Spider-Man character growth vs. staying in high school and Joe Quesada

[CTTT]

Interesting reading the history of Spidey. Stan Lee reportedly says to Steve Ditko that he wanted a character existing in high school and dealing with everyday problems and hangups which we eventually see. Then Ditko gives him that. Ditko wants to keep him in high school but then Stan does an about face and is like "no, he's going to grow and change and go to college" Ditko disagrees but reluctantly goes for Stan's vision. That right there is the root problem for why we got OMD is Stan's original pitch for the character and then his change to giving him growth. Flash forward to 2007. Joe Quesada probably was recalling that conflict and makes the decision for OMD because of Steve Ditko Since then despite getting some good Spidey material, Peter/MJ fans are still left in the cold. You can still write romantic conflict and triangles with other conflicts even within the marriage. X-Men is famous for this as well as with Sue/Reed/Namor.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

This has been covered. It's a myth that Ditko disagreed with Peter graduating high school.

[Garlador]

This has been covered. It's a myth that Ditko disagreed with Peter graduating high school.

It’s also a false conclusion. OMD didn’t put Peter back in high school. It just turned him from a guy who was married in his early 20s to an older single screwup in his late 20s.

[Tuck]

There's also the irony that there was a highly popular title where Spider-Man was perpetually in high school, so it was kind of a false dilemma in the first place. And, importantly, it was contemporary. If at least part of the point is to give young readers something to relate to, Ultimate was already better for that than Amazing could be.

I still say the problem is that the Golden/Silver Age DC approach to stories could work until the end of time. But the whole appeal of Marvel early on was that they were an alternative to that, that the characters inhabited the same world (more or less) as the reader, with the same current events and a passage of time. But that kind of approach has to either run its course, or be reset (properly reset . . . back to the beginning) to work forever.

[CrimsonEchidna]

It’s also a false conclusion. OMD didn’t put Peter back in high school. It just turned him from a guy who was married in his early 20s to an older single screwup in his late 20s.

And we know OMD was at least the third attempt at the dissolution of the marriage during Quesada's tenure, this was finally the one that stuck. She was killed off but then when she was revealed to be alive, seperated from Peter and the writers flirted with giving Peter a new love interest.

Kevin Smith was offered to write Amazing in this timeframe but on the mandate that he would finally split Pete and MJ for good but he balked at having to be the one to do it.

And then years later through the JMS run we finally got OMD.

This wasn't a theme uniqued to Spider-Man either. I don't think it was a coincidence that in a similar timeframe Cyclops and Jean Grey suddenly started going through their own marital strife that led to Jean's, at the time, permanent death. Because Scott would be a "more interesting character" with this development. lol

[fjmac]

The thing is that most characters and properties in mainstream comics DO evolve over time, with some sort of "save points" when some semblance of the original status quo is restored while incorporating to it some of the new elements. For example, as mentioned, Batman discovers he's a dad, get's "killed", goes on a time traveling adventure, returns with a more optimistic attitude, creates Batman Inc., all in the span of two years, a few months later he's back to his usual sociopathic self but now he has a son. A few years later, son dies, Batman goes on a mystical sci-fi grand adventure, brings son back to life, son now has superpowers, eventually looses them, all is back to normal, which is Batman as usual but now with a son.

Same thing happens with the FF, Wally West, Dick Grayson, etc. And when one of those save points stick, you can't just walk back on them, and publishers know it. The MJ/Peter marriage save point was one of those, which is why OMD remains so widely reviled almost 20 years later. Because the save point they attempted to erase was one that stuck, and the one they tried to create didn't. Because it was not an evolution, it was a haphazard ham fisted attempt to bring a major character to the status quo that Joe Q preferred, because it was the one from when he was a kid.

Why did Marvel stick so hard with it, even thou it is clearly a failure when you average everything? Because back then there was a certain culture at DC and Marvel. Alpha-male wannabes in charge with buddy-circle editors and writers, bro culture, troll the readers, it's all in good fun. DC moved on from the last remains of it a few years ago, which is why it's producing mostly gold at a near 1986 level. In Marvel, that culture still survives in some corners, and I suppose the OMD status quo and the constant scorched-earth attempts against MJ are one of their ways to keep "owning the haters", or something like that.

[Knightsilver]

The thing is...is that Quesadas way could only ever lead to a dead end. Setting aside the endless redundancy of the Post-OMD status quo...it also doesn't work in 616 because however much Marvel may hate it...Peter has aged and will continue to age because everyone else in 616 is aging. Even characters who are canonically younger like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee have aged/been married/have kids. Peter doesn't look "young" with the current status quo...he just looks like he's ready to hold a skateboard...wearing a backwards cap...and greet Miles' friends with "hello fellow kids". The only way for Post-OMD Peter to "work"...would be to put him in a pocket dimension wear he and all of his friends are eternally in high school.

[CTTT]

The thing is...is that Quesadas way could only ever lead to a dead end. Setting aside the endless redundancy of the Post-OMD status quo...it also doesn't work in 616 because however much Marvel may hate it...Peter has aged and will continue to age because everyone else in 616 is aging. Even characters who are canonically younger like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee have aged/been married/have kids. Peter doesn't look "young" with the current status quo...he just looks like he's ready to hold a skateboard...wearing a backwards cap...and greet Miles' friends with "hello fellow kids". The only way for Post-OMD Peter to "work"...would be to put him in a pocket dimension wear he and all of his friends are eternally in high school.

Meanwhile with USM, we have a married Peter with kids which people seem to respond to very well. One wat of fixing it, and we'll have to wait and see, is for 616 Peter to one day meet with Ultimate Peter, and basically have a heartfelt conversation. 616 Peter can see that USM Peter and how his life works and then writers can recommit Peter/MJ in 616.

[Daibhidh]

One wat of fixing it, and we'll have to wait and see, is for 616 Peter to one day meet with Ultimate Peter, and basically have a heartfelt conversation. 616 Peter can see that USM Peter and how his life works and then writers can recommit Peter/MJ in 616.

It hasn't been written as Peter's choice. MJ has met someone new and moved on - which is final unless Wells or the next writer decides that she doesn't know her own mind or else implements comic book shenanigans. And if you need comic book shenanigans to resolve a relationship plot point then it's a bad relationship plot point.

[CTTT]

It hasn't been written as Peter's choice. MJ has met someone new and moved on - which is final unless Wells or the next writer decides that she doesn't know her own mind or else implements comic book shenanigans. And if you need comic book shenanigans to resolve a relationship plot point then it's a bad relationship plot point.

We all know her relationship with Paul will fail.

[Garlador]

It hasn't been written as Peter's choice. MJ has met someone new and moved on - which is final unless Wells or the next writer decides that she doesn't know her own mind or else implements comic book shenanigans. And if you need comic book shenanigans to resolve a relationship plot point then it's a bad relationship plot point.

I continue to bristle at the idea MJ “met someone new and moved on” like she just met a great guy at a coffee shop. She was forcibly imprisoned with him in a hellscape and forced to rely on him for her own survival for apparently years, creating a ghastly power-imbalance of co-dependency, shades of Stockholm Syndrome, and complex survival trauma. This wasn’t some natural, organic, healthy relationship she pursued. And it was initiated by convoluted, unrelatable comic book shenanigans in the first place.

A good therapist would be side-eying MJ’s entire relationship with Paul and questioning her mental health and impaired decision-making capabilities after having so much of her agency removed for so long. Paul still LITERALLY is the guy who monitors and controls how much power she has for her own good, and the Spidey Office fails to see how problematic those optics are.

… so I don’t think anyone would complain if MJ kicked Paul to the curb at the first opportunity.

[9AlphaOmega1]

You can tell a set of stories about a teenager in high school, a set about a young adult in college, a set about an adult after college and so on so forth. Like everyone said Peter is not a teenager anymore, he is an adult and as an adult you don't usually make the same mistakes, you learn and do better as a responsible adult. Right now I see Peter as a real loser, because being Spider-Man, imo, is Peter escaping Peter's problems and not being responsible.

The original Ultimate Spider-Man was popular because it was retelling of Spider-Man in somewhat modern times and a young Peter, not a Peter that had many experiences, so it was fun to read about this young Peter who in high school dealing many of the popular story lines and characters.

There also a problem for continuing stories for establishing characters, writers who are fans of these characters, will have a story to tell of that character before the character eventually changes. Hence the needs to resets the character and its history.

I am proponent for the marriage, because the stories told before and after. I believe a story can also tell a lesson and entertain as the same time, a check mark of that character life, a growing up point. Putting the genie back into the bottle, just proves that you not a good story teller and cannot come up new stories for the current situation.

[Daibhidh]

I continue to bristle at the idea MJ “met someone new and moved on” like she just met a great guy at a coffee shop. She was forcibly imprisoned with him in a hellscape and forced to rely on him for her own survival for apparently years, creating a ghastly power-imbalance of co-dependency, shades of Stockholm Syndrome, and complex survival trauma. This wasn’t some natural, organic, healthy relationship she pursued. And it was initiated by convoluted, unrelatable comic book shenanigans in the first place.

A good therapist would be side-eying MJ’s entire relationship with Paul and questioning her mental health and impaired decision-making capabilities after having so much of her agency removed for so long. Paul still LITERALLY is the guy who monitors and controls how much power she has for her own good, and the Spidey Office fails to see how problematic those optics are.

… so I don’t think anyone would complain if MJ kicked Paul to the curb at the first opportunity.

I agree with all of that. The problem is that MJ did not kick Paul to the curb at the first opportunity.
And, yes, the optics are terrible, but the Spider-Office is behaving as if they're all fine, and to be frank: if you've put your major female civilian character into a relationship based on Stockholm syndrome you want to retcon it as not Stockholm Syndrome as fast as you can. (Unless you can get a writer as good as Chris Claremont and let them fire off all barrels at the story telling beat. But even then, do we really want MJ to go through what Carol Danvers went through from Avengers Annual 10 to the Kang saga in Busiek's run?)

Fundamentally, it is a terrible plot plot, and it's going to be very hard to fix in any kind of satisfactory way.

[Knightsilver]

I agree with all of that. The problem is that MJ did not kick Paul to the curb at the first opportunity.
And, yes, the optics are terrible, but the Spider-Office is behaving as if they're all fine, and to be frank: if you've put your major female civilian character into a relationship based on Stockholm syndrome you want to retcon it as not Stockholm Syndrome as fast as you can. (Unless you can get a writer as good as Chris Claremont and let them fire off all barrels at the story telling beat. But even then, do we really want MJ to go through what Carol Danvers went through from Avengers Annual 10 to the Kang saga in Busiek's run?)

Fundamentally, it is a terrible plot plot, and it's going to be very hard to fix in any kind of satisfactory way.

I'm rather fond of the "MJ" is a magical doppelganger theory myself. I mean really..."MJ" has been written terribly...Paul is practically universally hated...best to just say the whole thing was a fake and be done with it.

[Mister Mets]

The main reason high school doesn't work is that at some point it's just absurd for the character to have all of his adventures occur in a less than three year period.