Is general audiences are ready to accept adult Peter Parker?

[primenumber101]

This is question I want to ask for a quite some time, but never got a chance to ask it.

What I mean for general audiences is basically people who know Spider-Man through medias such as Movies, Games, or Animation, but never regularly read Spider-Man comics or does not have familiar knowledge with Comic Spider-Man lore.

Maybe it just me, but starting with 2010s, some of the media related to Spider-Man started to feature Peter Parker as an adult who already has long experience as Spider-Man, instead of typical teenager who is fresh to whole superhero thing.

Notable examples I can think are:


* Insomniac's Spider-Man depicts Peter Parker as 24 years old young adult veteran superhero who was recently graduated from college and working in Octavius Industry as an intern. And with Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man in the game, Peter became an older mentor for Miles in superhero business.

* Sony's Spider-verse series where we have 27 years old Peter Parker from Earth-1610B who was married to Mary Jane Waston and was prime of his time having success in both Superhero and personal life. While he met his end by Kingpin, his sacrifice has motivated Miles Morales to pick up his mantle and carry on his legacy. We also have 37 years old Peter B Parker from Earth-616B who was having mid-life crisis due to burning out from his superhero work and stress he was having due his turmoil life. However, his adventure with multiverse has helped him to rebuild his life, with in Across the Spider-Verse shows that he reconciled with his wife and have a daughter who he loves greatly.

* We also have No Way Home, which shows return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their respective incarnation of Spider-Man who are much older than their last film. Tobey Maguire version of Peter Parker (Peter-2) is oldest one, roughly around 43 years old, who manage to balance his life as superhero and normal civilian. Andrew Garfield version of Peter Parker (Peter-3)
is a second oldest, roughly around 28 to 32 years old, was suffering from his past mistake but able to move on thanks to his adventure with his other counterparts. Even the movie can be view as Tom Holland's Peter Parker (Peter-1)'s coming of age story with him having a fresh new start without any connection to his former life, especially connection with Tony Stark.

Any thought about this? Is general audiences are ready to accept adult Peter Parker?

[Jman27]

general audience already accepted an adult Peter Parker with the 90s Spiderman

[Venomsaurus]

I mean, we already had an adult Peter for decade, I'd say it's more is MARVEL ready for it? Because everyone else sure seems to be cool with it.

[Hoodj]

Peter's accepted no matter what? And there's the problem, he's locked in a permanent position as a logo for the series and can't be truly replaced, as long as his character sales media.

[Mister Mets]

general audience already accepted an adult Peter Parker with the 90s Spiderman

Wasn't he a college student there?

From the perspective of younger viewers, he seems more like a cool older brother than their dad. That's a key distinction.

[Jman27]

Wasn't he a college student there?

From the perspective of younger viewers, he seems more like a cool older brother than their dad. That's a key distinction.

he was still an adult though.

[Garlador]

I accepted an adult Peter in the 70s.

Filing his taxes, working a job, paying bills, affording rent money, thinking about marriage and kids… that was him in the book over 40 years ago.

[Mister Mets]

he was still an adult though.

I think the general context about wanting Peter to be an adult isn't about a Peter Parker years younger than the one we currently have in Amazing Spider-Man?

There is a stage at a person's life (typically at 35 or so) when the vast majority of their major life decisions (where they'll live, what career they'll have, who they'll marry, whether they'll have children, whether they'll have a large family, etc.) have been made. Some superheroes (Luke Cage, Reed & Sue Richards) can be depicted in that point in their lives, but I don't think it works for Spidey. At least until it's time for his story to come to an end.

[Garlador]

I think the general context about wanting Peter to be an adult isn't about a Peter Parker years younger than the one we currently have in Amazing Spider-Man?

There is a stage at a person's life (typically at 35 or so) when the vast majority of their major life decisions (where they'll live, what career they'll have, who they'll marry, whether they'll have children, whether they'll have a large family, etc.) have been made. Some superheroes (Luke Cage, Reed & Sue Richards) can be depicted in that point in their lives, but I don't think it works for Spidey. At least until it's time for his story to come to an end.

Talking to a guy in his late 30s here who just moved out of state, changed careers, got married in my 30s, had a kid in my 30s, and is debating another one. One of my best friends is in his 40s now and just changed jobs and got engaged. Inversely, I have a buddy that got married at 18 and had 6 kids before he was 25.

Luke Cage might be older, but his wife Jessica Jones was literally Peter’s classmate and they’re the same age.

Everyone is different.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

The question is weird. They accepted an adult Spider-Man for literallly decades now.

[Celgress]

Well, people do seem to love Peter B. Parker from the Spider-Verse movies and the more mature Pete (in terms of portrayal if not outright age) from the recent games movies so there is that.

[godisawesome]

Outside of how Peter has been an adult for decades, had over a successful decade as a married man, and how every movie series with him has moved him out of minority into adulthood…

…I think it also pays to notice how our cultural understanding of an adult has changed, and how that’s reflected in our fictional heroes, and matched by the main purchasing demographics of the comics industry now. The old idea of adult men being largely stoic, generally repressed kill-joys is effectively dead; aside from the rise of more fun-loving, warm, and openly dorky fathers and grown men, even the more somber and “straight-edge” dads tend to either be seen as just stunted posers, or still have integrated warmth and a humorous side. And simultaneously, there’s been a rise in depicting some young men as emotionally matured beyond their years, even compared to some grown men. Even comic audiences are usually now more healthy, “normal” adults who just have a goofy side hobby than the children or man children the past used to portray them as.

I mean… current MCU Peter is more emotionally mature and self-aware than a frightening amount of other MCU adult heroes - Iron Man, Thor, most of the Guardians - and about on par with most of the others. The Peter B. Parker variant from the Spiderverse films is a goofy dad, but also a matured, veteran hero. The Raimi-verse and Webb-verse Peters are also portrayed as older variants both in the last films and in their returns in the MCU. Insomniac Peter is old enough that he’s not entirely thrown off by the possibility of having a love child. And married Peter *was* successful and saw no drop in audience for the comics - and to some extent retains a reputation as a more “fun” Spider-Man than the current one anyways, who is still portrayed as being a late 20’s to 30-something adult.

Frankly… I think audiences are already conditioned to think of Spider-Man as being a guy who grows into an adult Peter… and then keeps on having adventures that we watch/read/play where he’s still dynamic.

[WebLurker]

The GA accepted Spider-Man as an adult a long time ago. The question is if Marvel is ready to accept that that's who the character is?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

…I think it also pays to notice how our cultural understanding of an adult has changed, and how that’s reflected in our fictional heroes, and matched by the main purchasing demographics of the comics industry now. The old idea of adult men being largely stoic, generally repressed kill-joys is effectively dead; aside from the rise of more fun-loving, warm, and openly dorky fathers and grown men, even the more somber and “straight-edge” dads tend to either be seen as just stunted posers, or still have integrated warmth and a humorous side. And simultaneously, there’s been a rise in depicting some young men as emotionally matured beyond their years, even compared to some grown men. Even comic audiences are usually now more healthy, “normal” adults who just have a goofy side hobby than the children or man children the past used to portray them as.

I repeat this point a lot, but I suspect this is part of why guys from an older generation like Brevoort oppose an adult Spider-Man so much. They think Spider-Man is about "youth" because they associate his personality with someone aged 15-22 (especially in men). They're not used to a man 25 and older still acting like Spider-Man.

It's like that old conservative gaslighting tactic they used on teens of the 1960's: "It's fine if young people act "indecent" and "inappropriate" when in high school or college, but after a certain age they should get "serious"."

By that logic, Spider-Man - a character that arose out of 1960's teen protest movements - should get "serious" too once he reaches a certain age. Spider-Man is "supposed" to be a teen fad that you grow out of, in other words.

Yet Peter Parker grew up, got married, and never lost those fun and emotional personality traits of his. I'm sure he challenged a lot of Boomer fans' preconceived notions of being an adult. It has to be part of why the reaction to the 1987-2007 Spider-Man is so extreme. It's only a question of whether they're conscious of this, or whether it's all subconscious.

Basically: What they were really mad about is that Spider-Man didn't change. Not that he supposedly did.

[Tuck]

General audiences don't even notice Peter's age.

If you asked 100 randos to describe Spider-Man, I'd be surprised if a single one brought up his age range.