The Status Quo

[Refrax5]

Mary Jane was "dead" when Ultimate started. By the time JMS/JRJR got on the book, the quality difference was more a matter of opinion.



Because Spider-Man was married, and it got taken away.



I'm sure some do, but I don't think very many marriage supporters believe the marriage is the linchpin to Spider-Man being better.

She was "killed off" and then written out after her return because the marriage had grown stagnant. ASM was bad for a good while with MJ in the picture, too.

I think people do think that and that's why nobody seems interested in ever talking about anything else anymore on these boards. Most conversations just devolve into lamenting a marriage that's been gone for 15 years. I prefer him married, too, but I don't think that's all that matters.

[Tuck]

I think they do considering their attitude

I mean, there are people who say they stopped reading after OMD, but plenty of pro-marriage people will admit to liking stories or runs during BND or Slott's time.

[Tuck]

She was "killed off" and then written out after her return because the marriage had grown stagnant. ASM was bad for a good while with MJ in the picture, too.

She was killed off because it was serious attempt #2 to get rid of the marriage.

I think people do think that and that's why nobody seems interested in ever talking about anything else anymore on these boards. Most conversations just devolve into lamenting a marriage that's been gone for 15 years. I prefer him married, too, but I don't think that's all that matters.

Well, the current run is very unpopular with a significant segment of the fandom, particularly Pete/MJ shippers.

It also is premised on pulling the football away from them and sending them flying on their collective back. They're pissed. It's going to get a strong reaction.

[Xix25]

I honestly don't quite understand the defense for such a static and uninteresting Status Quo. Like a lot of Marvel characters have had far more interesting evolutions than Spidey post OMD, so why should a fan of Spidey want stagnant story arcs which are all flash and no substance? Is it insulting to ask for better work?

[Hurricane Billy]

I mean, there are people who say they stopped reading after OMD, but plenty of pro-marriage people will admit to liking stories or runs during BND or Slott's time.

Yeah, I haven't personally purchased any post-OMD 616 Spider-Man comics because that's the only way I can "vote with my wallet," as Marvel themselves like to say. And while I'm not particularly enthused with the general idea of regressing Peter into being in his mid-20's again and running him around in circles as an individual and in his relationships, I think it's impossible to ignore that some of the most successful Spider-Man content that's come out in the past decade outside of the comics were in at least some part inspired by comics from BND and Slott's tenure. The Insomniac games? The Spider-Verse films? Incredible stuff.

Eventually, I wouldn't mind going back and properly reading through that era of material more thoroughly and show respect to what came out while I've been on my lengthy sabbatical from 616 Spider-Man comics reading. But for now, I'm just going to keep on voting with my wallet.

I honestly don't quite understand the defense for such a static and uninteresting Status Quo. Like a lot of Marvel characters have had far more interesting evolutions than Spidey post OMD, so why should a fan of Spidey want stagnant story arcs which are all flash and no substance? Is it insulting to ask for better work?

Exactly. I won't deny that I grew up during the Marriage years in the 90's/2000's, but typically the most influential things that shaped how I perceived Spider-Man as a character were resources like the old DQ Character Encylopedia book that chronicled Spidey's history and vast cast of characters and stories from 1963 all the way to 2000 or these old websites that collected and uploaded pictures of all the various comic covers for each Spider-Man comic issue and provided a quick summary/recap with each issue. I even used to get those old Silver-colored paperback volume reprints of Stan Lee's original run that Barnes & Noble used to sell. I read that all in conjunction to the JMS era comics, the PS1/2 games, cartoons and Raimi films.

To me as a kid, the cool thing about Peter was that he genuinely felt like he had a life that ebbed and flowed over the years and that while there was generally some sense of a status quo that'd carry on for every however many years, Peter was progressing in some way or another throughout it all and that his struggles with Responsibility would shift and change as his life went on. I don't need Peter to be exactly where he was in the JMS era, working at a school and living with Aunt May and MJ. I wouldn't want that, because that'd feel antithetical to what stood out to me about him to begin with. But I'd want to have some sort of impression that Peter has gone a bit further on in his life and grown just a bit more since then.

[Refrax5]

I think good writing trumps everything else. And a big issue in the current writing is that it falls back on lazy contrivance in order to maintain the status quo. And that contrivance also makes Peter look like a bit of a manchild.

When talking about fixing it though. I.E. making Peter just an overall more competent character. The thing I always ask is "what would that look like?" MJ is pretty established as the love of his life, it's something that the audience thinks that he wants. If you as editorial don't want him to want that, you have to write a story suggesting why he wouldn't want that. And the PeterMJ dynamic is really good, so those stories end up being pretty low quality imo. So, I feel like he kind of naturally finds his way back to MJ in this case. Plus it does let you explore greater themes of responsibility. Like maturing doesn't have to involve getting a family. But the question becomes "what does maturing look like in the case that Peter is forever single". Maybe Parker Industries was a suggestion of a potential direction for maturity. But on the whole the Spidey team hasn't used the time they've had (16 years!!!) to suggest what an alternate ending for Peter would look like. Even Zeb Wells has said that Peter and MJ would ride off into the sunset together if ASM ended. AF#1000 had PeterMJ together. It's been emphasized a number of times that that's the way that they do mature. I honestly do think we could hold off on the kids for a while though lol.

MJ being in the story is something I'd suggest is good for ASM beyond just being married to Peter. And one thing that the Well's run and Slott's run have shown is that they will write MJ out of the book for long stretches of time if she is not more significantly attached to Peter. Which I just find to be a real shame.

Parker Industries always felt too extreme and odd. Being a brilliant scientist doesn't translate into being a brilliant businessman and it doesn't even seem like something Peter would want to do in particular. I imagine he would work as a scientist or a teacher and still live a fairly modest life even if he wasn't impoverished. I think back to the married era Spider-Man and how both he and Ben Reilly were written to be funny and relatable, but they were a lot less embarrassingly goofy and dorky. Peter had a toughness and a competence to him. It's not like he never got beat up or had bad things happen, but he was written as experienced and mature. I remember some comic where some bad guy is intimidated at going up against Spider-Man because he's a big deal, which doesn't seem like it'd happen now.

I feel like Peter and MJ would both have very good reasons not to pursue having kids at this point. Considering how many times they've been endangered by his enemies, how many loved ones have been threatened and killed, and considered the Green Goblin killed their last baby and MJ just lost her adopted kids.

Life doesn't always go according to plan. Even if you once wanted marriage and kids and might have ended up that way in one universe, things might not work out that way in another. You don't always get everything you want in life and things often don't go the way you planned. That's just life for everybody.

I always imagine my ideal 616 Spider-Man as being similar to the Chris Pine Spider-Man in the first Spider-Verse movie. He was bold, confident, fun and in his prime. He had his struggles, but he wasn't a sad sack or a loser.

I remember there was that leak that said the fourth Raimi film was going to start with Peter having let MJ go and had found peace with his dual life and was finally enjoying his life as Spider-Man.

I think that kind of take can work pretty well. In those two examples, one has him married to MJ and one doesn't, but both depict a Peter that's generally more confident and mature. I think that's kind of key, I guess. He currently feels like he's being written as this caricature of himself, just a goofy "lovable loser" stereotype. I think that's the part that really needs to change.

[godisawesome]

Mary Jane was "dead" when Ultimate started. By the time JMS/JRJR got on the book, the quality difference was more a matter of opinion.



Because Spider-Man was married, and it got taken away.



I'm sure some do, but I don't think very many marriage supporters believe the marriage is the linchpin to Spider-Man being better.

I think they do considering their attitude

For me personally, it’s less the marriage itself, and more what the marriage tells me about Marvel’s approach to the franchise in the comics realm.

I tend to view the marriage’s biggest virtue for me being not “OMG, this is what the story’s about!” but more “We’ve cancelled the most obnoxious soap opera bullshit with Peter’s love life, because he’s married now.” For every one or two solid romance subplot with a love interest, there were like five or six just stupid, tripe, and repetitive bits of trash, surrounded by some rote, boring time wasters between. Before the marriage, it was clear the editorial had a commitment to very lazy, usually repetitive formula of mediocre romance writing that, in contrast, Mary Jane only soemtimes tended to be the exception to before the marriage.

And it’s the laziness, repetition and obviousness of formula that modern editorial wanted back with OMD - which applies to almost everything.

It’s more that I know they’re obsessed with putting things “back in the box” that drives me away, and make me just too apathetic to try any monthly reading appeal - I might get interested in some of the stuff when it’s wrapped up, but I can’t trust them to be ambitious without also being creatively conservative and likely to do some nonsense to erase soemthing I might still like.

Yes, I know it’s supposed to be the “illusion of change,” but if you keep yelling it’s an illusion, I can’t fall for it either.

[PCN24454]

I honestly don't quite understand the defense for such a static and uninteresting Status Quo. Like a lot of Marvel characters have had far more interesting evolutions than Spidey post OMD, so why should a fan of Spidey want stagnant story arcs which are all flash and no substance? Is it insulting to ask for better work?

Isn’t that precisely why we’re criticizing people who think that the marriage will magically fix everything?

It honestly didn’t affect anything to me besides making Peter single again.

[Xix25]

Isn’t that precisely why we’re criticizing people who think that the marriage will magically fix everything?

It honestly didn’t affect anything to me besides making Peter single again.

I mean strawmen are strawmen for a reason. Easy targets to argue against while ignoring the relevant point.

[Garlador]

Which, frankly, sounds far more exciting to me across the board than just recycling through mid-20's Peter being a single bachelor over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for time immemorial. Peter used to basically be the George Bailey of superheroes, in that his life progressed and morphed over the years and there was always a balance of some sort between his personal losses and victories. But I feel like that hasn't been the case for quite some time now, unfortunately.

What a perfect, classic example of what Peter Parker should be and how he should be written.

A noble, selfless hero who sacrifices for his community and loved ones, up against an unfair and cruel world that kicks him down over and over. Setback after setback, loss after loss, at the risk of losing everything he’s built up over the years because he refuses to compromise his integrity. Often broken, despairing, and lost.


Yet reminded of all that he HAS earned. Of the things and people more important to him than wealth and fame. That even with “nothing”, life can be wonderful and the difference he made in other people’s lives saved the very soul of his city.

He suffered but at the end of the day still had the victories that count - a loving wife, their children, a community that appreciates and supports him.

The movie doesn’t end with the villain “defeated” for good, only with the hero reinvigorated to keep fighting because he has to and because he has what matters most no matter the blows he receives.

That’s SPIDER-MAN. Or… it was.

[Mister Mets]

I want Norman Osborn to stay a good guy. It fits the ethos of the series better and justifies the times Spider-Man helps the bad guys.

[Tuck]

I want Norman Osborn to stay a good guy. It fits the ethos of the series better and justifies the times Spider-Man helps the bad guys.

It's definitely more interesting at this point.

[TinkerSpider]

It's definitely more interesting at this point.

Except it’s a pretty terrible message to send that you can murder and kidnap and emotionally abuse your son and terrorize millions but if you say you are sincerely sorry and that’s not you now, you get off scot free without having to pay a cent for your crimes. It gives cover to terrible acts.

Norman needs to be serving several consecutive life sentences and make untold amounts of restitution. He shouldn’t be still swanning about as a trusted billionaire CEO. IMO.

I want Norman Osborn to stay a good guy. It fits the ethos of the series better and justifies the times Spider-Man helps the bad guys.

That’s…not what Spider-Man does. He didn’t pat the burglar on the head and let him go on his merry way. He turned him over to the authorities.

People thought at the time and still think Peter letting Venom go was a betrayal of Peter’s core responsibility, and it was a huge outlier when it happened.

This flanderization of Peter Parker into some sort of mindless compassion machine who lets bad guys walk is very recent, and just goes to show how much the character has been allowed to drift by editorial over the last 15 years or so from his defining core ethos of responsibility to the greater good.

[Tuck]

Except it’s a pretty terrible message to send that you can murder and kidnap and emotionally abuse your son and terrorize millions but if you say you are sincerely sorry and that’s not you now, you get off scot free without having to pay for your crimes.

Norman needs to be serving several consecutive life sentences and make untold amounts of restitution. He shouldn’t be still swanning about as a billionaire CEO. IMO.

I mean, they should address it. There wouldn't be no consequences.

But the fact is that Norman was not mentally competent as the Goblin.

[exile001]

I want Norman Osborn to stay a good guy. It fits the ethos of the series better and justifies the times Spider-Man helps the bad guys.

While Norman is inevitably going to revert, I'd certainly want it to keep a Good Norman/Bad Goblin personality split if we can.

Norman being pure evil and Goblin being the same but in a mask has been dull as hell, increasingly so as the years rolled on, as there's no humanity to him. Norman has such a unique place in the mythos, as well as ties to so much of Peter's life, that I think his place as just another villain is kind of a waste.

Frankly, it's why Harry is conceptually the more interesting Goblin long-term. Shame it wasn't until JMD that this was truly realised, and he saw fit to kill Harry off.