What should the Spider-Man comics be if the Marvel Universe were rebooted?

[CrimsonEchidna]

I kind of use the Insomniac adaptation as kind of a template over what to do to "reboot" Peter. Peter would be a recent college graduate and currently enrolled in grad school, serving as an intern for Doctor Connors.

With Miles, the genie is kind of out of the bottle at this point so he'd be from the same universe. In this reboot I'd actually retweak it that Jeff is retired from the military and Aaron was actually buddies with Hobie Brown and they created the Prowler identity together.

[Blanks]

I kind of use the Insomniac adaptation as kind of a template over what to do to "reboot" Peter. Peter would be a recent college graduate and currently enrolled in grad school, serving as an intern for Doctor Connors.

With Miles, the genie is kind of out of the bottle at this point so he'd be from the same universe. In this reboot I'd actually retweak it that Jeff is retired from the military and Aaron was actually buddies with Hobie Brown and they created the Prowler identity together.

I like. To add to yours, let’s say, Aaron steals the Prowler tech, and Hobie creates the Hornet tech to counter his now former friend whose on the criminal path. That way we can rope another Spidy character into the mix pretty early.

[Spider-Tiger]

There's not much point in rebooting Spider-Man if you're not going to make him a teenager.

A reboot should be a reboot, a clean slate, starting from the beginning. If you start in the middle then you have the baggage of past continuity, just like the current comics. But with the current comics that past continuity is clearly defined and exists as back issues and graphic novels you can purchase.

Rebooting in the middle doesn't give the advantage of a completely clean slate and it doesn't drive sales of past material. It's the worst of both worlds.

616 canon has become so convoluted that I think a reboot would function as a way to clean up the story to make it more accessible to new readers. Given the fact that the Insomniac games and Spiderverse have both been massive successes, and that we'll potentially be getting a live action Miles soon, it makes sense to harken to those status quos for the foreseeable future. It's a familiar status quo for young people that might not be as familiar with the comics.

There's also the fact that (as others have mentioned) the cat is out of the bag with Miles Morales. I doubt Marvel would want to leave his Spider-man out of a reboot lineup. So it makes sense to reposition Miles's origin story as the starting point of a new canon. We already have several Peter Parker origin story continuities.

But you do have a point that not rebooting probably benefits sales of older comic arcs for readers who might want to catch up. (Although I'm not sure if it's to a significant degree since most probably just use a digital subscription for new and old comics as opposed to purchasing physical trades.)

[KurtW95]

Putting Miles back in the Ultimate Universe benefits everyone. He would be the only Spider-Man there. Readers can call him Ultimate Spider-Man the way they call Miguel Spider-Man 2099. And Miguel should be in 2099. And either of them can visit through inter dimensional gateways. But Peter should be the only guy using the Spider-Man name in 616.

[Toxin45]

Putting Miles back in the Ultimate Universe benefits everyone. He would be the only Spider-Man there. Readers can call him Ultimate Spider-Man the way they call Miguel Spider-Man 2099. And Miguel should be in 2099. And either of them can visit through inter dimensional gateways. But Peter should be the only guy using the Spider-Man name in 616.

Then we have 616 miles as ultimatum

[KurtW95]

And a full reboot would be a very bad idea because you don't want to lose the Lee, Ditko, and Romita stories. As I said, the recents Spidey stories can go. And the ones between classic and recent can be assumed canon apart from the parts that conflict with whatever change like OMD did

[clonegeek]

And a full reboot would be a very bad idea because you don't want to lose the Lee, Ditko, and Romita stories. As I said, the recents Spidey stories can go. And the ones between classic and recent can be assumed canon apart from the parts that conflict with whatever change like OMD did

You can dump the last 15 or so years

[Blanks]

Maybe, Marvel could do a downsize on the 616 publishing in favor a new line.

Let’s say, just publish 5 key books in 616, with their legacy branding and name, Amazing Spider-man, Uncanny X-Men, an avengers book, FF4. Let the key faces of several franchises star in those books and guest star, and keep the old 616 line ongoing, and let it naturally evolve.

A new publishing branch, like the new Ultimate line, can be the static, idea house where new ideas are pumped out but the characters never truly evolve (kinda like Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and all those characters from the Archie Comics line). Keep Peter college aged, introduce him like say, how the TAS Spider-Man did. We got his origin story stretched out in a few flashbacks in the early episodes regarding uncle Ben. Young college aged Peter, rebrand Miles as Spider-boy, don’t kill off Gwen (heck, make her younger and let her be Miles’s love interest with no connection to Peter at all), and rewrite/reconnect some key Spidy villains to each other, like how TAS series did.

To me, TAS Spider-Man did everything right when taking and adapting the old source material and making it new and fresh.

[Toxin45]

Maybe, Marvel could do a downsize on the 616 publishing in favor a new line.

Let’s say, just publish 5 key books inn 616, with their legacy branding and name, Amazing Spider-man, Uncanny X-Men, an avengers book, FF4. Let the key faces of several franchises star in those books and guest star, and keep the old 616 line ongoing, and let it naturally evolve.

A new publishing branch, like the new Ultimate line, can be the static, idea house where new ideas are pumped out by the characters never truly evolve. Keep Peter college aged, introduce him like say, how the TAS Spider-Man did. We got his origin story stretched out in a few flashbacks in the early episodes regarding uncle Ben. Young college aged Peter, rebrand Miles as Spider-boy, don’t kill off Gwen (heck, make her younger and let her be Miles’s love interest with no connection to Peter at all), and rewrite/reconnect some key Spidy villains to each other, like how TAS series did.

To me, TAS Spider-Man did everything right when taking and adapting the old source material and making it new and fresh.

Add in 616 mayday Parker based on the spider verse movie too along with her supporting cast and rogues gallery from mc2 just make them into elementary kids.

[Blanks]

Add in 616 mayday Parker based on the spider verse movie too along with her supporting cast and rogues gallery from mc2 just make them into elementary kids.

That would appease the fans of married Peter/MJ and fans of Mayday. To me, I’m more invested in Ben Reilly and Miles moreso than 616 Peter these days, but for those fans who love/want/demand it, why not?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Even putting aside the issue of how it affects Miles, it still seems like a bad idea. For one, the Stan Lee era was lightning in a bottle. How do you replicate that? Second of all... Ultimate and most of the adaptations tried to do exactly this. Ultimate, Marvel Adventures, Raimi, Spectacular, Webb, MCU and the Disney shows were all reboots of a young teen Peter - they were just done in a different medium. So a comics reboot would not only have to compete with the Stan Lee run, but with all of those too. And that's not only a high bar, but redundant and unnecessary. What would even be the point in trying it?

If they were going to do this, it should've been done in the late 90's/early 2000's. The ship has sailed.

[Tuck]

What would even be the point in trying it?

It untangles continuity and opens up the possibility of a more polished "second draft". Long-term plot lines could be planned out more intentionally, a more realistic representation of 21st century NYC could be woven into the book's history.


Plenty of benefits.

[Daibhidh]

Webb doesn't feel like a young teen Peter - and he's graduated at the start of the second film; Raimi moves out of school half way through the first film.
Despite the number of adaptations that make it work, school boy Peter is not the default state. I think Bendis was the first person to write schoolboy Peter as a status quo and it was feeling out of momentum by the end.
Spectacular makes it work, but it wasn't intended to be the permanent status quo, and even there it has to bring in Connors' lab which feels more post-school. Homecoming makes it work; the other MCU films before No Way Home don't, and as of No Way Home he's no longer at school. Spider-man Loves Mary Jane and Marvel Adventures worked for what they are.

If I had to pick a status quo for Peter it would be doing postgraduate degree work in his early to mid-twenties. (That's younger than average to be married but hardly outrageously so.)

[Spider-Tiger]

Even putting aside the issue of how it affects Miles, it still seems like a bad idea. For one, the Stan Lee era was lightning in a bottle. How do you replicate that? Second of all... Ultimate and most of the adaptations tried to do exactly this. Ultimate, Marvel Adventures, Raimi, Spectacular, Webb, MCU and the Disney shows were all reboots of a young teen Peter - they were just done in a different medium. So a comics reboot would not only have to compete with the Stan Lee run, but with all of those too. And that's not only a high bar, but redundant and unnecessary. What would even be the point in trying it?

If they were going to do this, it should've been done in the late 90's/early 2000's. The ship has sailed.

The biggest problem with a reboot is that a huge chunk of the current market are those older collectors and readers that are very much invested in "continuing" the legacy of those Lee/Ditko/Romita stories. I would imagine that many of them would jump ship if a hard reboot were to happen. (DC began reboots when comics weren't as much a niche collector market.) So they'd have to phase in a new continuity or be willing to take some losses. But as long as the main Amazing still exists, it would be an uphill battle to get readers to buy into an alternate story. (Ultimate was an anomaly.)

They'd have to get a top notch creative team together with a really strong story direction who can stay on the book(s) for some time to lay a foundation. The quality of the current Amazing run would absolutely not fly if it were part of a replacement canon. Neither would the Byrne origin, Spidey, Marvel Adventures, etc.

I think it's possible to pull off, but not probable. Especially, under current editorial and the same writers of the last two decades. And if it were to happen, I'd like to see it approached differently than all of the other Spider-man comic reboots. Insomniac really laid an interesting groundwork.

[Tuck]

Ultimate outsold 616 Spider books for a good while.

The issue is commitment. They committed to Ultimate in a way they didn't to something like Spidey.