On the one hand I don't think every hero needs a tragedy to spur them into action or to be a hero.
At the same time I feel like tragedy and a sense of loss that could have been prevented, that shows the meaning behind ones' true responsibility, is kind of the ethos of Spider-Man. Or at least Peter's Spider-Man. Like a lot of what defined him is that he made a mistake and was forced to grow up faster than he should have because of that and how that skewed his life and worldview while living up to an ideal.
Obviously we're seeing a version of Peter that got to have a more stable and normal childhood and grow into adulthood without that baggage, so he has those ideals but without the breaking point that defined him in 616.
So to me I feel like Ultimate Pete is in some regards lacking in the weight of being a hero that 616 Peter has. He's got a happy family, he's got a relatively stable job, he's settled into himself as an adult, and now he's trying to play Superhero on-top of that but it hasn't defined him like it did 616 Spider-Man. It feels like to me that he's playing the part rather than it becoming such a part of him as it did in 616 because it's coming so late into his life and he has, in some regards, an entirely different life experience even if the ideals are the same.
Also Superman is an inherently good person but we are still talking about a guy who lost his entire planet and culture as a baby (and that's not even getting into "should the Kents be dead?" debate)
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