Is it time for Spider-Man to "grow up"?

[Chris0013]

Well past time.

[Jman27]

yup he needs to have a stable job get the marriage done and advance his hero career

[vhm74]

Come on Marvel, why are you so scared??? You already have Miles, Gwen and now Bailey...

[Vegan]

No he should be the same forever because that’s clearly what’s healthiest for the narrative as evidenced by the 15 years of mediocre, at best, wheel spinning that’s been going on

[Celgress]

To a certain extent I agree, but more to the point of writing Peter as a mature, responsible, adult rather than needing to see him just be a husband and father (and I say this as a marriage and Mayday fan).

Like I don't need to see Peter raising a baby or child Mayday in 616 (and I don't think writers would handle it well) but I'd like to see him actually be competent and more or less have his @#$% together. And he should be with MJ.

I'd be down with this. My main objection to Modern 616 Peter is he is so immature and incompetent I feel like I'm reading High School Era Peter again (and not in a good way), that aspect needs to go. We have Miles for those early character growth stories. The character of 616 Peter should start progressing again ASAP.

[Vegan]

I'd be down with this. My main objection to Modern 616 Peter is he is so immature and incompetent I feel like I'm reading High School Era Peter again (and not in a good way), that aspect needs to go. We have Miles for those early character growth stories. The character of 616 Peter should start progressing again ASAP.

High school Peter was still more competent and mature than current Peter

[Celgress]

High school Peter was still more competent and mature than current Peter

Hahaha in some ways, yes, he was.

Watching Modern 616 Pete try to do anything right and usually failing miserably is sheer torture...

[Chris0013]

I'd be down with this. My main objection to Modern 616 Peter is he is so immature and incompetent I feel like I'm reading High School Era Peter again (and not in a good way), that aspect needs to go. We have Miles for those early character growth stories. The character of 616 Peter should start progressing again ASAP.

As long as he doesn't loose the humor or what makes Peter Peter. Keep him as he is but improve his employment/family/relationship situations.

[Mister Mets]

Thoughts on the video.

It is the big question for Spider-Man comics.
The base characterization is one of the best in comics. Departing from that too much has major downsides, although this might get to a conflict between people who liked Spider-Man when he was younger, and those who have liked that he has grown and changed in significant ways.
Whether MJ is endgame is also something for Marvel to deal with.
The video is informed, noting the creator controversy and the effects of the Night Gwen Stacy died. And it seems fair to multiple sides in a way that is pretty rare in comic book commentary videos. For much of it, the pro-OMD would agree with her interpretation of their views.
I'm not sure the Dick Grayson comparison works because Spider-Man is so much more important. In the bat-titles Dick Grayson is almost certainly surpassed by Bruce Wayne, the Joker and Catwoman in terms of significance to overall comics (and you could make a case for Commissioner Gordon and Batgirl as surpassing him as well.)
It's an interesting question of whether Peter's trajectory is leading to a natural end, and whether that's a good thing. It is a closing off of stories.
I don't think it's going to be the same types of stories if he's trying to balance family life with being Spider-Man; it's a different story engine rather than a new layer.
I like her realization that many fans aren't paying attention to these arguments, and that she seems interested in hearing multiple perspectives. She's good at this.

[marhawkman]

Part of what made DBZ and later GT and Super so good was that the story moved forwards a lot. You can tell very similar stories with a new character in the same world. It can be similar but interesting. What you can't do is writing the first meeting between two characters more than once. (and, no, DBS Broly doesn't count, he's just not the same character as the original Broly) and that's the sort of mistake Marvel keeps making. you can't erase continuity without wrecking the reasons people paid attention to it. Sure, Toriyama-Sama made Super set in a time period before GT, and the two can't be the same timeline, but, the way Super is written doesn't invalidate GT. In fact it treats certain aspects of GT as inevitabilities despite not following the same story. for example, a major player in GT was Goku's grand-daughter Pan... who gets born in Super the same as before. But is much younger and thus doesn't do as much.... but Pan DOEs demonstrate she's got the potential to grow up in the same way as in GT.

[godisawesome]

He’s already “grown up”; I’d argue that what he is right now is a grown ass man who vacillates between showing his age in a positive way, or acting like a man-child at worst. He’s not a kid anymore, and he’s only a “young man” whenever he’s in the room with someone past 50. If they want him young, I’d say they should make some Spider-Man version of “Legends of the Dark Knight,” with a series that “floats” down the timeline and has ambiguous continuity in case someone goes too far. If they want immaturity, than put him at the age where he’s naturally immature; if they want inexperienced girl trouble, than put him back when he was still getting the hang of dating at all.

Now, I don’t think that the most important, month-to-month “obligatory formula” of Spider-Man would actually be that broken up if he had a daughter with MJ to raise; I actually haven’t mentioned this in the other threads, but my perception of the adventures he had while married was that it was 90% the same as before, and only really subbed out inconsistent dating stories for brief flashes of his home life that were sweet, but not usually defining of the book.

Peter’s home life is a background issue that *does* define the era it’s in, but isn’t as important in the immediate construction of the single issues; his work life and costume life take precedence there, which is part of the reason why a lot of the stories of the period are so legendary even among marriage haters and are easier to see in adaptations. I’d argue this holds true for most young parents in comics, even as rare as they are; Arsenal raising Lian didn’t impede his superhero life either.

…So I honestly think that if they did have him and MJ reconcile and raise a kid, the MO for how to write his new era would be pretty easy; if you know how to make the domestic drama engaging, do so, and if you don’t, then keep his home life on the background… which is honestly advise I would give to a lot of anti-marriage writers anyways since so many suck at writing too **** there anyways.

[Vegan]

He’s already “grown up”; I’d argue that what he is right now is a grown ass man who vacillates between showing his age in a positive way, or acting like a man-child at worst. He’s not a kid anymore, and he’s only a “young man” whenever he’s in the room with someone past 50. If they want him young, I’d say they should make some Spider-Man version of “Legends of the Dark Knight,” with a series that “floats” down the timeline and has ambiguous continuity in case someone goes too far. If they want immaturity, than put him at the age where he’s naturally immature; if they want inexperienced girl trouble, than put him back when he was still getting the hang of dating at all.

Now, I don’t think that the most important, month-to-month “obligatory formula” of Spider-Man would actually be that broken up if he had a daughter with MJ to raise; I actually haven’t mentioned this in the other threads, but my perception of the adventures he had while married was that it was 90% the same as before, and only really subbed out inconsistent dating stories for brief flashes of his home life that were sweet, but not usually defining of the book.

Peter’s home life is a background issue that *does* define the era it’s in, but isn’t as important in the immediate construction of the single issues; his work life and costume life take precedence there, which is part of the reason why a lot of the stories of the period are so legendary even among marriage haters and are easier to see in adaptations. I’d argue this holds true for most young parents in comics, even as rare as they are; Arsenal raising Lian didn’t impede his superhero life either.

…So I honestly think that if they did have him and MJ reconcile and raise a kid, the MO for how to write his new era would be pretty easy; if you know how to make the domestic drama engaging, do so, and if you don’t, then keep his home life on the background… which is honestly advise I would give to a lot of anti-marriage writers anyways since so many suck at writing too **** there anyways.

This is 100% just my baseless conjecture, but my theory on why they don’t just do what you’re saying and have Peter’s character actually progress in the main book and use a LOTDK style book to explore stories of him as a youth, is because the LOTDK book would obviously get clobbered in sales by ASM and they’d have to admit that letting the character grow isn’t actually the narrative poison they’ve been trying to sell it as

[Zeitgeist]

Nah, I don't need comic book characters to grow up along with me.

[Frontier]

This is 100% just my baseless conjecture, but my theory on why they don’t just do what you’re saying and have Peter’s character actually progress in the main book and use a LOTDK style book to explore stories of him as a youth, is because the LOTDK book would obviously get clobbered in sales by ASM and they’d have to admit that letting the character grow isn’t actually the narrative poison they’ve been trying to sell it as

Throwback books don't sell that great these days unless they're World's Finest.

[Vegan]

Throwback books don't sell that great these days unless they're World's Finest.

The JMD minis seem to be selling pretty well. As did PAD’s Symbiote Spidey minis. But yeah as ongoings I do think they peter out pretty fast