Why Spider-Man is NOT about ‘youth’

[Spidercide]

More than once I’ve seen people, chiefly people from Marvel itself such as Tom Brevoort, claim ‘Spider-Man is about youth’ or that a teenage Spider-Man is something ‘more in line with the original vision of the character’ implying an older Spider-Man, or at least one who isn’t a teenager or high school student is somehow ‘wrong’.


I want to dissect this for awhile.



Let’s kick off with this. Now I’m willing to be proven wrong about this because I’ve not read every interview or statement ever put out by Stan Lee or Steve Ditko but legit I am drawing a blank in trying to recall a solitary instance where either of them have gone on record saying anything to the effect of:


“Spider-Man is about youth”



I’ve seen Stan Lee claim that Spider-Man is about being a normal guy or a guy having problems like every day people but I cannot recall any time he’s stated Spider-Man is about youth and so the younger Peter parker is the better it is for the series or the ‘truer’ it is for the original intention for the character.



The closest thing I can recall to anything like that was an interview with Marv Wolfman published in 2004 where he recalls speaking to Steve Ditko decades ago and Ditko saying something to the effect of how he disapproved of Spider-Man leaving High School because it made it less believable or less forgivable for him to screw up or something like that. This was in Comics Creators on Spider-Man a book I’ve long ago misplaced so if anyone can help me out on that or correct me that’d be great.



But contextualizing that statement, Ditko wasn’t saying Spider-Man was ABOUT youth. He was just saying him being young made it better to serve the ACTUAL point of Spider-Man, that he be a screw up or whatever. This especially makes sense in the context of Marv Wolfman’s own interpretation of Spider-Man. Wolfman has been on record claiming Spider-Man is about having the rug pulled out from under him. But neither men were claiming the POINT of the character was for him to BE young as Mr Brevoort or others have claimed or implied.



On a related note Spider-Man is also NOT about screwing up or having the rug pulled out from under him as Ditko or Wolfman claim either. To begin with if you re-read the Ditko run alone, let alone the rest of Stan Lee’s run or Spider-Man’s wider history, Spider-Man doesn’t continuously screw up and lose.


Out of the 39 issues and 2 annuals Ditko worked on there was a very healthy mixture of stories which ended with Spider-Man in a positive place, a negative place, a neutral place, sometimes gaining a mixed victory or sometimes he was just worrying for no reason. In one issue the narrator even makes light of this, claiming Peter Parker is worrying when there isn’t even anything TO worry about. At the end of Amazing Spider-Man #2 no less Peter has defeated the bad guy, found a seemingly reliable source of income as a Bugle freelance photographer and gotten enough money to put him and Aunt May in the black for awhile, including paying the rent on their house for an entire year! In ASM #7 Peter puts the moves on Betty Brant and she seems to reciprocate.



That’s hardly a character who’s a screw up or one who’s life is an endless series of problems.


Really what the character was going for as far as mass appeal was concerned was the idea that he was relatively speaking ordinary and had problems like all of us which could not be solved by merely being a superhero, thus rendering him more human and relatable.



This is outright confirmed at numerous points in Stan Lee’s run. In ASM #39 Peter’s life takes a massive upswing as everyone barring Jameson is nice to him all of a sudden. In consequent issues he gains a true friendship group, a new roommate, a sexy new love interest in Mary Jane, a sleek new bike and so on. In Amazing Spider-Man #50 he quits being Spider-Man and similarly sees a major upswing in his life since he isn’t being held back by being a hero anymore. We also know from Stan Lee’s original intentions for the character’s future which he sort of played out in the newspaper strips that he intended for Peter to eventually get married, which would obviously be a good thing in his life but also be a source of problems.


But if you really want iron clad proof that Spider-Man is not inherently about being a screw up loser look to the end of ASM #12. In that issue the narrator (so Stan, and possibly Steve) outright state that in not so many words that Spider-Man is NOT a loser who’s life is endless misery, but rather he has his ups and downs like all of us. This makes complete sense if you consider the intention of the character to be relatable and ordinary (at least as far as comic book superheroes go). It is outright nonsensical as a statement to be in the comic if the point of the character is to be a screw up loser, which by extension would work best if he was a kid.



Then you have the fact that under Stan’s tenure and the tenure of OTHER writers the character continued to age and grow. You’d think if the point of the character was for him to be young or at least representative of young people he wouldn’t age at all or go through more adult life experiences. You’d certainly expect this to NOT happen under the penmanship of one of his co-creators.



But it was under Stan lee that Peter graduated high school, moved out of Aunt May’s house, fell in love and was working towards getting married. A letter’s page during the Ditko days even implied Stan had pie in the sky plans for Peter to become a parent someday.



Notably Stan Lee actually allowed MOST of the original 1960s Marvel Pantheon to go through various stages of character development and growth. See Reed and Sue getting engaged, married and having a kid, Johnny going to college and Ben Grimm becming nicer and more cuddly as time went by, the X-Men graduating from high schoolers to young adults, and so on.



Now you can say that DITKO intended for him to stay young so Stan was ‘wrong’ in doing this. But here is the thing, there is not reason why Ditko’s intentions should somehow trump Stan’s, let alone what the pages of the series are actually depicting about the character. Stan AND Steve were integral to defining Spider-Man so at worst their words and intentions are as equal as one another’s. At best since Stan worked on it the longest and by most accounts I’ve read was the original progenitor of the concept for Spider-Man (him and Ditko then fleshing it out) really I honestly think STAN’s words and intentions should mean more than Ditko’s


Bare in mind also the only source I know of where Ditko caims Spider-Man should be young comes second hand from Marv Wolfman in a 10+ year old interview where he was recalling a casual conversation from decades before that. This is hardly hard evidence.

[Spidercide]

Now look, I am not someone who buys into the ‘word of God’ idea when it comes to creative entities. I think at best the words of a creator of a story should give us some food for thought. But in this scenario it seems incredibly illogical and downright audacious for anyone, be they Marvel employees or not, to claim the original point of Spider-Man/what Spider-Man is about boils down to ‘youth’ or that that was the original intentions of the character as far as his creators were concerned. Frankly implying Spider-Man is about youth or that there is something wrong with an older Spider-Man or that a none teenage/high school Spider-Man is less valuable somehow than an older Spider-Man comes across an awful lot like ‘Stan Lee was wrong’ or ‘Stan Lee lost sight of the character’. Which again is pretty audacious considering most of the time their sole evidence to back that claim up is that he began life as a high schooler then stopped being that.




By this same logic Stan Lee lost sight of the point of the X-Men or Ben Grimm when they topped being high school students and a grumpy asshole respectively. Or that J.K. Rowling lost sight of Harry Potter when he stopped being 11 years old. Or that Akira Toriyama lost sight of the point of Dragon Ball when the protagonist Son Goku stopped being a kid going on adventures and became an adult husband and father embroiled with his friends and family in world threatening crises.



It is looking at one part of an ongoing story in isolation and boiling the entire point down to what was going on in that part.


For example you might be forgiven for thinking that Dragon Ball was entirely about the coming of age story of this one kid rather than the life of this character in general because it begins with him as a kid and you do indeed see him come of age and become an adult.


But if the story was about Son Goku’s life, inevitably you’d tell a coming of age story, because we all come of age in the curse of our lives, but that’s just part of a grander scale story, not the entire point of it.


Let’s use an example closer to home: Smallville. Smallville at first glance looks like a series about the teenage years of Superman, or the coming of age story of Clark Kent


Except it is not. Clark Kent comes of age and ceases being a high schooler/teenager long before the final season of the show.


Because the show was never ABOUT Clark coming of age or about his life as a teenager so much as it was about the journey of Clark Kent becoming Superman. The story happened to start with him as a kid but in theory if the writers wanted they could’ve done what Gotham did and begun when he was still a child. And since they started at that point by extension they had to tell the story of his teen years and his coming of age. But those stories didn’t culminate with him becoming Superman. Clark was already an adult who’d come of age by the time the last episode aired. In fact MOST versions of Superman’s story, outside of the pre-crisis Earth One version depict him becoming Superman AFTER his teen years. Case in point the original 1978 Superman movie shows Clark coming of age and in that movie you could argue he comes of age WHEN he becomes Superman but that is only half way through the movie. The movie isn’t ABOUT him coming of age and becoming Superman but if the movie ended when he flies out of the Fortress of Solitude you’d be forgiven for thinking that yes it was.



Bringing this back to Spider-Man, maybe you’d think Spider-Man was about youth if you looked at the first 28 issues alone where he is a high school student. But as I’ve said the series continued well beyond that point under Stan Lee’s penmanship. In fact Peter was at least 20 years old by the end of Stan’s run and had arguably coming of age as early as the Master Planner trilogy, though some people argue that this actually happened when Gwen deid. Regardless, whilst the character was still young back then and naïve, that didn’t render ‘youth’ the wholesale point of the character. Again, Stan’s long term plans were for him to marry Gwen so in his mind the character was not about youth. The fact that he married him off in the newspaper strip and is on record as being a-okay with the marriage back when it was around is further proof he clearly didn’t think Spider-Man was about youth. The era he happened to be writing Spider-Man during happened to epict the character during his younger years is all.


The fact that other legendary Spider-Man scribes like Tom DeFalco and J.M. DeMatteis similarly do not think Spider-Man was about youth lends further weight to the argument that he in fact was never about that, thus hinging arguments and decisions upon him bing young or needing to be young makes no sense.


Even Roger Stern who to my knowledge HAS claimed Spider-Man is about youth has undermined that very idea by having Spider-Man in his run grow and develop in adult ways by choosing to leave full time education and make his own way in the world. A very adult decision in the first place and call me crazy but a man in his mid-20s who has his own apartment and supports himself and is trying to make bread to afford his girlfriend’s hospital bills (this was one reason Stern had Peter leave Grad School) isn’t exactly ‘youth’.


Hell, Peter Parker teenage high school student who is the sole breadwinner for his household which includes paying for the life preserving medicine of his ailing elderly mother isn’t exactly youth either, even for the 1960s. How many teenagers back then let alone now had to carry such a serious burden on their shoulders? Very few. That’s not a burden of youth, that’s an adult’s burden, you can’t even say it’s metaphorical for the experiences teenagers go through. It’s just straight up not something most teens back then or now have ever had to worry about. If you are about ‘youth’ then your parents as providers should be a big factor in your life.



Not to mention that youth doesn’t look like a mid-20 year old person. ‘Youth’ at the biggest of pushes when you are telling a story about youthful experiences cuts off at age 21 at the absolute most, really age 18 given how in most western societies, 18 is the age you are considered an adult. Someone who’s 21 or older, like Peter has been since the Gerry Conway run (and that includes Brand New Day) is not a representative of youth. He’s an adult. And acting like a youth whilst an adult frankly makes him a man-child and thus a far cry from an identifiable, relatable or inspiring super hero.



P.S. Back during the Brevoort Manifesto Tom Brevoort claimed to support his case for Spider-Man being about youth that his villains were all adults. This line of reasoning is very flawed because MOST super villains back then and now tend to be adults. This is because the intelligence and resources a super villain will need to embark on a career of crime tend to be out of reach for younger people and more poignantly it made it harder to not feel sorry for the villains when they got their comeuppance.


A younger person who’s a villain who goes to jail or gets defeated is more of a tragic figure, more of a screwed up kid to most people’s eyes and their lives and futures have just been ruined. This would’ve been an especially big concern back during Stan’s run on Spider-Man where the Comics Code was in full swing.


Inevitably this meant Spider-Man’s villains were going to be adults the same way the X-men’s villains were or the FF’s villaisn were or Johnny Storm’s villains were.

[Mister Mets]

I think the fundamental disagreement about the direction of the Spider-Man books is about whether the important thing is that he's the hero who was young, or whether it's that he was the hero who we saw grow up.

While many changes occurred to the character in the first few years, we do have to keep in mind that the writer and artist didn't think he was going to stick around long. As Stan Lee said in Comics Creators on Spider-Man, "Believe me we nevert thought any of these titles would last as long as they have. Ever since the start of the first days of comics, the industry always followed trends." "When Fantastic Four started to sell, I just assumed it was time for a superhero trend. I never thought it would last more than two or three years, if that long."

In the interview, he talks about why Kirby's approach didn't work. "Jack drew two or three pages and I immediately realized that he wasn't the guy for Spider-Man. I didn't want this character to look like your typical superhero. I just wanted him to be a shy teenager, who wasn't too handsome."

"I just wanted to do what I thought would be the first realistic superhero. Up until then, superheroes didn't really have problems. They only has one problem, and that was how to beat up every villain. I just wasn't interested in that. I wanted to write about a character who worried about money - just like I did. I liked the idea of him having a sick aunt. I also thought it would be interesting if he weren't popular in school."

[Spidercide]

I think the fundamental disagreement about the direction of the Spider-Man books is about whether the important thing is that he's the hero who was young, or whether it's that he was the hero who we saw grow up.

While many changes occurred to the character in the first few years, we do have to keep in mind that the writer and artist didn't think he was going to stick around long. As Stan Lee said in Comics Creators on Spider-Man, "Believe me we nevert thought any of these titles would last as long as they have. Ever since the start of the first days of comics, the industry always followed trends." "When Fantastic Four started to sell, I just assumed it was time for a superhero trend. I never thought it would last more than two or three years, if that long."

In the interview, he talks about why Kirby's approach didn't work. "Jack drew two or three pages and I immediately realized that he wasn't the guy for Spider-Man. I didn't want this character to look like your typical superhero. I just wanted him to be a shy teenager, who wasn't too handsome."

"I just wanted to do what I thought would be the first realistic superhero. Up until then, superheroes didn't really have problems. They only has one problem, and that was how to beat up every villain. I just wasn't interested in that. I wanted to write about a character who worried about money - just like I did. I liked the idea of him having a sick aunt. I also thought it would be interesting if he weren't popular in school."

He's neither.

Spider-Man isn't a story about being young or about growing up so much about life in general. It's about one particular person's life which we happened to begin following during his teen years.

And again Stan Lee clearly never intended that to be the case.

Whilst it might be true that no one expected Spider-Man to stick around for too long, that is irrelevant to the central point that he was never about youth as part of the original core conception. If he was then Stan Lee wouldn't have bothered allowing him to age at all since even if the character ended within 10 years that'd still go against the whole point of him.

Your quotes don't prove Stan's intention was that the character was ABOUT youth as the point. Just that he thought it'd be interesting doing a series about a character who happened to be a teenager and that Ditko was better suited to that. Additionally whilst shy at first very rapidly peter grew out of that. And again, if the character was about youth he'd never have aged out of his most youthful status quo or been allowed to gain popularity in college.

Whilst not everyone is popular in college they do tend to come out of their shells and form more meaningful friendships and become more sociable, again supporting the idea that Stan didn't want Spider-Man to represent the experience of youth so much as the experiences of real life relatively speaking.

His choosing to begin the newspaper strip with a clearly not teenaged college student Spider-Man also supports this.

Furthermore whilst writers and artists might not have expected Spider-Man to stick around forever by the time you get to the 1980s they had to have a clue that the character was no longer living on a short term basis and thus the advancements they made for them would thus be anathema for him if indeed he was about youth. Which he patently was not.

[Fearless Heart]

I thought the answer was going to be that he's not about youth, he's about responsibility, but after reading your post, I like what your getting at.

Spider-man wasn't about any agenda for a writer. We fell in love with Peter Parker because of how he was characterized and how he was developed throughout the years into a multilayered character, and that character is gone for me.

[Spidercide]

I thought the answer was going to be that he's not about youth, he's about responsibility, but after reading your post, I like what your getting at.

Spider-man wasn't about any agenda for a writer. We fell in love with Peter Parker because of how he was characterized and how he was developed throughout the years into a multilayered character, and that character is gone for me.

I mean thematically he IS about responsibility too. But it's more he ISN't about youth if you get me

[Huntsman Spider]

I get you. And this is beautiful. Seriously, it is. If he ever was about "youth," it was more in the sense of how "youths" must eventually grow into and accept adult responsibilities, something he was already taking on with having to be the breadwinner for his family after his uncle's death and specifically the caretaker of his ailing aunt, not to mention the moral obligation to use his superhuman abilities to protect and defend others that needed it, even if they weren't always or often grateful.

[WebLurker]

There's an old saying about how heresies are an exaggeration of truth, which I think accounts for all this.

Is youth something that has played a role in the character? Yes, there are stories that use it effectively. The same goes for Spider-Man loosing a lot, and any other number of things.

However, there's a reason that "with great power comes great responsibility" is the tagline of the series; that is what the core theme of the franchise is, that's the point of the origin story, that's what's established the mythos for years now. Do the other elements play their parts? Yes, there are more themes and kinds of stories Spider-Man can tell. But, when the Powers That Be at Marvel say that youth is the core of what Spider-Man is, I firmly believe that that's a mistake; it doesn't track with the actual material.

[Bor]

He's neither.

Spider-Man isn't a story about being young or about growing up so much about life in general. It's about one particular person's life which we happened to begin following during his teen years.

.

I don't think the difference is really that different. How is following one characters life in general not also pr. definition about growing up and maturing, or in some cases the lack of those elements?
This isn't like where we see one character who has had powers for 10 years and start following them. We see him get his power from a young age and see how he develops and juggling the mix of a super hero and normal life.

[Spidercide]

I don't think the difference is really that different. How is following one characters life in general not also pr. definition about growing up and maturing, or in some cases the lack of those elements?
This isn't like where we see one character who has had powers for 10 years and start following them. We see him get his power from a young age and see how he develops and juggling the mix of a super hero and normal life.

No not exactly. A story about someone learning to be a father at age 35 is not a story about growing up. You grew up long ago by that point. Example, in Logan Wolverine is an old man who's now coping with a young girl in his charge.

He's not grwoing up, it's just a different stage of life.

A story about growing up is a story about the transition into being a literal grown up, and adult. We passed that point for Spider-Man long ago thus it cannot be a story about growing up.

Essentially if the characetr begins as a youth you tell the story of their youth. If they reach maturrity by definition you re telling the story of them growing up. Bu if the story keeps going then it's not specifically about their youth or their coming of age so much about their life over all and you have told those particular stages of it Again see Smallville and Dragon Ball.

Clark and Goku began as effective teenagers and we saw them mature and come of age but the story kept going beyond that. For Clark the story ended when he became Superman but he'd already hit adulthood and maturity by that point, it was just a matter of accepting his destiny and cultural heritage and becoming the sum of his experiences. It was a blossoming of all he'd learned but he was very much a man before that. For Goku, despite his own naivety the longest stretch of the series begins with him being a father of a 5 year old and keeps going up until he's the father of another 8 year old and by the epilogue is a grandfather and seasoned martial arts master.

So the sotry of their youths and coming of ages happened but it wasn't THE point.

[Bor]

No not exactly. A story about someone learning to be a father at age 35 is not a story about growing up. You grew up long ago by that point. Example, in Logan Wolverine is an old man who's now coping with a young girl in his charge.

He's not grwoing up, it's just a different stage of life.

A story about growing up is a story about the transition into being a literal grown up, and adult. We passed that point for Spider-Man long ago thus it cannot be a story about growing up.

Essentially if the character begins as a youth you tell the story of their youth. If they reach maturrity by definition you re telling the story of them growing up. Bu if the story keeps going then it's not specifically about their youth or their coming of age so much about their life over all and you have told those particular stages of it Again see Smallville and Dragon Ball.

Clark and Goku began as effective teenagers and we saw them mature and come of age but the story kept going beyond that. For Clark the story ended when he became Superman but he'd already hit adulthood and maturity by that point, it was just a matter of accepting his destiny and cultural heritage and becoming the sum of his experiences. It was a blossoming of all he'd learned but he was very much a man before that. For Goku, despite his own naivety the longest stretch of the series begins with him being a father of a 5 year old and keeps going up until he's the father of another 8 year old and by the epilogue is a grandfather and seasoned martial arts master.

So the sotry of their youths and coming of ages happened but it wasn't THE point.

I must say I disagree with a lot of what you said here. Growing up and maturing is a huge part of the growth of Spider-man. His transtion from teenager-young adult- mature adult is for many of us, including som of the most prominent writers and creators who has worked on the series, a huge part of what Spider-man is about.

Someone like Goku is vastly different to the point I dont see any reason to bring him up. The point of that character was never growing up. Thats why even as a grandfather Goku is really not that different from when the series began. Saying that a story is about growing up just because a character gets older is not really true. I think that is a pretty narrow definition you got there.
A story can easily be about maturing as a father when you are 35 if the story is tolled right.
The fact that Peter learns/tries to balance the two different sides of his life is relateable to many people.
I think you seem to have a very different viewpoint then a lot of do here. I also think that suggesting that maturing ends when you are adult is somewhat naive.

[Spidercide]

I must say I disagree with a lot of what you said here. Growing up and maturing is a huge part of the growth of Spider-man. His transtion from teenager-young adult- mature adult is for many of us, including som of the most prominent writers and creators who has worked on the series, a huge part of what Spider-man is about.

Someone like Goku is vastly different to the point I dont see any reason to bring him up. The point of that character was never growing up. Thats why even as a grandfather Goku is really not that different from when the series began. Saying that a story is about growing up just because a character gets older is not really true. I think that is a pretty narrow definition you got there.
A story can easily be about maturing as a father when you are 35 if the story is tolled right.
The fact that Peter learns/tries to balance the two different sides of his life is relateable to many people.
I think you seem to have a very different viewpoint then a lot of do here. I also think that suggesting that maturing ends when you are adult is somewhat naive.

If Spider-Man really was about that though then his story would've ended and been intended to end once he became a mature adult. But Stan Lee did not intend for that to be the case and furthermore his series continued long beyond that point. You can debate when Peter became a mature adult but it's incredibly obvious that it happened before the dawn of the 1990s era at the very least. The Spider-Man of the 1990-2007 wasn't maturing into a mature adult, he was already there and remained so for an elongated period of time, at one point with the intended direction of becoming a parent. So whilst certainly that progression should've happened and was rewarding and is part of the point of Spider-Man is is not what the character is about. Spider-Man is about life, or being the everyman, or responsibility, or the relationship between power and responsibility or some combination thereof. You tell a story of him growing up of course but only as part of the story of someone's life or of the everyman expereince or as an examination of how our responsibilities and handling of said responsibilites change as we mature.

The point of Goku was really not that he never grew up. I'd also disagree that he wasn't that different as a grandfather to when he was a kid. I think that's taking too superficial a look at him.

I never said Goku was ABOUT growing up. Again, if it was then it'd have ended when he did grow up but it continued well beyond that point.

Its difficult to pin down what the real point of Goku was partially because the series where he is the lead character is a fusion manga not pinned down exclusively to any one genre beyond 'shonen' or beyond 'shonen action'. And partially because I do not think Toriyama was honestly putting that much thought into pinning Goku down like that. Goku at best can be described as a character who's point is to break his limits. He is someone who's about self-improvement for the sake of self-improvement.

I don't think I am communicating myself properly. A story about youth exclusivly takes place where the character is young sans perhaps the end of the tale A story about growing up and maturing begins in youth and ends when the character comes of age.

Spider-Man did that and kept going. it's not a story about maturity beyond the fact that as a biographical story inevitably you have to depict that.

For most people you still change after you come of age but I don't think that is exactly maturity so much as behaving differently due to your age and lfie experiences.

[TheCape]

Frankly, i never understood where this whole "youth" thing came from, i got into Spider-Man when i was 8 with the 90s Animated Series, nothing about that charachter screamed "youth" and back in the old stories he didn't act a lot like you would expect for a teenager.

To be honest, sounds like the editors and writers took an aspect of the characther that worked back then and tried to sell it like he was all about that, when in reality is just an oversimplication of his charachter. The same thing can be say about him being an screw up or a "loser".

[Metamorphosis]

Frankly, i never understood where this whole "youth" thing came from, i got into Spider-Man when i was 8 with the 90s Animated Series, nothing about that charachter screamed "youth" and back in the old stories he didn't act a lot like you would expect for a teenager.

To be honest, sounds like the editors and writers took an aspect of the characther that worked back then and tried to sell it like he was all about that, when in reality is just an oversimplication of his charachter. The same thing can be say about him being an screw up or a "loser".

Same.

I submit that the people currently in charge of the comics at Marvel have absolutely no understanding of the character, going back to when Joey Q & Alonso came on the scene.