Opinion, Do you perfer to read or watch about High School Peter or Adult Peter?

[Lee]

[Vortex85]

Do you realize how ridiculous that panel would be for anyone to read after the character has been around for decades of battles and experiences? Even if the passage of time is not present or he is still in high school, the number of things the character has been through will make that not work for anyone reading. Again, thats a good way to make sure Spider-Man is no one’s favorite hero for long.

[Lee]

You're not supposed to think about how many times Spider-Man has saved the day, just like you're not supposed to think about how many Halloweens Linus has waited for the Great Pumpkin. They're not designed that way.

[Vortex85]

You're not supposed to think about how many times Spider-Man has saved the day, just like you're not supposed to think about how many Halloweens Linus has waited for the Great Pumpkin. They're not designed that way.

Serialized fiction works that way. Episodic fiction does not. People will think about it as long as earlier stores are referenced by older stories and continuity is in place. Spider-Man has always been serial fiction. Perhaps if it was episodic in nature keeping him inexperienced would be possible, but I don’t think you would sell a book as well. People read and enjoy Spider-Man for their whole lives because it is serialized and the character has a sense of progression and change over time.

I don’t think its worth ruining the enjoyment people get out of that just to stop some from calling him a man child if a writer makes him act like one sometimes. Many writers have written him well in his adult years.

[marhawkman]

One wrinkle here is that the high school stories are reprinted a lot. More readers will check out the first issues than pretty much anything else.

Well... Shueisha still sells copies of the original Dragon Ball run too.

But it's just re-prints and not new stories. New stories are set later in Goku's life. In Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super... Goku is a GRANDFATHER! Yeah, different eras in DB history have major differences like that.

Yeah, MC2 has Pete with a daughter who is as old as Gohan was in late DBZ. If the stories continued forwards from there... well... hehe, people say Pete having a WIFE ages him? MC2 Pete literally has grey streaks in his hair! Imagine what he'd be like if May has a child?

[Ready Eddie]

High school but only for so long because he has to develop into an adult or he will become boring.

[Lee]

Serialized fiction works that way. Episodic fiction does not. People will think about it as long as earlier stores are referenced by older stories and continuity is in place. Spider-Man has always been serial fiction. Perhaps if it was episodic in nature keeping him inexperienced would be possible, but I don’t think you would sell a book as well. People read and enjoy Spider-Man for their whole lives because it is serialized and the character has a sense of progression and change over time.

Spider-Man has had thousands of adventures, but he's still a young guy. None if it is plausible. When he fights Scorpion there might be a flashback or reference to his previous fight with Scorpion, or his first encounter with Scorpion. They won't draw attention to all 58 times he has fought Scorpion. Marvel heroes will stay young forever, they'll fight the most famous villains over and over again forever and it will never make sense when viewed as a whole. This isn't a fault, it's a feature. The typical reader isn't expected to read the entirety of Spider-Man history from beginning to end, because it's not built that way and as long as they're making money there'll never be an end.

[Kevinroc]

You're conflating setting with supporting cast. Harry and Gwen could have worked as 17 year olds in a high school setting just as easily as they did 18 year olds in a college setting.

Peter Parker as a teenager in college is a good setting. Peter Parker as a teenager in high school is a better setting.

I don't see you presenting any proof for this statement to be treated as factual.

[Vortex85]

Spider-Man has had thousands of adventures, but he's still a young guy. None if it is plausible. When he fights Scorpion there might be a flashback or reference to his previous fight with Scorpion, or his first encounter with Scorpion. They won't draw attention to all 58 times he has fought Scorpion. Marvel heroes will stay young forever, they'll fight the most famous villains over and over again forever and it will never make sense when viewed as a whole. This isn't a fault, it's a feature. The typical reader isn't expected to read the entirety of Spider-Man history from beginning to end, because it's not built that way and as long as they're making money there'll never be an end.

I agree with everything you said, but I still think it's better that he grew up while he could and the character is much better for it.

Look, you'll never convince me high school is better because my personal favortie status quo is Peter married to Mary Jane. It's what I grew up with and I love the dynamic. I love them sharing a life together and I enjoy their adult relationship. I also love that it can be sexual in nature and that would never work in a high school setting. For me, high school is very limiting on what you are allowed to show and tell in a romantic setting. No thanks.

Besides that, most comic book readers are adults these days. Kids are more into movies and other options. You aren't really appealing to your core audience on the comics front by keeping Spider-Man for kids.

[Lee]

I agree with everything you said, but I still think it's better that he grew up while he could and the character is much better for it.

Look, you'll never convince me high school is better because my personal favortie status quo is Peter married to Mary Jane. It's what I grew up with and I love the dynamic. I love them sharing a life together and I enjoy their adult relationship. I also love that it can be sexual in nature and that would never work in a high school setting. For me, high school is very limiting on what you are allowed to show and tell in a romantic setting. No thanks.

You're allowed to prefer one over the other. But you're acknowledging that Spider-Man the nerdy teenager and Spider-Man the married adult who has kinky sex with his super-model wife are two very different premises. I think it was a mistake to abandon the original premise and that it's very telling that all the cartoons and movies in recent decades use a teenage Spider-Man in high school or college.

Besides that, most comic book readers are adults these days. Kids are more into movies and other options. You aren't really appealing to your core audience on the comics front by keeping Spider-Man for kids.

Only appealing to the long-time readers is a mistake. They will get old and die. Marvel needs to be bringing in new kids and teenagers.

[Kevinroc]

Harry Osborn is the son of one of the richest men on Earth. Him going to a public high school never really makes any kind of sense, no matter how much they try to push it.

[TinkerSpider]

Spider-Man has had thousands of adventures, but he's still a young guy. None if it is plausible. When he fights Scorpion there might be a flashback or reference to his previous fight with Scorpion, or his first encounter with Scorpion. They won't draw attention to all 58 times he has fought Scorpion. Marvel heroes will stay young forever, they'll fight the most famous villains over and over again forever and it will never make sense when viewed as a whole. This isn't a fault, it's a feature. The typical reader isn't expected to read the entirety of Spider-Man history from beginning to end, because it's not built that way and as long as they're making money there'll never be an end.

There's a lot more leeway for the reader to build suspension of disbelief that Peter fought the Scorpion 17 times as a young man - and young these days is relative - than to fight the Scorpion 17 times as a high school sophomore, which is a very specific period of time.

Also, how many times can Peter fight the Scorpion and have him still be an inexperienced hero? That's what high school is about - gaining formative experiences. Fighting the Scorpion for the 17th time is no longer formative, it's repetitive if Peter hasn't learned from the previous experiences.

You seem to want Peter to be Charlie Brown, perpetually stuck in the same status quo. Maybe it's not that people should stop reading Spider-man when they get tired of the episodic high school situation, as you suggested - maybe you'd be happier reading Peanuts? I can also suggest classic Archie.

it's very telling that all the cartoons and movies in recent decades use a teenage Spider-Man in high school or college.

They use that because the movies/TV shows tend to tell origin stories. It's very telling that the Raimi films quickly moved on from Peter in school; the Webb films were about to leave high school behind and so is the MCU. Into the Spider-Verse featured two versions of a married Peter.

The typical reader isn't expected to read the entirety of Spider-Man history from beginning to end, because it's not built that way and as long as they're making money there'll never be an end.

Then why do you keep insisting readers won't read an older Peter because they don't know his entire history, if readers aren't expected to read it in the first place? Also, it's not that hard to jump into a comic book at the start of a new story arc. I jumped in the middle of Clone Saga and wasn't that lost. Spider-Man is pretty simple to grasp: guy got bitten by a spider, has superpowers, problems ensure. Knowing the continuity is a bonus, but honest, not 100% necessary.

[Vortex85]

You're allowed to prefer one over the other. But you're acknowledging that Spider-Man the nerdy teenager and Spider-Man the married adult who has kinky sex with his super-model wife are two very different premises. I think it was a mistake to abandon the original premise and that it's very telling that all the cartoons and movies in recent decades use a teenage Spider-Man in high school or college.

Only appealing to the long-time readers is a mistake. They will get old and die. Marvel needs to be bringing in new kids and teenagers.

You say that like tons of readers didn't start reading in the 90s and 00s when Spider-Man was married. Removing the marriage didn't exactly create a tidle wave of new readers entering comic shops. Ultimate Spider-Man didn't either, though it sold very well, I attribute that more to the art and creative team, a perfect storm making a great comic. Under Bendis and Bagley, that book could have just as easily been college era or adult Spidey and sold just as well. The whole thing was it was an alternate reality / revamp of the mythos and it was high quality.

Proof is other newer attempts to sell high school era Spidey have done poorly such as Untold tales, Spider-Man classic reprints, and IDW kiddy comics because the creative team is not the perfect storm of talent.

There is nothing that makes a young inexperienced Spider-Man better for new readers, other than your own opinion, and just because that was the original premise does not make it superior. He was only in high school for 28 issues and the book was even more popular and better under Romita's art when Peter was in college and beyond.

Also, the reason he is featured in high school a lot recently in cartoons and movies is the creatives just wanted that for those films. Nothing to say that won't change in the near future because that status quo is getting pretty tired and exhausted and audeneces are ready for something new.

[Webhead]

For better or worse it seems these big IPs are a lot more flexible than they used to be. Consider a Ben Reilly book in the 00s, or a Spider-Family meant to endure and not as a temporary gimmick: it would never happen back then, but it seems rather normal now. These are the things the industry has apparently deemed necessary for survival.

So it's possible for many interpretations of Spider-Man to coexist without threatening each other.

[Frontier]

I was a kid when Spider-Man: The Animated Series came out with an adult Peter in college with adult friends and I never had any problems.