Thread Drift: Is Peter Parker a pathetic loser?

[cyberhubbs]

he’s certainly no trump.

but…in this day and age there are a lot of “geeks” or “cool” company owners who give themselves titles like “supreme business ninja” rather than CEO and successfully rake in millions.

additionally, a lot of successful leaders are that way because they provide a vision and it’s the team around them that makes things happen. peter can be an absent minded professor type as long as he has assembled first class support to make up for his short-comings.

This too. Head honchos get the credit, but it's usually a bunch of other guys who do the actual work. They just can't present the vision to the company and to the public at large the same way.

[jimishim12]

Honestly, running a business doesn't suit his personality.

Which is kind of the point with it being Ock's business that Peter inherited and has fumbled his way through prior to Secret Wars. Really a question of how it's presented going forward.

I he can lead a team with Hulk and Ghost Rider, he can manage. I think he's charismatic and easy going, he'll be a great peoples morale booster.

[Mister Mets]

That argument is objectively untrue. Marvel might've said they had a policy of the illusion of change but apparently they didn't stick or apply it much. Wolfman on Spider-Man wasn't into crafting the illusion of change because it was policy. Be personally beleived in it and also felt it was what should happen to 'fix' Spider-Man (which was BS though his run is good, especially with Felicia's debut and ASM #200).

Furthermore Roger Stern, Michelinie, Peter David, Chris Claremont, I believe John Byrne and Will Simonson and hell the Jim Shooter era generally had runs which didn't simply shake up the status quo in ways which were illusionary but clear and definite changes, many of which have remained to this day.

And there is a difference between a writer regressing or changing the status quo back just because they want to and the true illusion of change where within the story or run itself all changes are either moot or reversed. For instance Peter Parker was in full time education in Wolfman and O'Neil's runs. He left in Stern's run after apparently the illusion of change policy was in full effect and has outside of 2 occasions never gone back to being a student as the primary backdrop to his status quo. Equally his marriage lasted for almost half his existence. That was clear genuine change. If the change was truly an illusion Peter would've gone back to high school.

The illusion of change basically allows subsequent writers to keep what works.

So if Black Cat's debut results in a good story and fan interest, she can become a major part of the books. If no one else takes to her, she'll be the equivalent of Styx and Stone, characters who have disappeared from the series.

Peter taking a leave of absence from grad school could have resulted in several different ways. It would have been possible for him to never return, or for university to once again be a fixture of the books.

Some stuff can't be reversed. The Peter Parker who has been in Amazing Spider-Man #1-700 will have to have been Spider-Man for several years, given all the stuff that happened to him.