Not at all, seeing the character grow is one of the best things about the Spider-Man mythos as a whole, saying he ended up as an adult so he should have just started that way, ruins it and makes you appreciate him as an adult less, likewise saying he started as a teen so he should have always stayed that way ruins it and makes the mythos static and boring, never able to dive into more adult drama and issues fans have come to love.
Imagine saying Goku in Drgaon Ball became an adult super saiyan so he should have just started that way… no way! People love the original series with him as a kid, watching him grow, go on adventures, and get stronger, and the fact that his story was shown makes you appreciate the current adult stories more. Trying to put him back as a kid because he started that way, or trying to say he should have always been adult is very reductive and makes it less special.
If you think about it, now we have a whole range of Spider-Man stories that can be told, like Peter’s high school years were originally only 28 issues, so you can always go back with untold tales, or high school era mini-series or Ultimate style realities and tell more high school stories. Same with college, or adult stories, etc, none or wrong or invalid for Spider-Man because his story covers more ground and allows for it.
Last edited by Vortex85; 01-23-2022 at 07:12 AM.
That never bothered me at all, not reading comics in order, or not knowing what the future holds, I actually have more fun seeing point A and point B and then following the journey to see how a character got there. Again what first excited me the most about Spider-Man as a new reader in the 90s was seeing the current married Spider-Man in his mid 20s and seeing the classic Stan Lee reprints as a teen and Stern era megazine reprints as a young single adult and getting the realization that there was a journey to follow by getting into this character and I wanted to know what that was and how his story played out.
Edit: Now that I think about it, that's exactly why I got into watching Dragon Ball too, they had DBZ on the TV in the afternoon with adult SSJ3 Goku followed by original DB with kid Goku, and I saw that this character had a huge journey with hundreds of episodes and I found and watched all the episodes and became a fan based on wanting to know that journey.
Last edited by Vortex85; 01-23-2022 at 09:16 AM.
If you started reading comics when Peter was already a married adult, then you didn't see him grow. He was already grown when you met him.
That's one of the problems, only one generation of readers gets to see that growth. Newer generations of readers would have to read hundreds of back issues that are far removed from today's sensibilities in order to see Peter grow older.
I agree. Amazing Spider-Man was a hit comic right out the gate. The readers in 1963 had no way of knowing the character would ever be aged up. To imply that kids reading it in 1963 didn't like the teenage Spider-Man and only read it in anticipation of him becoming an adult with a wife and a mortgage is absurd.
The same applies to Ultimate Spider-Man. People read it because they liked it. I can't imagine many people reading it were thinking "I don't enjoy these stories about a teenage Spider-Man, but it'll get good with issue 500 when he becomes an adult".
That's a weird flex, to think people stop growing and learning once they pass puberty. Hope you don't think that's true of your own life.
The reason why people write high school stories is not because growth is over, but because high school is coming of age. It's about firsts: first love, first kiss, first sexual relationship, first break-up, first job, first step into an adult world and being responsible for one's actions instead of leaning on one's parental figures or guardians.
The problem is you can only, by definition, have one first.
Let's say Peter has been high school all along. How can any audience truly suspend disbelief when Peter meets the Green Goblin for the 25th time and he's still only a sophomore?! Do they have a standing appointment every other weekend?! And either Peter doesn't learn from each encounter, to keep the naive high school sophomore schtik going, or he does learn and then doesn't act like a 15 year old any more because he's been exposed to so much and seen so much.
This was the issue with Ultimate - sure, Bendis had other reasons for killing Peter but it was made easier by the fact Peter had seen and done and experienced so much, it was getting harder and harder to buy he was only a high school junior - and that's with highly decompressed storytelling. And while high schools are hotbeds of melodrama, there are only so many times Peter and MJ could break up, date other people, get back together again, break up, date other people, etc. and still only be in their sophomore/junior year.
The only way high school stories can work over a long period of time is to be episodic, like classic Archie, in which the stories are self-contained and everyone resets to zero at the end of each arc.
Of course, now Archie is finally culturally relevant again because in Life with Archie - and the Riverdale TV series - they've adopted serial storytelling in which the characters grow... (under the auspices of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who is a fan of married Peter and MJ).
I did the same thing. In fact, I picked up Spider-Man precisely BECAUSE he was married. I thought that was unique and cool and I wanted to see how they handled it in the books. I was a comic book snob previously - thought they were childish, low brow, and inconsequential. Then my first issue was by J.M. DeMatteis and I never looked back. I've given Marvel (and DC and others) thousands and thousands of dollars since then.
Last edited by TinkerSpider; 01-23-2022 at 12:13 PM.
I think you kinda illustrate my problem with Adult Spider-Man: where does he go from there? Even if he’s gonna get married and have kids, he’s not going to grow up or mature. His life will be stalled because people don’t actually want him to age up. If that’s the case, then what’s the difference between adult Spider-Man and teenage Spider-Man. He’s still someone not allowed to do things.
I disagree. I think it's better for Spider-Man to be a teenager forever than it is for Spider-Man to start off as a teenager and then become a 20-something forever.
Most new readers are going to start with a contemporary Spider-Man comic and move forward. Only a tiny, tiny minority are going to go back to the very beginning and read every single issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up, Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man from 1962 to 1987, to see Peter's journey from high school student to married man.
It's better for the Spider-Man comics to always be in their prime, not past their prime, where the good stuff has already happened.
Last edited by Lee; 01-23-2022 at 12:35 PM.
There is a bit more flexibility with an adult Spider-Man.
A vague amount of time can pass, whereas in high school it'll be obvious that all the adventures have occurred in a three year period.
With an adult Spider-Man, you can do soft resets and try to pretend it's been 10-12 years after the events of Fantastic Four #1.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
The strip mostly employed episodic storytelling, not serial - which is why Stan wanted to marry Peter and MJ, because he was tired of the same old single Peter episodic stories and thought a chanage in status quo would open new stories for him. Peter and MJ's relationship was a key part for why the strip was fun - and why Stan, after breaking them up so the strip would mirror the comics after OMD, quickly depicted them as married again. And there was change - MJ became a B-movie star, for just one example.
I'm also confused about your argument. If stories can only be judged by the characters growing from teenager to adult - then A) how do you keep the story going after the character actually, y'know, grows into an adult? and B) if you don't like stories stuck in the status quo, then why do you appear to be arguing for Peter to remain forever in high school which is, y'know, keeping him stuck in a status quo?
An adult can do a LOT more things than a teenager can.
In fact, one of the most disappointing things about Slott's run is that he had awesome ideas for change in Peter's life. Superior, Spider-Verse, Parker Industries - those all could have been amazing stories about how Peter learns and grows as an adult and as a leader with impacts on his personal relationships (and then Peter messes up somewhere else because, Parker luck) but Slott insisted on writing Peter as a perpectual man-child stuck mentally at 12 and all that story potential was shamefully wasted.
Last edited by TinkerSpider; 01-23-2022 at 01:08 PM.
By this logic, the prime would be the college years. That's when the most significant characters of the supporting cast were introduced. And even the most memorable stories from Stan Lee's run took place ("If This Be My Destiny" didn't take place during the High School issues).
Last edited by Kevinroc; 01-23-2022 at 01:20 PM.
I feel like one of the only people who likes both.
Doctor Strange: "You are the right person to replace Logan."
X-23: "I know there are people who disapprove... Guys on the Internet mainly."
(All-New Wolverine #4)