The Status Quo

[DrewHLMW]

so issue 35 came and went and as usual there is no consequences and the status quo will probably be back to normal with Green Goblins triumphant return in issue 950.

Zeb has had a lot of criticism online for his run so far but my question is what is left for any writer to actually do with Peter?
I feel like Zeb has been given Amazing at the worst possible time, in fact the book is a poisoned chalice now.

lets go back 25 years
Aunt May was resurrected and the downfall began, she is literally in no danger of being killed off again and never will be.
The baby was simply taken away and never heard from again
The marriage was blown up in a plane, kidnapped, put on a break and finally retconned to have never happened.

with this is we have established that Peter will never have a family and his only close relationship will be with his aunt may who should have stayed dead after issue 400.

So what did writers (In this case Dan Slott) have left to play with? His brain.
and so we eventually got a Peter Parker who had a PHD and ran his own company but what happened there? his company was destroyed and his PHD wasn't actually his and so we have taken away his ability to grow outside of a family in the job department meaning he will never achieve any kind of success.

so I ask again what's left for new writers?

They can still play with his powers cant they? nope, that was done during the other storyline and was undone alongside the marriage.

well what about death and rebirth? thats been done too
body swap with a villain? combined with the death and rebirth story above.
Alternate version? been done to death and there's anew spiderverse crossover in the works

There is literally nothing left but the random adventure and bad guy of the trade for peter to beat.

Family, relationships, success, power upgrades, killed off, resurrected, mind swapped, everything has been done and then undone.

I feel like Marvel knew that which is why they let Nick bring Peter and MJ back together for his run because there was no hook left and unfortunately now for Zeb that last hook has been taken away and once Norman is back on his glider throwing pumpkin bombs at spidey we will truly have done it all the redemption arc will be over and the last hook they have left will be gone.

so when Zeb eventually leaves the book and we get a new writer, what's left for them to do? everything's been done?

No stakes are left, no consequences are left, no growing, learning or evolving is possible.

Peter Parker will simply be hollow and a new writer will be stuck with that.

[Spidey_Legend]

so issue 35 came and went and as usual there is no consequences and the status quo will probably be back to normal with Green Goblins triumphant return in issue 950.

Zeb has had a lot of criticism online for his run so far but my question is what is left for any writer to actually do with Peter?
I feel like Zeb has been given Amazing at the worst possible time, in fact the book is a poisoned chalice now.

lets go back 25 years
Aunt May was resurrected and the downfall began, she is literally in no danger of being killed off again and never will be.
The baby was simply taken away and never heard from again
The marriage was blown up in a plane, kidnapped, put on a break and finally retconned to have never happened.

with this is we have established that Peter will never have a family and his only close relationship will be with his aunt may who should have stayed dead after issue 400.

So what did writers (In this case Dan Slott) have left to play with? His brain.
and so we eventually got a Peter Parker who had a PHD and ran his own company but what happened there? his company was destroyed and his PHD wasn't actually his and so we have taken away his ability to grow outside of a family in the job department meaning he will never achieve any kind of success.

so I ask again what's left for new writers?

They can still play with his powers cant they? nope, that was done during the other storyline and was undone alongside the marriage.

well what about death and rebirth? thats been done too
body swap with a villain? combined with the death and rebirth story above.
Alternate version? been done to death and there's anew spiderverse crossover in the works

There is literally nothing left but the random adventure and bad guy of the trade for peter to beat.

Family, relationships, success, power upgrades, killed off, resurrected, mind swapped, everything has been done and then undone.

I feel like Marvel knew that which is why they let Nick bring Peter and MJ back together for his run because there was no hook left and unfortunately now for Zeb that last hook has been taken away and once Norman is back on his glider throwing pumpkin bombs at spidey we will truly have done it all the redemption arc will be over and the last hook they have left will be gone.

so when Zeb eventually leaves the book and we get a new writer, what's left for them to do? everything's been done?

No stakes are left, no consequences are left, no growing, learning or evolving is possible.

Peter Parker will simply be hollow and a new writer will be stuck with that.

You answer your predicament with the part I bolded. Marvel wants that. Nothing more.

[Jman27]

This is why happens when you write a never ending story.

[Garlador]

This is why happens when you write a never ending story.

It doesn’t have to be.

I could point to dozens of comics and stories that just organically moved forward. Nobody is beholden to a status quo from the 70s, otherwise Dick Grayson would still just be Robin, Wolverine would be an amnesiac without a past, Bucky would just be dead, and absolutely no superhero would be established as proudly and transparently queer. Things grow on their own if you simply stop pruning all the interesting and healthy branches.

To answer the question, where else can he go? Well, Marvel typical sticks a stagnant character in the Guardians of the Galaxy for a bit so they can run around in space. Peter’s overdue. (This is mostly a joke.)

[Lee]

This is why happens when you write a never ending story.

Exactly. It's owned by the company, it goes through dozens of creative teams over the decades, and it all cycles around as the audience turns over. I don't know why anyone would expect a Marvel or DC super-hero comic to function like a creator owned comic.

[Garlador]

Exactly. It's owned by the company, it goes through dozens of creative teams over the decades, and it all cycles around as the audience turns over. I don't know why anyone would expect a Marvel or DC super-hero comic to function like a creator owned comic.

To play devil’s advocate, why is it that hundreds of other company-owned characters still have a semblance of permanent growth and status quo alterations then? Even big-name ones like Hulk, Wolverine, Batman, and Superman?

Why is Spider-Man the one that - by his own mouth - can’t move forward in any meaningful way?

[TinkerSpider]

Exactly. It's owned by the company, it goes through dozens of creative teams over the decades, and it all cycles around as the audience turns over. I don't know why anyone would expect a Marvel or DC super-hero comic to function like a creator owned comic.

We expect it to act like a serial story with internal consistency and continuity. Y’know, like current Superman or the Flash.

Not sure why anyone reading current DC or Marvel expects the comic books to act like the Simpsons or Ducktails. And there’s always Spidey and His Amazing Friends if people prefer that type of storytelling for Spider-Man, after all.

[MisterTorgo]

Exactly. It's owned by the company, it goes through dozens of creative teams over the decades, and it all cycles around as the audience turns over. I don't know why anyone would expect a Marvel or DC super-hero comic to function like a creator owned comic.

I dunno, it seems that the problem as far more pronounced with Spider-man, looking at the other long-loved heroes: off the top of my head- Fantastic Four, Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Ant-man...they all feel as though they've gone through significant personal changes without constantly being dragged back to where they were in the 60s.

Pete is once again broke, single, sad...wasn't he even taking classes again after the Superior stuff?

[Daibhidh]

...wasn't he even taking classes again after the Superior stuff?

The classes are a long-running loose thread: Stern had him drop out of his graduate course without finishing it. Having Peter take classes again is oddly a way to try to move Peter on.

[MisterTorgo]

The classes are a long-running loose thread: Stern had him drop out of his graduate course without finishing it. Having Peter take classes again is oddly a way to try to move Peter on.

It just feels weird to me that a super genius ex-science teacher is still constantly being told to go back to school. Again.

[Pav]

It just feels weird to me that a super genius ex-science teacher is still constantly being told to go back to school. Again.

Y'know, speaking as a teacher, it's actually pretty accurate that Peter would continually go back to school. Where I'm from, teachers need to take classes every so often to maintain licensure.

-Pav, who figures "going back to school" is also an easy status quo to maintain Peter's youthfulness...

[Jman27]

spider-man 2 game proves my point on why Peter shouldnt have being a teacher as a job. But the grad school aspect of his character is just of an excuse for him to be around ESU

[Moxxi517]

It just feels weird to me that a super genius ex-science teacher is still constantly being told to go back to school. Again.

The thing is that Doc actually got him the degree. So that could have been the end of that if we wanted it to be. For as much as I love Spencer, he's the one you should be annoyed at here. Since he decided to use Superior as a justification for stripping Peter of his degrees in order to send him to grad school again. It wasn't even really a big aspect of the run tbh.

That regression was funny cause it made sense to me from a moral perspective. (Peter didn't actually earn those degrees even if he was smart enough to do doctorate research). But it didn't really make sense from a practical perspective. (It strains my suspension of disbelief that doc would submit academically fraudulent papers based on his own prior work. Like he would have new things to write a doctorate about and would properly cite his old work or whatever. There shouldn't be any fraud involved. But I also did academic research in the past so it might just be a me thing)

[Mister Mets]

The point about what's left to play for new writers might be based on a failure of imagination.

So Slott was able to explore Peter's mind, in Superior Spider-Man, and when he was CEO of Parker Industries.

Nick Spencer had a back to basics approach, bringing Peter & MJ back together while he largely struggled financially and professionally.
The Beyond era swapped out a new lead.
Wells split up Peter & MJ, and focused on Peter's relationship with the cleansed Norman Osborn, building on developments from Spencer's run.

I'm sure the next guy could come up with a hundred issues regardless of editorial edicts.

And if not, the guy after him can.

If two writers bomb critically and financially in a row, Marvel may have some soul-searching to do.

We're not near that point yet.

[Lee]

To play devil’s advocate, why is it that hundreds of other company-owned characters still have a semblance of permanent growth and status quo alterations then? Even big-name ones like Hulk, Wolverine, Batman, and Superman?

Why is Spider-Man the one that - by his own mouth - can’t move forward in any meaningful way?

They're all the same. Wolverine lost his adamantium claws then he got them back, he died then he came back to life, he took a plucky teenage mutant girl under his wing, he took another plucky teenage mutant girl under his wing. It all cycles. Some new ideas will stick, but they'll always cycle back to the most popular and iconic old ideas. They'll keep doing new takes on Hulk, and they'll keep returning to angry green Hulk.