Thread Drift: Should Spider-Man Get Older?

[eSoldier]

Spider-Man should be forever young. How old should Peter Parker get, 40, 50, 80?

As John Cougar Mellencamp sang ''Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying,'' ''Uh-huh,'' ''And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun."

[DieHard200904]

Spider-Man should be forever young. How old should Peter Parker get, 40, 50, 80?

As John Cougar Mellencamp sang ''Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying,'' ''Uh-huh,'' ''And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun."

Especially when it's fantasy. I think Peter should have never had the talk about life insurance, especially if they are not going to make it a genuine issue.

[Alan2099]

I just can't picture picking up a comic and having Peter looking in the mirror and wondering if anybody else has noticed those few gray hairs yet.

[Fearless Heart]

This past month of threads have really been educational and they've revealed how ignorant and naive I am.

I think I finally understand where creators are coming from, especially with what Gerry Conway said about characters being changed into something they're not and wanting to hold on to characters.

I would like the character to grow older or die and pass on the mantle just like I wished Batman would have stayed dead and passed the mantle on to Dick and then Dick to Damian. I guess that's not the best thing for the character though.

Over the years, I read comments saying that Superman is who Spider-man would be when he grew up, and I was against it, but maybe all those folks were on to something.

[suemorphplus209]

This past month of threads have really been educational and they've revealed how ignorant and naive I am.

I think I finally understand where creators are coming from, especially with what Gerry Conway said about characters being changed into something they're not and wanting to hold on to characters.

I would like the character to grow older or die and pass on the mantle just like I wished Batman would have stayed dead and passed the mantle on to Dick and then Dick to Damian. I guess that's not the best thing for the character though.

Over the years, I read comments saying that Superman is who Spider-man would be when he grew up, and I was against it, but maybe all those folks were on to something.

If someone wished to do Peter Parker as an old guy, they could do it in an alternate universe. Although Spider-Man : Reign was disturbing.

[Timmyb52]

It is possible to have a fictional character such as Peter Parker progress and age but at a very,very slow rate.This would be my preferred status quo for the character and his story. The story and adventures of Peter Parker can have a beginning,middle and end that takes the character far into the future before his original story ends...and once it ends we can have books detailing "untold" stories during his lifetime,which can be told and go on forever! We can have him passing the torch to a new web-slinger such as Miles or one of his own off-spring...the possibilities are endless.
Peter Parker can grow old and remain relevant...or they can just allow him to age and then once he gets to a certain point they can de-age him through fictional means like they have done with Steve Rogers several times.
Aging his character does not mean the death of the character....especially a comic book fictional one. There are many ways writers can de-age him again after a certain point in time, or write new stories based on his character after his original story has ended.
Let us not forget about Old Man Logan or the fact that Steve Rogers should have died from old age a long time ago.
Keeping Peter in a non-progressive status quo that refuses to allow his character to grow,age and progress over time only leads to stagnation and death of the character itself IMHO.

[Mister Mets]

It is possible to have a fictional character such as Peter Parker progress and age but at a very,very slow rate.This would be my preferred status quo for the character and his story. The story and adventures of Peter Parker can have a beginning,middle and end that takes the character far into the future before his original story ends...and once it ends we can have books detailing "untold" stories during his lifetime,which can be told and go on forever! We can have him passing the torch to a new web-slinger such as Miles or one of his own off-spring...the possibilities are endless.
Peter Parker can grow old and remain relevant...or they can just allow him to age and then once he gets to a certain point they can de-age him through fictional means like they have done with Steve Rogers several times.
Aging his character does not mean the death of the character....especially a comic book fictional one. There are many ways writers can de-age him again after a certain point in time, or write new stories based on his character after his original story has ended.
Let us not forget about Old Man Logan or the fact that Steve Rogers should have died from old age a long time ago.
Keeping Peter in a non-progressive status quo that refuses to allow his character to grow,age and progress over time only leads to stagnation and death of the character itself IMHO.

Is it going to be interesting to show progression at a slow rate, such as the years before Peter had a kid old enough to take over as the main superhero? That would have to be a story engine for decades of material.

[Timmyb52]

Is it going to be interesting to show progression at a slow rate, such as the years before Peter had a kid old enough to take over as the main superhero? That would have to be a story engine for decades of material.

Marvel can approach these kind of things in different ways...they can slow down time,speed it up...or just skip ahead in time. It all depends on what kind of stories Marvel would do in relation to Peter's character and his growth going forward and how long they would like to spread things out. BND continuity has been spread over 10 years now with a very slow progress of time happening in the book with time jumps also.Marvel can mix up their time scales pretty easily.

[Mister Mets]

Marvel can approach these kind of things in different ways...they can slow down time,speed it up...or just skip ahead in time. It all depends on what kind of stories Marvel would do in relation to Peter's character and his growth going forward and how long they would like to spread things out. BND continuity has been spread over 10 years now with a very slow progress of time happening in the book with time jumps also.Marvel can mix up their time scales pretty easily.

If time is sped up or skipped, that has implications for the current young heroes as well as those a decade older than Spidey.

[Timmyb52]

If time is sped up or skipped, that has implications for the current young heroes as well as those a decade older than Spidey.

This has been done many times throughout Marvel's history...past and present.Time skipped ahead between OMD and the start of BND,The end of Superior to Vol3, Secret Wars and Vol.4...with writers and editors letting each other know what they are doing then little to no implications usually occur or result.When it is done badly it just comes across as lazy writing IMHO.In the end it all comes down to how it is done.

[Mister Mets]

This has been done many times throughout Marvel's history...past and present.Time skipped ahead between OMD and the start of BND,The end of Superior to Vol3, Secret Wars and Vol.4...with writers and editors letting each other know what they are doing then little to no implications usually occur or result.When it is done badly it just comes across as lazy writing IMHO.In the end it all comes down to how it is done.

The stuff you mention is going ahead a few months. It'll be different if Miles and Ms Marvel are suddenly in college, and heroes who were pushing 40 hit that milestone.

[Timmyb52]

The stuff you mention is going ahead a few months. It'll be different if Miles and Ms Marvel are suddenly in college, and heroes who were pushing 40 hit that milestone.

Agreed. However, there are still ways they can get around that if you have a creative writer.For example...just off the top of my head you could have Peters baby get exposed to a villians aging serum,gas or technology in a story and have that age the child to a teenager or an adult.Or, they could have Peter make a deal with Mephisto to age his baby child {lol}.

[Rahul]

This whole concept of a "main" title where the character never shows meaningful progress is becoming more and more outdated with each passing year.

You have to do something fresh to keep a character engaging, but the concept of fresh is so contextual depending on the year. Today, single Spider-Man is more stale, and married Spider-Man is popular thanks to Renew Your Vows. A few years earlier, it used to be Single Spider-man was better than married Spider-Man because of the Ultimate comics.

An ideal solution to the whole thing is to do away with a concept of a "main" Spider-Man altogether.

[WebLurker]

This whole concept of a "main" title where the character never shows meaningful progress is becoming more and more outdated with each passing year.

You have to do something fresh to keep a character engaging, but the concept of fresh is so contextual depending on the year. Today, single Spider-Man is more stale, and married Spider-Man is popular thanks to Renew Your Vows. A few years earlier, it used to be Single Spider-man was better than married Spider-Man because of the Ultimate comics.

An ideal solution to the whole thing is to do away with a concept of a "main" Spider-Man altogether.

I got the impression that RYV was a cult following at best (and I'm speaking as one of the cult's card-carrying Kool-Aid guzzlers).

[UnknownEntity]

Spider Man should reach the prime of his life and from there stop aging. Someone's physical prime is somewhere in his thirties so that's where he should stop aging. Spider Man was a kid for like the first two or three years of his life and then an adult more than fifty years afterwards. He is not a kid.