Controversial Spider-Man Opinions

[Frontier]

As far as Peter and Miles...

I mean, for one, Miles is ostensibly not supposed to be as strong as Peter from a baseline physicality standpoint. That's why he has powers that compensate for that. I don't know if it was because Miles was 13 versus Peter being 15, but I think Bendis intended that the different spider bite gave a different level of power.

Peter's main power isn't just his Spider-Abilities but his creativity and intuitive thinking, which lets him out-think his opponents and use his powers in unexpected way. Miles to me feels more instinctual in how he acts, combined with emphasizing the Venom Blast, but he can still be creative, he just doesn't have the same kind of mindset than Peter does.

As far as the game is concerned, Miles definitely dealt with probably a bigger threat than Peter did in his initial months as Spider-Man (although who knows, maybe Kingpin almost accidentally destroyed the city once or twice) but that's also a world that's had an active Spider-Man for several years so it stands to reason crime and Supervillains would be on another level than they would've been pre-Spider-Man. And Miles' own inexperience is partially why things escalate to the extent they do, but it was his first major job as Spider-Man so there's obviously going to be some growing pains there.

Let me say that it's not abnormal or unnatural for Miles to do better than Peter at his age. Simply because of "standing on the shoulders of giants", Miles would have had time to see, learn, iterate from the stuff that Peter had to go through by trial and error, that's natural. And ultimately it depends on the story that people want to tell and what they want to show. It's a bit like how today's sportsmen would have certain advantages that old timey heroes didn't have, in terms of protective gear, higher pay (which means fewer financial distractions whereas before sportsmen often had to think of a second job or side hustle), better training facilities and so on. When Peter became Spider-Man he didn't have any mentor, whereas Miles has Peter.

None of this is to take anything away from Miles being the natural prodigy he is intended to be but to be honest, if Miles as Spider-Man has it a little easier, and does a little better than Peter...I see that as Peter doing stuff right rather than the other way around. He made Spider-Man, an identity forged in guilt and self-doubt, into something positive and aspirational, and he gets to see that legacy taking effect about a decade or less into his career.

On another note...you are quite right that gameplay being improved and better able to handle in the PS5 game is not a good indicator because that's something Doylist rather than Watsonian, because every franchise is gonna improve on stuff as time passes.

This reminds me of the Marvel's Spider-Man cartoon where everyone and their mother gets Spider-Powers and seems to get a handle on them quicker than Peter did on the same show. It's like, I'm not necessarily against giving supporting characters the same powers as the protagonist, but at least make it apparent why your protagonist is valuable and not redundant (not helped at all by the fact that Peter constantly needs help or to be saved on his own show).

[Jman27]

None of this is wrong, but Miles would be in the minor leagues if we go by the sportsmen analogy as he is 15-16 and still relatively new in-canon, while Peter has the body of a 28-year old and would be major leagues.

Do you watch My Hero Academia? It would be like if Deku now was already where All Might was at the start of the anime. (Deku gets compared to Peter a lot, and I totally see that, but he has some things in common with Miles too: growing up in a world of superheroes, having a mentor with the same powers + unlocking additional powers, and being more efficient with those powers at the same age partly due to legacy reasons).

In any case, I think this is almost always a pointless discussion as Peter and Miles would never fight. They're not even the types to have a friendly fight as some of the more macho superheroes do.

true they will never fight but the gap to me isnt that huge compared to like All Might and Deku if anything its pretty close. Deku is still training while Miles is already set. And age shouldnt play a factor considering how many adults Peter beat as a teenager himself. And since you brought up shounen how many shounen mcs beat people who have more experience than them despite their age difference.

[Frontier]

true they will never fight but the gap to me isnt that huge compared to like All Might and Deku if anything its pretty close. Deku is still training while Miles is already set. And age shouldnt play a factor considering how many adults Peter beat as a teenager himself. And since you brought up shounen how many shounen mcs beat people who have more experience than them despite their age difference.

Well, if you by what the game said, Peter didn't fight any major Supervillains until he first started college, other than Kingpin.

[Jman27]

Well, if you by what the game said, Peter didn't fight any major Supervillains until he first started college, other than Kingpin.

you sure? the game made it clear he was already fighting vulture and them prior to college

[Kaitou D. Kid]

true they will never fight but the gap to me isnt that huge compared to like All Might and Deku if anything its pretty close. Deku is still training while Miles is already set. And age shouldnt play a factor considering how many adults Peter beat as a teenager himself. And since you brought up shounen how many shounen mcs beat people who have more experience than them despite their age difference.

Miles can't be already set if he is still 15-16. All else being equal, a guy in the 25-30 range will be stronger and faster than a guy in the 15-16 range. This is on top of Peter's 10+ years of experience as Spider-Man. The ITSV animation crew went out of their way to emphasize this by having Miles move at lower fps than Peter and Peter B.

I'm not sure if Peter's teenage victories over adults is a good analogy since each villain has different powers from Spider-Man and most of Peter's adult villains started their careers at around the same time as him.

Deku at his peak, if anything, is stronger than All Might was since One For All gets stronger with each new user, but I digress.

Regardless, gameplay by itself can't prove things one way or the other.

[Lukmendes]

In any case, I think this is almost always a pointless discussion as Peter and Miles would never fight. They're not even the types to have a friendly fight as some of the more macho superheroes do.

Yeah at most I only see them having sparring matches, something they kinda did before Miles got his powers in the PS4 game when Spidey was teaching him some fighting techniques.

Either way, as pointed out, gameplay is no indication of how strong a character is, it would be cool if it was in some cases, but it doesn't, it's why we can have something like, Reed being the strongest F4 member in Ultimate Alliance 1, and one of the strongest characters in that game overall, despite being by far the weakest one when it comes to combat story-wise.

[TheCape]

Yeah at most I only see them having sparring matches, something they kinda did before Miles got his powers in the PS4 game when Spidey was teaching him some fighting techniques.

Either way, as pointed out, gameplay is no indication of how strong a character is, it would be cool if it was in some cases, but it doesn't, it's why we can have something like, Reed being the strongest F4 member in Ultimate Alliance 1, and one of the strongest characters in that game overall, despite being by far the weakest one when it comes to combat story-wise.

One of then being mind crotrolled is not impossible. Hopefully we don't get into 2000s Batman territory when it comes to Peter and Miles.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm not sure if Peter's teenage victories over adults is a good analogy since each villain has different powers from Spider-Man and most of Peter's adult villains started their careers at around the same time as him.

I never thought of that, but that's a great point that nobody has made.

The whole teenage v. adult thing in the L-D era doesn't become an issue because all the villains Spider-Man meets are new bad guys (Doctor Doom who he meets in ASM#5 is the only exception and fittingly, Doom basically just f--ks around with Spider-Man while leaving no doubt that he could have killed Peter if he was in the mood).

So yeah, there's a difference in age but an equal playing field in experience in terms of using and confronting superpowered beings. I mean Norman after he became Green Goblin only went after Spider-Man because of prison rules, "go after the biggest guy in the yard" and that was Spider-Man at the time, and he was clearly a little new to the whole supervillain thing.

[Frontier]

you sure? the game made it clear he was already fighting vulture and them prior to college

There's a level in Miles' game that says he fought Vulture on his first day ESU and that was his first big Supervillain fight.

[Jman27]

There's a level in Miles' game that says he fought Vulture on his first day ESU and that was his first big Supervillain fight.

oh really havent played miles game so they changed things around then

[blackspidey2099]

One of my unpopular opinions is that Mark Bagley isn't one of the best Spider-Man artists (not that I'm saying he's bad or anything, he's pretty good but I just think his work is overrated).

[PCN24454]

One of my unpopular opinions is that Mark Bagley isn't one of the best Spider-Man artists (not that I'm saying he's bad or anything, he's pretty good but I just think his work is overrated).

I have to agree. A lot of his faces and figures come off really same-y.

[Frontier]

I can usually forgive sameface syndrome so long as the technical work and consistency of the art is good, which I feel is true in the case of Bagley.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I can usually forgive sameface syndrome so long as the technical work and consistency of the art is good, which I feel is true in the case of Bagley.

Agreed.

It's true that Bagley draws everyone with the same face, but that only makes it more impressive that you can still tell which character is which based on costume, hair, face size and shape, height.

I think Bagley's style is a good fit for Spider-Man in that it blends action, comedy, romance, and drama. He's good at doing all of that.

[Agent Z]

Most of the current Gwen Stacy backlash has little to do with any problems with the character and is driven by extreme MJ fans who are taking out their anger over Marvel's mishandling of MJ out on Gwen. I prefer MJ over Gwen but the way certain fans treat Gwen's mere existence like a war crime is every bit as ludicrous as those who blame the Spider-Marriage for the bad writing in the 90s.