come. Maybe someday the character enters public domain in which case it'll be our turn.

But yeah...you hit the nail on the head. A lot of the commentary on Peter attributes external out-of-universe company politics ideas on to the character.

That's why I think it would be cool to see Peter apply his genius outside of directly fighting street crime, especially in the modern era with all the political debate about crime and how it's depicted. But for that to happen, Marvel would have to detach itself from the predominate image of him as a high schooler/early 20s down on his luck guy. Being stuck in the same position in his world doesn't really help anyone. Of course, the same could be said for many Marvel characters

Reed is an academic and respected physicist, so class-wise, he's meant to represent upper-middle class affluence. He represents the classic American dream of the mid 20th Century: he has a large automobile, a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, and asks himself well "how did I get here" (my headcanon is that Reed Richards' favorite song is "Once in a Lifetime"). He's WASP.

That makes him a contrast to Victor von Doom who represents the poor Eastern European immigrant who failed to assimilate into America and instead decided to make himself into Reed's bitterest foe, while also adding this subtext in the relationships between Reed and Ben Grimm, with Ben representing the Jewish working-class scrapper transformed into a monstrous being thanks to being involved in Reed's adventures. That probably explains why Reed Richards has always been this problematic character for readers, because the stories and adventures has a subtext of white male entitlement. Jack Kirby named Ben Grimm after his father, Benjamin Kurtzberg (Susan Storm was named after his daughter Susan). His parents were Austrian Jews who emigrated from the Hapsburg era (a time when you had a big multicultural empire in Central-Eastern Europe lorded by a German speaking oligarchy) and the stories about the old country his mother told him inspired the Ruritanian world of Latveria. His father Ben worked in the garment district in terrible conditions without safety and Jack had terrible memories of seeing his father prematurely age and getting sick as a result of that work. And that informs a lot of Kirby's work, his fascination with monsters, and characters fixated on ugliness and so on.

So yeah, fundamentally this is all about class.

That's why I've never liked Reed. Still, him being useless is more the fault of Marvel's obsession with the status quo.

[PCN24454]

Reed is an academic and respected physicist, so class-wise, he's meant to represent upper-middle class affluence. He represents the classic American dream of the mid 20th Century: he has a large automobile, a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, and asks himself well "how did I get here" (my headcanon is that Reed Richards' favorite song is "Once in a Lifetime"). He's WASP.

That makes him a contrast to Victor von Doom who represents the poor Eastern European immigrant who failed to assimilate into America and instead decided to make himself into Reed's bitterest foe, while also adding this subtext in the relationships between Reed and Ben Grimm, with Ben representing the Jewish working-class scrapper transformed into a monstrous being thanks to being involved in Reed's adventures. That probably explains why Reed Richards has always been this problematic character for readers, because the stories and adventures has a subtext of white male entitlement. Jack Kirby named Ben Grimm after his father, Benjamin Kurtzberg (Susan Storm was named after his daughter Susan). His parents were Austrian Jews who emigrated from the Hapsburg era (a time when you had a big multicultural empire in Central-Eastern Europe lorded by a German speaking oligarchy) and the stories about the old country his mother told him inspired the Ruritanian world of Latveria. His father Ben worked in the garment district in terrible conditions without safety and Jack had terrible memories of seeing his father prematurely age and getting sick as a result of that work. And that informs a lot of Kirby's work, his fascination with monsters, and characters fixated on ugliness and so on.

So yeah, fundamentally this is all about class.

You mean it's not that he's treated more as a plot device than an actual character? That's surprising.

[blackspidey2099]

And as I said before, isolated instances are not effective uses for these traits. This constantly leaves room for situations where a reader could say, "Why didn't Peter just make a miracle formula to turn the lizard back to human form? Or a formula to cure the Green Goblin's abilities? Or build his own Iron-Spider suit (If Tony Stark can do it in a cave with a box of scraps, I'm sure Peter can do it in his apartment in New York...or just ask Tony or Reed for workspace)?"

The issue with this argument is that.... Peter does all those things literally all the time. The Lizard was initially defeated all the way back in Stan Lee’s run by a teenage Peter coming up with a formula to cure him. In Slott’s run, Ock and Sajani developed a serum which Peter then distributed using his nanotechnology to cure Osborn. And of course, Peter has built like over 5 armoured suits of his own by now. Sure, Lizard got his powers back, Peter stopped using the armoured suits, etc. but that stuff happens with every comic super genius, not just Peter. The entire axiom upon which superhero comics are built upon is the illusion of change. Peter (or any other super genius) creating real and permanent solutions for any problem goes directly against that. That’s why none of these solutions can, or ever will be, permanent. It’s just a limitation of the medium.

I guess I forgot that. That works well too, but I get the feeling Spider-fans seem to be antagonistic towards him working with anyone at all, as if that makes him wek.

I think there’s a difference between working with someone as equal partners vs working with someone and being their lackey. Currently, the MCU is the latter and I (as well as other Spider-Man fans) heavily dislike that. I can’t speak for what anyone else would think, but I wouldn’t have had an issue at all with Peter working alongside Tony (or anyone else) to develop his gear.

I think what some are saying here is everything he does just goes into beating up crooks instead of thinking of other solutions. At least, that's what I'm understanding

I think that’s a fair point, but it also applies to literally every single superhero. I think this is essentially the “Reed Richards is Useless” trope, where all these comic super geniuses invent wonderful devices to fight super villains but never actually use them to help people IRL because that takes away from the magic of the Marvel Universe as “the world outside your window”. Even then, Peter has invented a ton of devices that were used by regular people, such as cryo storage for organ donations, thermal reactive foam for stopping fires, Webware devices for global communication, green energy, etc. It’s just that all of those inventions get ignored once the story that concerns them is done, because it would change the Marvel Universe too much if these inventions were permanent. And as I said, this is hardly a criticism unique to Peter, so you might as well argue that Iron Man should have an organic armour power like Colossus, or Ant-Man should have an organic shrinking power, since neither of those 2 characters ever make real progress or change the world with their inventions either.

[CosmiComic]

I'd like Peter to be more equal to the other heroes too. I just think it's somewhat selfish if heroes don't help each other out. But I don't want Peter to be subordinate to his peerd either

I think that criticism does apply to other heroes. Although in the case of other heroes like Iron Man or even Mr Fantastic, I feel like there's a sense about their scientific achievements affect the world around them outside of just fighting people, although as you said this is just restricted because Marvel is wary of change, unless it's a catastrophic event used to assassinate characters. With Peter his science always seems more restricted, although I could be wrong avout that. I just wonder if using it mostly to fight low level crooks stems from an old fashioned idea of criminals infesting urban areas. That seems to counter Peter's supposed working class appeal

[Snoop Dogg]

i don't know what we're talking about

peter's intelligence should be exceptional but the actual inventor characters shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath, peter has a few concepts and ideas but should typically lack the resources and time to grow in his field, peter's intelligence is used to advance parts of the story like how he deals with problems, it should never really be the story

[Snoop Dogg]

organic webs are nasty btw, only cute when cindy does it

[CosmiComic]

organic webs are nasty btw, only cute when cindy does it

I don't get how that makes sense