Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
Either case, the fact is that Marvel themselves have chosen the hill that "teenage" means high school/classwork and so on. You can see it by Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, the Marvel Spider-Man cartoons of the last decade, the MCU Spider-Man. Lee-Ditko's Spider-Man is less "teenage" than that, evidenced by the fact that Jonah and Betty have far more diminished roles in those versions than before.

Marvel's misinterpretations however limiting it is (not to mention condescending) has had real-time effects for some 20 years now and it's impossible to ignore or get past that when considering the question because Marvel bet the bank that their idea of teenage Spider-Man was at the heart of the Lee-Ditko era and if you look at it closely that's just not true. If you look at the Lee-Ditko run and break it down it's not in the least bit surprising the character grew up not only by the end of the run but continued to do so long after that. There wasn't any break between Ditko and the later writers in that respect.
Like I said, I don't know if Lee/Ditko Betty is a good example since that's the only teenage Betty pre-MCU. It's not believable for a working-class 16-year old with no connections to get a job as a secretary at The Bugle anymore. Not if we're supposed to take The Bugle as a serious, not-ghetto newspaper, which we need to for the libel against Spidey to work. So future versions that featured a high school Peter pretty much had to age Betty up and give her a diminished role for that reason (or in the case of the MCU, they kept her a teen but removed her from The Bugle... most other versions don't feel the need to keep her a teen because Peter has had far more interesting romantic interests than Betty). And once Betty is no longer a romantic option, Peter has less incentive to always be at The Bugle besides going in to drop his pictures and get his cheque.

Even in 616, Peter starts spending less time there and around Jameson once he is in college and no longer dating Betty (and also cuz less villains are attacking the Bugle post-Lee/Ditko, but I digress). Yeah, they're still there, but not like before where it was almost the main set.


That's true. The thing about Peter Parker is that he was a working-class superhero and a teenage superhero and both at the same time and Ditko emphasized both aspects. The more recent takes which emphasizes the "teenage" aspect downplays the working-class aspects to the point of it being non-existent.
Agreed. Although I don't think MCU Spider-Man and Disney XD Spider-Man "overemphasize" the teenage aspect as much as they're caricatures of what a teen is. Real teenagers would relate more to Lee/Ditko Peter, Ultimate Peter, and Spectacular Peter because they feel more like real people. At least I know I did.