Are there too many Spider-People?

[oldschool]

Got to thinking of the irony that the "Grim Hunt" story of a few years ago was allegedly an effort to streamline the spider-family at the time as the thought was there were too many spider-people running around and it took away from Peter's uniqueness.

Well, I think it's safe to say that there are (many) more spider-people running around today than ever before. Just off the top of my head, it's:

Peter
Miles
Miguel (Spidey 2099)
Spider-Gwen
Silk
Spider-Woman (Jessica)
Kaine
Scarlet Spider (Ben)
....and of course all the AU versions of Peter and the others above.

So.....the question is how many should there be? How closely should they co-exist and even work together? Personally, I think this is way too many and Peter's status as a loner has been wiped away as a result.

[MindofShadow]

Peter has evolved past someone like Miles encroaching on his territory.

He is "bigger" than a street level kid in NY now.

[oldschool]

Peter has evolved past someone like Miles encroaching on his territory.

He is "bigger" than a street level kid in NY now.

Oh, I agree that neither Miles (nor anyone) can encroach on his territory yet.....it still dilutes the brand and also fundamentally changes who Peter is as a person to have him now in this de facto "Spider-Captain" role. I am not suggesting he go back to the down on his luck/broke schnook of the 1970's but the pendulum has swung too far the other way IMO and having a dozen or so spider-folks swinging around is part of that.

[ptsteelers]

Well I am probably the wrong guy to answer this as I was mad when the X-Men became a team with more than 6 members , but I think the problem will be (or is) that it isn't just the amount of Spidey people, but the amount of Spidey books that dilutes the property.

Back to the X-Men, if the X-Men wouldn't have started having 14 titles a month, I would have been fine with the amount of mutants in the MU, but when they started putting them all in their own books or having Wolverine in 5 of them a month, it started to get to the point of over-saturation of the brand. I think the same applies with Spidey powered peeps. IMO

[Digifiend]

Got to thinking of the irony that the "Grim Hunt" story of a few years ago was allegedly an effort to streamline the spider-family at the time as the thought was there were too many spider-people running around and it took away from Peter's uniqueness.

Well, I think it's safe to say that there are (many) more spider-people running around today than ever before. Just off the top of my head, it's:

Peter
Miles
Miguel (Spidey 2099)
Spider-Gwen
Silk
Spider-Woman (Jessica)
Kaine
Scarlet Spider (Ben)
....and of course all the AU versions of Peter and the others above.

So.....the question is how many should there be? How closely should they co-exist and even work together? Personally, I think this is way too many and Peter's status as a loner has been wiped away as a result.

There's the rest of the Web Warriors, though the only important one (apart from Gwen who you already mentioned) is Anya Corazon, Spider-Girl, as she's 616 native. There's also Madame Web/Arachne (Julia Carpenter), and if she survives Clone Conspiracy, another Spider-Woman (Mattie Franklin).

Of course they can't all support a book. Spider-Woman is probably cancelled (we'll know for sure if it's absent from April's solicits) and Silk doesn't sell much better, so I think they should have the ladies form a team, Spider-Women (which would use the same branding as last year's Jess/Cindy/Gwen event). 2099 is probably for the chop as well.

[DieHard200904]

Got to thinking of the irony that the "Grim Hunt" story of a few years ago was allegedly an effort to streamline the spider-family at the time as the thought was there were too many spider-people running around and it took away from Peter's uniqueness.

Well, I think it's safe to say that there are (many) more spider-people running around today than ever before. Just off the top of my head, it's:

Peter
Miles
Miguel (Spidey 2099)
Spider-Gwen
Silk
Spider-Woman (Jessica)
Kaine
Scarlet Spider (Ben)
....and of course all the AU versions of Peter and the others above.

So.....the question is how many should there be? How closely should they co-exist and even work together? Personally, I think this is way too many and Peter's status as a loner has been wiped away as a result.

I feel that it is too many for just one universe. I think some characters should have their own universe, get depowered or something. We obviously have a number of them at cancellation levels too. Some should be relegated to an AU miniseries, like Silk being the Spider-woman of another universe. Marvel really bit off more than it could chew in terms of Spider-Man.

[Ianbarreilles]

I like Jessica drew spider woman, miles morales spider man, Cindy moon/silk, and spider gwen/stacy as well as the original Peter Parker spider man so no there's not too many and it's sad that so many people mostly old school fans don't like silk and spider gwen):

The reason why I excluded Jessica and miles as not being as widely disliked or at least in my experience is because in comparison to silk and spider gwen people have accepted or love miles and Jessica.

[oldschool]

I feel that it is too many for just one universe. I think some characters should have their own universe, get depowered or something. We obviously have a number of them at cancellation levels too.

Yeah, well there of course used to be another universe for some of them but Secret Wars changed that! I also think, if multiple spider-people are going to exist in the 616, best to scatter them to different cities. Sounds like that is what will happen for Ben but the rest are still around NYC and, even though Peter isn't exclusively in NYC these days, that will likely change after PI goes away (which can't be soon enough for me). Even then, the non-stop crossovers bring them together way too often; IMO, the best thing Marvel can do right now with all these spider-people is have them grow within their own books for a bit---leave them alone for a year or more of their own stories with no crossovers. I doubt that will happen but, in the long run, it will show which ones have staying power and which don't.

[Ianbarreilles]

I feel that it is too many for just one universe. I think some characters should have their own universe, get depowered or something. We obviously have a number of them at cancellation levels too. Some should be relegated to an AU miniseries, like Silk being the Spider-woman of another universe. Marvel really bit off more than it could chew in terms of Spider-Man.

Silk and spider Gwen have made it this far so I don't think they'll get axed I do think they are good but there's no doubt that these titles aren't as popular as Miles's spider man , or Jessica's spider woman, or even peters 'so amazing spider man titles.

[MindofShadow]

I think eventually they will cannabilize themselves (in the Main universe anyway) back down to ASM, Miles, and gwen/silk. (Jessica really doesn't count) with the occasional Miguel/Scarlet book that happens outside of NYC. Which is fine, nothing wrong with building the Spidey brand. It is no different than what DC does with Batman and it hasn't diminished batman at all IMO.

[Sardorim]

You forgot Anya!

[John Ossie]

^^^ That's proof that there's too many!

In all seriousness though I do think oldschool has a point. There's so many Spider-People now LOL. I don't want to give an arbitrary figure on how many there should be though but I don't think Marvel should introduce any more until they kill at least one of the current ones off or one of them just goes into limbo for years.

[SuperiorIronman]

Nothing is wrong with building the Spider-man brand up. It's not excessive yet and someone has something on the shelf that they like.

[suemorphplus209]

Nothing is wrong with building the Spider-man brand up. It's not excessive yet and someone has something on the shelf that they like.

Theoretically sure,, but there are only so many that will sell.

[Grim Ghost]

For me, yes. I don't like when this is done with any character whether it's Wolverine, Batman, Hulk or whoever else. It takes away from the original character being special and unique. But at least some of these books sell well so I guess I am in the minority. Marvel seems to be obsessed in recent years with making endless slightly tweaked duplicates of their characters. I don't see it ending anytime soon. I do believe that at some point people are going to burn out on this stuff though even if it takes years.