Does Spider-Man Work Better With Or Without The Shared Universe?

[David Walton]

They did the Illuminati thing where Tony and Reed and others form a think tank and were totally insufferable, lol.



Agreed.



Well The Punisher is one character who always fits oddly in the Marvel Universe, and represents a pivot where it breaks down.
-- The Punisher killing criminals or bad guys makes any story where Wilson Fisk has to walk out alive hard to explain. If Frank Castle murders gangsters and crime lords by the dozens, why is Fisk still breathing? That explanation isn't needed for guys who can dodge bullets or have tech or powers that help them survive such stuff, like I get why The Punisher doesn't kill Doctor Doom for instance. But Fisk makes no sense as to why he's alive?
-- The Punisher killing his bad guys also makes Spider-Man and Daredevil and Captain America and other "no-kill heroes" feel ineffective or hypocritical. Like if Spider-Man doesn't shut down Castle and send him to jail, and basically lets him roam about then tacitly he's condoning Castle's vigilantism. That goes for Daredevil and other Marvel heroes. Now of course this applies to others (Wolverine, Venom) so it's par for the course but the Punisher makes it egregious imo.

Having said all this, I feel Castle/Punisher makes best sense as a villain and foil for Marvel heroes in the Shared Universe than he would in a solo universe by himself. Like Punisher MAX or other serious Punisher bleakfests is more realistic, putatively, but it's also more offensive and disingenuous in having a gun-toting gun-bearing nutjob declare a one-man war on crime. Punisher works best as a foil for heroes but not as a protagonist. Especially his scenes with Dardevil in SEASON 2 of the Netflix Show.

Yeah, I feel like Frank Castle would not spend five minutes outside a prison cell before DD or Spidey give him the most humiliating beatdown possible and send him back.

But I don't know, the world we live in now Frank would probably avoid a prison sentence and run for office.

[Lukmendes]

I think it's a fair question to ask if most characters would benefit from not being in a shared universe.

A-listers and to a certain extent, B-listers will be fine either way, their own stuff will be good enough to keep going.

C-listers would get screwed over, 'cause stuff like team comics is what keeps them around.

Some characters would be diminished more than others.

Fantastic Four for instance would be diluted without their connections to the wider Marvel Universe. Like Doctor Doom loses a lot if he's not the guy who's been in the face of every do-gooder under the sun. Having said that there are still great stories you can do just by themselves, like "This Man this Monster" and certainly The Galactus Trilogy will lose much, if it's not just the Four by themselves facing him by themselves (as the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy which made it this dull long padded out event proves). And with Doom there are great stories with him versus the Four. It's just that his very greatest stories -- Triumph and Torment, Secret Wars, Emperor Doom -- has him outside the Four among the wider Marvel Universe.

I would say F4 get hurt by being in a shared universe, 'cause all of the wacky stuff that was created on their comics can be used by other characters, so stuff like Galactus not being someone only they deal with ends up making F4 less special.

And sure, you can say this about Avengers and X-Men too, problem is, F4's characters are much more boring, so if the weird **** they deal with isn't exclusive and a team of more interesting characters can deal with those same things too, well, that hurts F4 lol.

I would argue Daredevil is another character who would work okay without the wider Marvel Universe. People will bring up how Kingpin comes from Spider-Man but please be real. Kingpin was a minor Spider-Man villain until Daredevil and he's now a full-time permanent DD villain.

Even though Fisk is a bigger Daredevil villain than a Spidey one, Matt still benefitted from a shared universe by stealing one of Spidey's rogues

EDIT: Before then, if I remember correctly, Tony didn't even feature in the original Secret Wars. I believe it was still James Rhodes under the armor then...

That it was.

Anyways, I'd say Spidey works better as standalone about 90% of the times, with his own stuff being used, but teaming up with other heroes, and fighting other villains (Nothing stops the Juggernaut being the most known example), is fine too, so yeah, him mostly being isolated but once in a while interacting with someone else, or fighting someone else, is fine.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Yeah, I feel like Frank Castle would not spend five minutes outside a prison cell before DD or Spidey give him the most humiliating beatdown possible and send him back.

Right. I mean in Zdarsky, you have Matt accidentally kill someone and Spider-Man comes in and reads him the riot act and Matt is a good enough Catholic to not go "what about Punisher" but as a reader we should totally asking "what about Punisher though?"

But I don't know, the world we live in now Frank would probably avoid a prison sentence and run for office.

Lol. He would also likely keep bumping into other militiamen because his hoarding of guns and stuff (which needs storage, inventory, update, maintenance) would attract attention and the kind who'd keep his secret would be militia.

I would say F4 get hurt by being in a shared universe, 'cause all of the wacky stuff that was created on their comics can be used by other characters, so stuff like Galactus not being someone only they deal with ends up making F4 less special.

And sure, you can say this about Avengers and X-Men too, problem is, F4's characters are much more boring, so if the weird **** they deal with isn't exclusive and a team of more interesting characters can deal with those same things too, well, that hurts F4 lol.

I think the F4 still work fine by themselves with the right writer (i.e. Hickman). It's true that Doom is now Marvel-wide, Annihilus is Cosmic, Kang is Multiverse, Galactus is Cosmic-Marvel and so on but the F4 are still the first point of contact.

Galactus has never had a bigger story than the one he made his debut in.

[Lukmendes]

Right. I mean in Zdarsky, you have Matt accidentally kill someone and Spider-Man comes in and reads him the riot act and Matt is a good enough Catholic to not go "what about Punisher" but as a reader we should totally asking "what about Punisher though?"

Specially considering that on the issue right before Spidey talks with Matt, Punisher showed up to congratulate Matt on his first kill, so the reader has an even higher chance to think "Wait, but Punisher..." lol.

Sure you can excuse this on Spidey and Daredevil being actually friends and Spidey worrying about him, and wanting to prevent Daredevil screwing up more, but still Spidey should go after Punisher and beat him up like the serial killer he is.

I think the F4 still work fine by themselves with the right writer (i.e. Hickman). It's true that Doom is now Marvel-wide, Annihilus is Cosmic, Kang is Multiverse, Galactus is Cosmic-Marvel and so on but the F4 are still the first point of contact.

Galactus has never had a bigger story than the one he made his debut in.

They're the "first point of contact", but fact that other characters can use those villains and locations can hurt F4 more than usual 'cause the main characters themselves aren't that interesting.

Spidey sharing his villains isn't as much of a problem, Spidey himself is a pretty good character with a nice supporting cast, F4 are kinda the opposite, so again, not having exclusivity to what they deal with can hurt them more, so a shared universe can have disadvantages like this too.

[TheCape]

Specially considering that on the issue right before Spidey talks with Matt, Punisher showed up to congratulate Matt on his first kill, so the reader has an even higher chance to think "Wait, but Punisher..." lol.

Sure you can excuse this on Spidey and Daredevil being actually friends and Spidey worrying about him, and wanting to prevent Daredevil screwing up more, but still Spidey should go after Punisher and beat him up like the serial killer he is.

There was one time that Peter tried to hunt down Castle and it was in Punisher book (Punisher War Zone by Greg Rucka), because Frank used one of his web shooters to kill somebody. He failed, but Punisher was still captured later, of course i'm pretty sure than that was ignored when his next solo came out, but it was a nice read (actually if you don't mind violent anti-heroes, Punisher's Rucka is good).

[Spiderfan001]

There was one time that Peter tried to hunt down Castle and it was in Punisher book (Punisher War Zone by Greg Rucka), because Frank used one of his web shooters to kill somebody. He failed, but Punisher was still captured later, of course i'm pretty sure than that was ignored when his next solo came out, but it was a nice read (actually if you don't mind violent anti-heroes, Punisher's Rucka is good).

It was PIS but yeah.He owned Frank w/ both word and in the fight but then he pulls a flashbang and then gone LMAO.Spider-sense didn't even go off.....

[TheCape]

It was PIS but yeah.He owned Frank w/ both word and in the fight but then he pulls a flashbang and then gone LMAO.Spider-sense didn't even go off.....

Spider-sense is super inconsistent and there are some writers that were really bad with it (like Conway), so i can forgive that one.

[Lukmendes]

There was one time that Peter tried to hunt down Castle and it was in Punisher book (Punisher War Zone by Greg Rucka), because Frank used one of his web shooters to kill somebody. He failed, but Punisher was still captured later, of course i'm pretty sure than that was ignored when his next solo came out, but it was a nice read (actually if you don't mind violent anti-heroes, Punisher's Rucka is good).

As long as there's more to the character than just being a gun happy *******, I can have fun with it.

Spider-sense is super inconsistent and there are some writers that were really bad with it (like Conway), so i can forgive that one.

Conway in ASM#114 had aunt May knocking Spidey with a vase lol.

At the very least, Conway made a plot point that Spider-sense doesn't warn him of people he doesn't consider a danger, which's why Jackal managed to sneak up on him (As nonsensical at that is), but then we have the other issue of an old lady with a vase knocking down Spidey lol.

[TheCape]

As long as there's more to the character than just being a gun happy *******, I can have fun with it.



Conway in ASM#114 had aunt May knocking Spidey with a vase lol.

At the very least, Conway made a plot point that Spider-sense doesn't warn him of people he doesn't consider a danger, which's why Jackal managed to sneak up on him (As nonsensical at that is), but then we have the other issue of an old lady with a vase knocking down Spidey lol.

The run is a lot about how you much you have to dehumanize yourself in order to be like Frank and how disturbing that is, he even has to deal with seeing someone going throught the same transformation that he did and while he never says it out loud, is very clear that seeing that from an outside perspective shocks him.

Lol, i remember that scene, it also involved that weird plot with Doc Ock and May inheriting a nuclear plant. I think that Conway actually admitted that he was very bad with the spider-sense and it was really difficult to write around it.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

They did the Illuminati thing where Tony and Reed and others form a think tank and were totally insufferable, lol.

They were absolutely insufferable lol. That idea needs to die.

Even there, they had no deep or interesting relationship (part of why it was insufferable).

Well The Punisher is one character who always fits oddly in the Marvel Universe, and represents a pivot where it breaks down.
-- The Punisher killing criminals or bad guys makes any story where Wilson Fisk has to walk out alive hard to explain. If Frank Castle murders gangsters and crime lords by the dozens, why is Fisk still breathing? That explanation isn't needed for guys who can dodge bullets or have tech or powers that help them survive such stuff, like I get why The Punisher doesn't kill Doctor Doom for instance. But Fisk makes no sense as to why he's alive?
-- The Punisher killing his bad guys also makes Spider-Man and Daredevil and Captain America and other "no-kill heroes" feel ineffective or hypocritical. Like if Spider-Man doesn't shut down Castle and send him to jail, and basically lets him roam about then tacitly he's condoning Castle's vigilantism. That goes for Daredevil and other Marvel heroes. Now of course this applies to others (Wolverine, Venom) so it's par for the course but the Punisher makes it egregious imo.

Having said all this, I feel Castle/Punisher makes best sense as a villain and foil for Marvel heroes in the Shared Universe than he would in a solo universe by himself. Like Punisher MAX or other serious Punisher bleakfests is more realistic, putatively, but it's also more offensive and disingenuous in having a gun-toting gun-bearing nutjob declare a one-man war on crime. Punisher works best as a foil for heroes but not as a protagonist. Especially his scenes with Dardevil in SEASON 2 of the Netflix Show.

I do think Punisher works better as a villain in the MU, partocularly in Daredevil stories which is how he is kinda treated there anyway. As for how Kingpin is alive, I think the the same can be said about Joker and Jason Todd.

[Lukmendes]

The run is a lot about how you much you have to dehumanize yourself in order to be like Frank and how disturbing that is, he even has to deal with seeing someone going throught the same transformation that he did and while he never says it out loud, is very clear that seeing that from an outside perspective shocks him.

Sounds nice.

Lol, i remember that scene, it also involved that weird plot with Doc Ock and May inheriting a nuclear plant.

The story had some gang war between Otto and Hammerhead, was happening because Fisk is out of the picture, saw nothing about power plants.

Might've happened later though.

I think that Conway actually admitted that he was very bad with the spider-sense and it was really difficult to write around it.

Yeah Spider-Sense can be really broken or useless lol.

Conway, I remember seeing someone talking about how Spidey got a bad habit of ignoring it under him, scenes where it warns him about something, Spidey finds nothing, then leaves thinking he was just being paranoid, would really suck if so lol.