Opinion, Do you perfer to read or watch about High School Peter or Adult Peter?

[Lee]

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).

It's when Gwen and Harry were introduced. They could have introduced new characters to the high school setting at any time. Gwen could have been a transfer student. Harry could have been one of the dozens of unnamed kids in Peter's grade at school. The college setting wasn't necessary for Gwen and Harry to exist.

The change from teenager in high school to teenager in college didn't have too huge of an impact on the premise of the series though. Peter was still young enough for his blunders to be sympathetic, and wasn't entirely in the adult world yet.

[PCN24454]

Spider-Man is episodic since there’s no overarching narrative. No final conflict for him to resolve. No ultimate villain for him to defeat. It’s like Dragon Ball. The villain of one story arc has very little to do with the other.

[Kevinroc]

It's when Gwen and Harry were introduced. They could have introduced new characters to the high school setting at any time. Gwen could have been a transfer student. Harry could have been one of the dozens of unnamed kids in Peter's grade at school. The college setting wasn't necessary for Gwen and Harry to exist.

The change from teenager in high school to teenager in college didn't have too huge of an impact on the premise of the series though. Peter was still young enough for his blunders to be sympathetic, and wasn't entirely in the adult world yet.

Again, claiming the High School era is the "prime" of Spider-Man and having the most important supporting characters (Gwen, Harry, and MJ) introduced during the College Years kind of makes the whole argument a little more muddled, doesn't it? The fact that Ultimate Spider-Man had to transfer them to Peter's High School kind of says that the High School years were not the "prime" of Spider-Man comics.

[PCN24454]

Again, claiming the High School era is the "prime" of Spider-Man and having the most important supporting characters (Gwen, Harry, and MJ) introduced during the College Years kind of makes the whole argument a little more muddled, doesn't it? The fact that Ultimate Spider-Man had to transfer them to Peter's High School kind of says that the High School years were not the "prime" of Spider-Man comics.

I feel like said characters are overrated which is why I like how Spectacular and MCU gave more focus to his OG cast.

[Kevinroc]

I feel like said characters are overrated which is why I like how Spectacular and MCU gave more focus to his OG cast.

Do they really, though?

They give some emphasis, but Spec gives a lot of focus to Gwen and Harry (MJ to a lesser extent, but it was clear she would have become more important had the show continued).

The MCU had Peter go out with Liz, ghost her, and then she was gone (other than as a bonus in NWH). The most important supporting characters are Aunt May, MJ, and Ned (and MCU Ned is more a reworking of Miles' friend Ganke). Everyone else is just kinda there.

[Lee]

Again, claiming the High School era is the "prime" of Spider-Man and having the most important supporting characters (Gwen, Harry, and MJ) introduced during the College Years kind of makes the whole argument a little more muddled, doesn't it? The fact that Ultimate Spider-Man had to transfer them to Peter's High School kind of says that the High School years were not the "prime" of Spider-Man comics.

You're conflating setting with supporting cast. Harry and Gwen could have worked as 17 year olds in a high school setting just as easily as they did 18 year olds in a college setting.

Peter Parker as a teenager in college is a good setting. Peter Parker as a teenager in high school is a better setting.

[PCN24454]

You're conflating setting with supporting cast. Harry and Gwen could have worked as 17 year olds in a high school setting just as easily as they did 18 year olds in a college setting.

Peter Parker as a teenager in college is a good setting. Peter Parker as a teenager in high school is a better setting.

I see what you mean. We don’t have to question what all the supporting characters jobs are if they’re in high school.

[Mister Mets]

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.

One wrinkle here is that the high school stories are reprinted a lot. More readers will check out the first issues than pretty much anything else.

[TinkerSpider]

Spider-Man is episodic since thereÂ’s no overarching narrative. No final conflict for him to resolve. No ultimate villain for him to defeat. ItÂ’s like Dragon Ball. The villain of one story arc has very little to do with the other.

That's not what episodic means in this sense. It's episodic vs. serial.

Episodic stories don't build on each other. Each arc is self-contained and the characters reset to zero at the end. Take the original Law & Order TV series. Each episode is a self-contained story. The continuing characters - the detectives and the lawyers - very rarely remember one case from week to week. They just go to the next case, solve/prosecute it, and then next week rinse and repeat. Every once in a while the audience learns about the characters' personal lives, usually because an actor is about to leave the series, but for the most part a viewer can drop in on almost any episode in the 20-year history and get a complete beginning, middle and end and not need to know any backstory at all.

Classic Archie is episodic storytelling. Golden and Silver Age DC was episodic storytelling. Every time the characters' status quo changed - Lois marries Clark or Lois discovers Clark is Superman - it's an "imaginary story" and the characters are reset at the end to factory settings. Classic sitcoms are mostly episodic: there's a complication of the week, hijinks ensue, complication is solved and in the next episode it's back to square one. Readers/viewers can pick up/watch any issue/episode and get a complete story without needing to know much backstory.

Serial storytelling is where the events build upon one other. Take Breaking Bad, or Succession. Or even the original X-Files, which mixed episodic monster of the week stories with serial mythology stories. Or Bronze Age Spider-Man (or X-Men, or many Marvel comics at the time). Or take the grandparent of them all, soap operas. Soap operas, like comics, are designed to continue indefinitely. But each episode builds upon the previous one.

And I'd argue today audiences don't want episodic entertainment, they want serialized. Television has moved from mostly episodic to mostly serialized, even in sitcoms. Readers look for book series, not one off books. It used to be film sequels weren't as successful as the first movie, because sequels tried to just replicate the same story episode that made the first one successful. The sequels in the past that were successful - The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Godfather II -treated the sequel as part of a serialized continuing story. And now the MCU is building a serialized empire using film and TV to tell one big story.

One wrinkle here is that the high school stories are reprinted a lot. More readers will check out the first issues than pretty much anything else.

Or read up on the history on the internet. There are hundreds of places online to learn more about Spider-Man's (or any comics character's) history.

[Vortex85]

You're conflating setting with supporting cast. Harry and Gwen could have worked as 17 year olds in a high school setting just as easily as they did 18 year olds in a college setting.

Peter Parker as a teenager in college is a good setting. Peter Parker as a teenager in high school is a better setting.

What makes high school better than college? What is it about going to a classroom full of teenagers makes the book so exciting? It can't be that. It can only be because when he is in high school everything is newer, he just became Spider-Man, he is just meeting villains for the first time, he is getting his very first romantic relationships. Well that works well for a few years of stories, but after that, the very thing that makes everything feel so new makes everything feel old and dry. How many battles, dates, etc can a character go through before you don't feel he is new anymore? When will the character get out of high school? When will he be allowed to be experienced? No one stays in high school forever, that is completely unrelatable.

Does anyone really get excited picking up a book about a character who has been around 60 years and seeing him still brand new the game?

Also you argue Spider-Man is a kid's hero? So that's why he works in high school? Does any teen at or past the age or puberty want to be reading the hero written for kids? Sounds like a good way to ensure a hero remains virtually nobody's favorite hero for long...

I'm sorry, but if Spider-Man remained in high school forever he would be doomed to being for kids only, everyone would grow out of him and he would not be one of the world's favorite heroes.

Look if high school Spider-Man is your thing, great! There is pleny of content out there for you. But the only way to make that work for serialized comics if Marvel reboots him every ten years or so into an alternate universe version. Because it's not high school that makes him feel new, it's actually that you are being introduced the character and his world for the first time and that world is new to you early on in the story.

[Lee]

I see what you mean. We don’t have to question what all the supporting characters jobs are if they’re in high school.

The whole Spider-Man premise just works better with a teenager. Not fitting in with his peers, having secrets, an overprotective parent, a turbulent love life, being broke, being misunderstood, playing the clown, screwing up, trying to do the right thing but making his own life more complicated.

With a teenager it's easier to write those kinds of stories and easier to sympathise with Peter.

If those kinds of stories are written with an older Peter Parker, it becomes less sympathetic (see all the posts of people complaining about Peter being "immature", "a loser" and "a man-child").

The other option is to have stories where Peter has a stable life, a good job, has settled down, isn't such a wise-ass, isn't so neurotic, isn't so self-pitying and self-deprecating, isn't screwing up so badly. Essentially completely abandoning the original premise of the series for a watered down, less dramatic version.

[Vortex85]

The whole Spider-Man premise just works better with a teenager. Not fitting in with his peers, having secrets, an overprotective parent, a turbulent love life, being broke, being misunderstood, playing the clown, screwing up, trying to do the right thing but making his own life more complicated.

With a teenager it's easier to write those kinds of stories and easier to sympathise with Peter.

If those kinds of stories are written with an older Peter Parker, it becomes less sympathetic (see all the posts of people complaining about Peter being "immature", "a loser" and "a man-child").

The other option is to have stories where Peter has a stable life, a good job, has settled down, isn't such a wise-ass, isn't so neurotic, isn't so self-pitying and self-deprecating, isn't screwing up so badly. Essentially completely abandoning the original premise of the series for a watered down, less dramatic version.

I think all the things you mentioned about high school “lending itself better to” is more suited to a less experienced hero. The longer a character exists the more ridiculous it is to see them make the same mistakes. Like Batman and the Joker, how long will he let the Joker kill? He is an adult where no time passes but the number of stories about the Joker is the problem. The problem you describe is more about never ending serialized fiction.

The mistake is assuming that a high school setting somehow fixes that.

Adults can make all the mistakes Peter makes, they can have secrets, turbulent love lives, they can be down on their luck, they can be lacking financially, etc. High school is not a magic solution.

[Lee]

I think all the things you mentioned about high school “lending itself better to” is more suited to a less experienced hero. The longer a character exists the more ridiculous it is to see them make the same mistakes. Like Batman and the Joker, how long will he let the Joker kill? He is an adult where no time passes but the number of stories about the Joker is the problem. The problem you describe is more about never ending serialized fiction.

If a reader gets to the point where that bothers them, then they need to just move on and read something else. DC aren't going to end the Batman comics. They're not going to permanently kill off the Joker or any of their most famous characters. Garfield isn't going to start loving Mondays. Elmo isn't going to learn simultaneous equations.

Adults can make all the mistakes Peter makes, they can have secrets, turbulent love lives, they can be down on their luck, they can be lacking financially, etc. High school is not a magic solution.

People on this forum complain about Peter being a "man-child" and "acting like a teenager" on a near daily basis.

[a moment closer]

I prefer stories with adult Peter more, especially family man Peter. I truly appreciate good stories centered around his youth. I watched the animated shows from the '90s and that was the version of Peter I knew. I started reading Amazing in 2008 when Brand New Day started. A friend then introduced me to JMS' infamous run, among other titles, to set me up for reading Civil War. I was reading Peter as a single dude, in which Dan Slott portrayed him as a real loser most of the time. To going back and reading a dark and more serious version of Peter who was very adult and married. Then I read OMD and it all clicked. As soon as the Big Time era started, I was hooked into ASM and all the satellite books of that time. I was then introduced to the younger bright Peter in Ultimate and absolutely loved those stories. But my appreciation really stems from that version of Peter that JMS wrote.

[Vortex85]

If a reader gets to the point where that bothers them, then they need to just move on and read something else. DC aren't going to end the Batman comics. They're not going to permanently kill off the Joker or any of their most famous characters. Garfield isn't going to start loving Mondays. Elmo isn't going to learn simultaneous equations.
People on this forum complain about Peter being a "man-child" and "acting like a teenager" on a near daily basis.

Not a problem with me, I think keeping him in high school introduces more problems than it solves.

“Man-child” was more a problem with Post-OMD writers characterization of Peter as they deliberately seemed to make him act less mature, and have more problems be his own fault compared to any writer in the book before. I’d argue Peter in high school written by Stan was more mature. I had never seen that be a complaint before OMD.