Why criticizing Peter Parker for not having life insurance is stupid. An essay

[Spidercide]

For years now I’ve heard the critique of Peter Parker’s character that he’s an irresponsible man-child **** up because he doesn’t have life insurance.
Here is why that criticism is totally invalid.

The criticism stems from two specific sources. The first source is from an offhand comment in the 2005 storyline the Other, specifically Friendly Nieghborhood Spider-Man #2. To give some context Peter Parker has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and after consulting the big brains of the Marvel Universe (Reed Richards, Hank Pym, T’Challa, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, etc) is accepting the fact that he’s doomed.

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The other source for this criticism stems from famous internet reviewer Linkara’s review of One More Day on his long running internet review show Atop the Fourth Wall.


I’ve dissected Linkara’s over all criticism of the character before and explained why it’s utter cack that is evidence of his ignorance when it comes to the character (not unexpected given that he’s hardcore DC and doesn’t dabble half as much into Marvel).

But that isn’t my point or the topic of discussion.

So first of all let’s just do some important context here for both sources.

The line about Peter not having life insurance came from Reginald Hudlin who frankly was never good as a Spider-Man writer, was given Marvel writing jobs as a weird publicity stunt more than anything and was the guy who wrote Tony Stark so out of character that he was literally offering Spider-Man the opportunity to commit adultery on Mary Jane at one point.

Hardly the most liable source for the character is it?

But in truth most people probably know more about this criticism from Linklara’s video. Linkara is very well known within the comic book industry as he is the closest thing to a full on comic book nerd celebrity we have. Allegedly his videos actually inspired Marvel to make a Deadpool storyline which revived incredibly obscure characters that were the subject of one of his reviews.

Typically whenever the criticism of Peter not having life insurance is brought up it’s in a manner not dissimilar to Linkara’s long and ill informed rant about Peter as a character.

Which heavily indicates to me that really most of the people bringing up the criticism are parroting him without
a) Having read the story
b) Having read much Spider-Man
c) Considering the context of the character and the world he lives in and the life he leads.

In short they repeat the criticism to pretend they know what they are talking about when they do not.
But okay let’s get down to brass tax and explain why it makes complete fucking sense despite all that as to why Peter Parker wouldn’t have life insurance.

The short story is it boils down to three reasons

· He can’t afford it
· It’d be unethical
· It’d be redundant

Lets go through those one by one.

He can’t afford life insurance


In the storyline in question Peter Parker had been living rent free with the Avengers for at most 2 months tops and that’s an extreme estimate, it’s probably less.
So what was Peter’s living situation BEFORE that?

He was a teacher at an underfunded, under resourced inner city school with a history of crime and poverty in the area where some of the students were effectively squatting and there was also drug problems too. His decision to teach there was more out of a desire to help the children rather than any financial considerations. Due to being Spider-Man days off also were not uncommon for him and one imagines that would impact his pay. Teachers tend to get a shitty wage in general but a teacher at this sort of school under these sorts of conditions would be a noticeably shitty wage. So Peter Parker doesn’t have much income coming generally speaking.

Then you’ve got his expenses.


Living in central Manhattan is extortionately pricy most of the time due to the rent alone, never mind other utilities, food, clothing and other necessities.
But Peter ALSO had to use some of his salary to help support Aunt May who as far as we know never had a job where there would be a pension scheme. Maybe she had some money to get by but given that Peter as a teenager was obviously the main source of income through being a photographer it’s likely May never had much money so was reliant upon Peter for financial support. This is a big deal because she is not only an older person living in what looks like a two bedroom (at least) detached house in Forest Hills she also has a history of medical problems which have proven pricy over the years.


On top of all of that Peter also has to pay for maintenance of his equipment as Spider-Man. He has to get the right fabric to make multiple copies of his full body costume (comprised of seven different items of clothing, a mask, a shirt, pants, gloves and boots). He has to get special one way lenses the then must attach to the fabric of his costume (which would probably require some kind of adhesive). He has to make, maintain and ensure he has spares of his web shooters and web cartridges which is an entirely custom made set of devices meaning he’d have to purchase the individual materials himself. He has to do the same for his spider tracers, his spider signal and his utility belt which contains the latter devices and his cartridges.


And then there is the web-fluid. This is an entirely custom made chemical substance which is not only not sold in stores but requires Peter to be conspicuous when purchasing the individual ingredients so as to avoid suspicion. He also needs to maintain workable chemistry apparatus in order to properly mix the web fluid formula correctly, which is unto itself not cheap. Whilst it’s possible for him to make a cheaper version as Ben Reilly did in Sensational Spider-Man #0, Ben discovered that his cheaper version of the formula wasn’t nearly as reliable.


When taken with Peter’s outright statements that the web fluid is expensive you see that it’s yet another notable yet necessary draw on his income.
Now bear in mind that for most of his career Spider-Man did not have a reliable regular salary and relied upon freelance photography which makes his income flexible at best.

Do you see now?

He probably couldn’t AFFORD life insurance in the face of all the more immediate pressing needs he needed money for.
Now sure during the times he was in a relationship with Mary Jane, you could say he could have gotten life insurance when she was bringing in the big bucks but Mary Jane’s career has not itself been reliable. She’s had only short bursts of success and in a very recent story (Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #5) prior to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #2 she’d gotten the family into some notable financial straits.

[Spidercide]

It’d be redundant for him to get life insurance

In the Other storyline Peter Parker is dying due to his own superhuman biology. I forget the specifics but it’s essentially something to do with the radiation in his system breaking his body down or something like that.

Why do I bring this up?

Because unless somebody wants to correct me if I am wrong you can’t just get life insurance wherein your family gets money if you die under any given circumstances.

The circumstances of your death have to be taken into account before the company pays out.

In this story Peter is foolishly berating himself for not insuring his life against dying of an entirely fictional Marvel Universe illness which is entirely exclusive to him because nobody else has ever been bitten by a radioactive spider ever and the cause of death would be incredibly obvious to anybody looking at the medical report.

So he literally could never have BEEN insured against this in the first place.

But this ties into a broader point, that being that the life Spider-Man leads renders the need for life insurance completely redundant.



I’m not sure if any of the ‘enlightened people’ like Linkara (who once defended Joel Schumacher’s use of a Bat credit card in the 1997 film Batman and Robin) noticed but...Peter Parker is a superhero.

Peter Parker lives a life wherein he risks his life on a daily basis and where his villains risk killing him at any given moment of any given day. Guys like Norman Osborn and Venom who know his secret identity and can bypass his Spider Sense can even kill him as he sleeps.

In the real world there is NO life insurance coverage for superhuman activites. Now sure we could say there is if you live in the Marvel universe...but not if you actually ARE a superhero.

Superheroes like Spider-Man are vigilantes who routinely bend the law and are involved in numerous acts of collateral damage. Even if a life insurance company was willing to look passed the lack of identification Spidey, Daredevil and other such heroes would present they’d never go ahead with insuring them nor would they be allowed legally speaking.

Between his enhanced biology which allows him to heal better, resist injury better, move fast enough to dodge bullets and know when danger might strike even in his sleep, Peter Parker himself is more or less iron clad guaranteed to never ever die from like a car accident or anything. He even instinctively avoided being hit by a car mere minutes after obtaining his powers as a teenager.

In fact his death is most likely to come from his activities as a superhero. It’s statistically all but guaranteed that if he was to die before retirement it’d be because of that. Which again is something it’d be impossible for him to insure his life for.

At the same time even if somehow he did die in a mundane normal way he could’ve gotten insurance for and could somehow fake the autopsy to cover up his superhuman biology and protect his identity the only people he’d want to provide for would be Aunt May and Mary Jane.

If Peter is single he’d want to provide for Aunt May but if he is single then like I outlined above he probably couldn’t afford life insurance anyway. More than this between her poor health, history of heart problems and the sheer shock and grief from losing her beloved son Aunt May wouldn’t be long for this world anyway. My family have friends who recently lost their 23 year old son and we are currently worried for the health of the boy’s parents because losing your child is just about the most devastating thing that can ever possibly happen to anyone, and when it happens when you are at an advanced age it can be incredibly dangerous.

But now consider if Peter did die whilst married to Mary Jane then providing for May wouldn’t be a problem, he’d know MJ could handle that as well as provide for herself. She had more than enough options for modelling work if push came to shove which would be able to keep them both well provided for. MJ also had extended family and close friends Peter could rely upon to look after them both. In fact since he was living with the Avengers at the time of FN Spider-Man #2 he could pretty much rest assured that they (including billionaire Tony Stark) would make sure they would be alright for money.

Sure upon living with the Avengers and having most of his financial concerns addressed Peter could have purchased some life insurance for any mundane forms of death he might’ve experienced but by the time of the Other he hadn’t been living there for very long and there had been more than a few serious issues which demanded his attention such as HYDRA launching a goddam missile and Mary Jane being harassed by the paparazzi. Shortly AFTER the Other storyline Peter was busy just appreciating the fact that he wasn’t dying anymore but it was like less than a month before the Super Human Registration Act was passed and things went to chaos as the Marvel Universe was engulfed in the stupid Civil War event.

Finally given that Spider-Man’s death was more than likely going to be the result of his hero activities it would mean there was a massive chance that in dying his identity could be compromised and thereby endanger his family and friends which would render life insurance the least of their concerns.

It would be unethical for Spider-Man to get life insurance

Let’s pretend for a second that life insurance really did work the way many of these critics seem to think it works.

That you buy life insurance and thereby your next of kin gets money whenever you die, regardless of the circumstances.

Well if Spider-Man did that in the knowledge that his death was all too possible given his life style it would be profoundly unethical and immoral of him to do so.

In fact it would be outright illegal because it would involve him withholding vital pieces of information about himself which would affect a company’s desire to insure his life and the amount of money they would be willing to pay out. This is because he is a high risk customer, he risks death every second of every day meaning a company might not only have to pay out at the drop of a hate even though he’s only 30 years old but if they think he’s just a normal guy they might have to pay out a lot of money.

If his identity was exposed the companies would never pay out citing the fact that he outright deceived them and if they did then Spider-Man just basically stole money from these people which is profoundly irresponsible and out of character for him.

All the above coalesces into two essential facts.

That it is actually entirely logical that Spider-Man doesn’t have life insurance.
And that the people reprimanding the character for not having life insurance don't know what they are talking about.

[Carabas]

For years now I’ve heard the critique of Peter Parker’s character that he’s an irresponsible man-child **** up because he doesn’t have life insurance.

I don't think that it is even canon that he doesn't have life insurance. Anyway, it is a criticism I have never heard even once.

[TheCape]

I don't think that it is even canon that he doesn't have life insurance. Anyway, it is a criticism I have never heard even once.

Is actually pretty common on Tumblr.

[Carabas]

I'll take your word for it then. Some stupid meme that exploded, I presume?

[Spidercide]

Is actually pretty common on Tumblr.

The den hive of scum and villainy.

[Alan2099]

I can no longer tell the difference between that are joking and people that are just legitimately dumb.

[SuperiorIronman]

Lets unpack this for a moment.
He can afford an average apartment, Spider-man, and living expenses. Spider-man's costume is not that expensive. As a cosplayer I will tell you straight, it's expensive, it's not I can't eat for a week expensive. Multiples of a costume might get expensive but we know he repairs them when he needs to, the most expensive thing he has in his arsenal is his webshooters, and Peter could assemble his first pair from things he had or found. For someone who didn't have a job he just put the gadgets together rather quickly and did just fine with them. So if webshooters are apparently a trip or two to a hardware store on a teenagers presumed allowance (as Peter didn't have a job so how did he pay for things?) then his expenses likely come from the formula itself. The formula that he could still afford to make when he moved out of his Aunt's house. Granted Peter never lived in luxury but he always had what he needed and would have a roommate to assist in bills. Even when on his own he still did fine.
So his formula is likely a money sink and isn't regular enough of one since how did nobody find out who he was or come knocking when they find some dude who swore vengeance on people in High-school and was concocting chemicals.

[Tuck]

No one in the private sector would underwrite life insurance for a vigilante superhero. (If Peter didn't disclose this, his policy would be void.)

So, unless SHIELD is providing insurance - and Peter's willing to reveal his identity to them - it's a non-issue.

[Spidercide]

Lets unpack this for a moment.
He can afford an average apartment, Spider-man, and living expenses. Spider-man's costume is not that expensive. As a cosplayer I will tell you straight, it's expensive, it's not I can't eat for a week expensive. Multiples of a costume might get expensive but we know he repairs them when he needs to, the most expensive thing he has in his arsenal is his webshooters, and Peter could assemble his first pair from things he had or found. For someone who didn't have a job he just put the gadgets together rather quickly and did just fine with them. So if webshooters are apparently a trip or two to a hardware store on a teenagers presumed allowance (as Peter didn't have a job so how did he pay for things?) then his expenses likely come from the formula itself. The formula that he could still afford to make when he moved out of his Aunt's house. Granted Peter never lived in luxury but he always had what he needed and would have a roommate to assist in bills. Even when on his own he still did fine.
So his formula is likely a money sink and isn't regular enough of one since how did nobody find out who he was or come knocking when they find some dude who swore vengeance on people in High-school and was concocting chemicals.

Not really. Spider-Man's costume given the amount of maintenance he needs to do on it would be fairly expensive alongside as you say copies. Plus remember there are the lenses to consider. And we're talking about that amidst all his other expenses too.

Peter actually assembled his first set of web-shooters over a prolonged course of time. They were the culmination of a longer term project. He didn't just whip them up and again, he has to make multiple copies of them, repair them and has made them more advanced over the years, such as adding an LED light to tell him when he's running low on web fluid. The web shooters themselves though aren't nearly as expensive as the webbing formula itself.

Peter didn't have a job when he first became Spider-Man but he was also provided for by his parental figures remember and had access to some modest school resources which he tends not to have in the modern day, and probably feels more morally torn about taking for various reasons, one of which is Midtown high's downward spiral since his day.

None of this though undermines the central argument in regards to his expenses that he could easily have afforded life insurance on top of everything else. Often times it seemed like if he didn't take some pictures he really was not going eat or was going to lose his apartment so no, life insurance was probably something outside his affordability.

No one in the private sector would underwrite life insurance for a vigilante superhero. (If Peter didn't disclose this, his policy would be void.)

So, unless SHIELD is providing insurance - and Peter's willing to reveal his identity to them - it's a non-issue.

Tell that to tumblr

[Mister Mets]

Pretty extensive review of the issue, but I agree completely, especially on the ethics of it. I kinda worry about the political beliefs of someone who thinks it would okay for Peter to cheat the system like that.

[Huntsman Spider]

Pretty extensive review of the issue, but I agree completely, especially on the ethics of it. I kinda worry about the political beliefs of someone who thinks it would okay for Peter to cheat the system like that.

Probably the kind of people who think "the system cheats us already, so we might as well get something back," never mind that the "something back" we get is a relatively functional infrastructure that enables us to go about our daily lives without too much hassle or hardship.

[Mister Mets]

Probably the kind of people who think "the system cheats us already, so we might as well get something back," never mind that the "something back" we get is a relatively functional infrastructure that enables us to go about our daily lives without too much hassle or hardship.

That's shady enough, but it seems more perverse to be upset that someone else won't share that worldview.

[Spidercide]

Probably the kind of people who think "the system cheats us already, so we might as well get something back," never mind that the "something back" we get is a relatively functional infrastructure that enables us to go about our daily lives without too much hassle or hardship.

I've literally seen people on tumblr defending shop lifting.

I've seen a white person say Spider-Man being played by a black actor would be fine then another black person saying that they are racist for ever believing that.

[Lee]

For years now I’ve heard the critique of Peter Parker’s character that he’s an irresponsible man-child **** up because he doesn’t have life insurance.

This is probably the most bizarre sentence I have ever read on this forum.