How Serious Should Spider-Man Be?

[Confuzzled]

So just go watch Spectacular Spider-man?

Spectacular Spider-Man was perfection! Though the movies and comics are allowed to have darker moments, of course!

Spidey like batman has many iterations of the tone of the series. And unlike those shows you mentioned, Spidey lighthearted aspects are a signature aspect of the character because he is showcased for a big kid audience. Seriously, sells more toys than any singular superhero in the market.

Ultimate Spider-man to me is an ideal show because it spreads the character out into a more versatile canvas with a bigger role than just my life sucks compared to other Marvel heroes.

The lightheartedness were signature aspects of Buffy and Avatar too. Look what happened to the Last Airbender movie when the lighthearted nature of the series was taken away from it!

And like Agent Z said, USM is too superfluous with no real gravitas. The Spectacular Spider-Man got the tone just right.

[Heasensy32]

Well, the problem critics have with USM is that is goes too far in the opposite direction and gives us a Spider-Man who seems learn the importance of responsibility only to forget it every episode. There's also the fact that it seems to be a vehicle for Marvel to advertise other characters not related to Spidey when it would be better to give them their own shows.

Like I said it's not your typical self contained spiderman series, it focuses on the bigger picture for the character and seems like the brave and the bold for spidey. They probably realize they can't keep telling the same soap opera formula and expect it t o be compelling every time. Also I don't want to take Spider-man too serious in a cartoon. The animated series was better to me than Spectacular Spidey due to its over the top ness and action cheese which at the time was the epitome of awesome along with xmen.

[Mister Mets]

Superficially lighthearted but masking immense gravitas, just like Peter's characterization. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Avatar: The Last Airbender (now Korra too) are franchises which perfectly refined this tone and effectively used it to tell epic stories. The overall lighthearted nature of those series provided the darker moments that much more impact. An ideal Spidey series should be exactly like that!

Waid's Daredevil is another good example of that. He didn't pull it off as well in Spider-Man, aside from "Unscheduled Stop."

[Agent Z]

Spectacular Spider-Man was perfection! Though the movies and comics are allowed to have darker moments, of course!



The lightheartedness were signature aspects of Buffy and Avatar too. Look what happened to the Last Airbender movie when the lighthearted nature of the series was taken away from it!

And like Agent Z said, USM is too superfluous with no real gravitas. The Spectacular Spider-Man got the tone just right.

Even Buffy realized that there are things that can't simply be laughed off. Season 2 ended with her leaving Sunnydale for a while after killing Angel and then we had Season 6 dealing with depression after being ripped from Heaven.