Silly Spider-man question…

[Gregatron]

I think a huge part of Spider-Man’s artistic AND commercial success is that he’s a totally self-made superhero. In the Lee/Ditko era, in particular, his choices were all his own, his victories and defeats were all his own, and he invented his own costume and technology. He had no support system and no confidantes. Only the readers were privy to his struggles and his inner life. Only the readers were in on the joke that Jameson employed the very “menace” he railed against in his editorials.

Taking away the mechanical web-shooters or giving Peter a rich benefactor and an Iron Man Jr. suit completely diminishes the character. Literally from Day One, Peter Parker has always been about choices, and about solving and/or accidentally creating his own problems. No crutches, no easy fixes. The spider bite gives him an outlet for his genius, but then his ego goes out of control and he makes a fatal mistake by letting that burglar run past him.

That’s another big flaw in the Raimi films, where Peter lets the burglar run past him to spite a promoter who screwed him out of some money. Totally misses the point of his newfound ego causing him to be fatally indifferent. Not petty or spiteful. In the comic origin, he just couldn’t be bothered to stop a guy running past him. That one moment of ego which changed his entire life, and provided his core motivation: guilt.

And, of course, Raimi revealing that the burglar was not actually the man who murdered Ben Parker—thus absolving Peter of any and all guilt—fundamentally guts the core of the character. Far and away the worst part of that film, and an absolute disaster of “adaptation”.

 

[Axlotl]

I like the Raimi films. Well, the first 2. I didn't bother with the 3rd, it looked dumb.
I'm 50. Been a Spider-Man fan since I was, like, 3. I think Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man movie ever made, and one of the best superhero movies ever made. If you want to fight me about it, meet me at the flagpole after lunch.

 

[Gregatron]

I like the Raimi films. Well, the first 2. I didn't bother with the 3rd, it looked dumb.
I'm 50. Been a Spider-Man fan since I was, like, 3. I think Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man movie ever made, and one of the best superhero movies ever made. If you want to fight me about it, meet me at the flagpole after lunch.

I don’t disagree with any of that. As a purist, I have various issues, but the first two films are indeed good, and the second is indeed an all-timer of the genre.

 

[Cephus]

Honestly, it's why I've always liked Spider-Man, Daredevil and Iron Man. They all had a choice. They weren't green. They didn't have a third arm growing out of their foreheads. They could all pass as perfectly normal, yet they decided to put their lives on the line to help other people. Matt Murdock would have been better off just staying a lawyer. Peter Parker was a genius. He could have been better off pursuing science. Tony Stark, well, he's Tony Stark, but he doesn't have to be out there in the line of fire. He could just be the billionaire playboy and be happy.

It's all about the choice. Lots of Marvel heroes do it as self-defense. Those three do it because they're good people.

 

[Gregatron]

Honestly, it's why I've always liked Spider-Man, Daredevil and Iron Man. They all had a choice. They weren't green. They didn't have a third arm growing out of their foreheads. They could all pass as perfectly normal, yet they decided to put their lives on the line to help other people. Matt Murdock would have been better off just staying a lawyer. Peter Parker was a genius. He could have been better off pursuing science. Tony Stark, well, he's Tony Stark, but he doesn't have to be out there in the line of fire. He could just be the billionaire playboy and be happy.

It's all about the choice. Lots of Marvel heroes do it as self-defense. Those three do it because they're good people.

The genius of Marvel in the 60s was that it was a response to the traditional, larger-than-life, always-virtuous DC heroes. The Marvel heroes had more realistic problems and more moral dilemmas, but—and this is important—they were still aspirational characters who were better than us, and still ended up doing the the right thing for the right reason. But it was the struggle to get there which made them compelling.

Unfortunately, the pendulum has swung too far the other way (and was unwittingly helped along by the deconstructionist stories of Alan Moore and the like), and modern “heroes” are now deeply flawed, act like out-and-out villains, or are one-dimensional, tokenized characters designed to check off diversity quota boxes instead of being fleshed-out, compelling characters.

Peter Parker the Everyman, who juggles school, work, a personal life, and superheroics, is a very human and relatable character. Peter Parker, the tech billionaire or Peter Parker, the guy whose life is upended every issue (He’s really a clone! He’s really the latest in a long line of Spider-Men chosen by a Spider-Totem! Everyone around him is being killed left and right, and are all super-powered heroes or villains, themselves! He made a deal with the Mephisto to negate his marriage!) is not relatable.

Spider-Man works best as a street-level character who battles thugs and criminals with basic superpowers or science-based gimmicks, and whose supporting cast consists of normal, everyday people.

 

[Cephus]

That's exactly why I stopped reading comics many years ago. They just aren't entertaining, they're pandering to an audience that doesn't actually read them or care and Marvel and DC both have gone astray from what originally made them great. Now, the comics are just fodder for movie plots and the movies, sorry to say, just aren't that great. They've been going downhill since the original Iron Man and the original Spider-Man.

It was good while it lasted, I guess.

 

[Gregatron]

That's exactly why I stopped reading comics many years ago. They just aren't entertaining, they're pandering to an audience that doesn't actually read them or care and Marvel and DC both have gone astray from what originally made them great. Now, the comics are just fodder for movie plots and the movies, sorry to say, just aren't that great. They've been going downhill since the original Iron Man and the original Spider-Man.

It was good while it lasted, I guess.

Agreed. In order to stay evergreen, these things should consist of a beginning and then be all middle. But, as the audience grew up, they insisted that the characters age and change along with them, rather than remaining intact for each successive generation of readers.

You can see that Stan Lee put the brakes on after a few years, since he realized that these characters were going to stick around. Peter was initially moving almost in real time, going from high school to college in only three years of publishing time. Then, he ended up staying in college for nearly 15 years, and then graduate school for 15 years after that.

I would argue that 30 years is the usual creative lifespan for most properties, with a few low points and successful revamps usually in there somewhere. After that, you start seeing “growth and change” which paints characters into a corner. By the 90s, because Peter had gotten older and married and so on, Marvel began to packpeddle, leading to the Clone Saga, which the character arguably never recovered from.

I would argue that the last gasp of the Spider-Man I love was around 1992-1993, with the “return” of his parents (appropriately in the 30th anniversary issue, ASM # 365, which led to the Clone Saga) being the beginning of the end. I think that the character has been fundamentally broken since that time, and has never recovered.

Of course, we’ve now gone beyond the era of “growth and change” (and its inevitable backpedaling), and are in the Age of Destruction, with “creators” willfully tearing down beloved characters and stories due to malicious intent, political agenda, and/or simple incompetence and lack of knowledge about the characters they’re writing. And, of course, they’ve slowly been positioning Miles Morales, one of the early tokenized, derivative characters who are now everywhere, to replace Peter Parker. To say nothing of all the other derivative, spider-powered characters who all completely diminish, detract and marginalize the real Spider-Man, who should be the only one out there. Marvel took steps back in the day to make Spider-Woman totally unconnected to Spider-Man, since they rightfully wanted to keep him unique, but also wanted to hang onto the Spider-Woman trademark. Now, there’s a Spider-Person for every race, gender, and mood, it seems.

I shudder at the thought of what I’d find if I actually cared enough to pick up a current Spider-Man comic. I’m sure it would be totally unrecognizable.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

I agree with the Clone Saga sentiment...I hated that arc. Too big, too convoluted, and terrible pay-off. It sapped anything out of the books at the time and nothing since has made up for it. The last time I enjoyed reading anything Spider-Man was when they released the Marvel Masterworks collection. Up until that point, I only read the backlog from those cheap, b/w, manila paper books and never knew what the early books looked like in color. People have a fondness for the Ultimate stuff but I never got into it despite everything Marvel does now pulls from it (I won't even touch on the topic on how every character in the roster needs to be a legacy character now).

I've said it before and I say it again, long-running continuity is the bane of the comics industry in the US. It's really poisoned the well. For these characters, all's left to do is keep it serialized with disparate and self-contained stories with only so many issues that need to tell the story. There's a reason why manga outsells US comics and even just one title in Japan out-sold all of the industry in the America. Those stories say what it needs to say and leaves without compromise.

 

[Gregatron]

I agree with the Clone Saga sentiment...I hated that arc. Too big, too convoluted, and terrible pay-off. It sapped anything out of the books at the time and nothing since has made up for it. The last time I enjoyed reading anything Spider-Man was when they released the Marvel Masterworks collection. Up until that point, I only read the backlog from those cheap, b/w, manila paper books and never knew what the early books looked like in color. People have a fondness for the Ultimate stuff but I never got into it despite everything Marvel does now pulls from it (I won't even touch on the topic on how every character in the roster needs to be a legacy character now).

I've said it before and I say it again, long-running continuity is the bane of the comics industry in the US. It's really poisoned the well. For these characters, all's left to do is keep it serialized with disparate and self-contained stories with only so many issues that need to tell the story. There's a reason why manga outsells US comics and even just one title in Japan out-sold all of the industry in the America. Those stories say what it needs to say and leaves without compromise.

Exactly. People who get obsessed over continuity and complain that Spider-Man is fighting Doctor Octopus for the 347th time should probably move on to something else. Continuity of character is the most important thing, and accepting the conceits of the genre is necessary to keep it alive. Once your start pulling at a few threads, the whole thing unravels.

Back in the day, every issue of a Marvel book was accessible to a first-time reader. For example, Stan Lee always made sure to use dialogue to give the Fantastic Four’s real names, codenames, powers, and relationships to each other in every single story, so that new readers would know what was going on. Even if you had never read any other issue, you could still follow the story and the characters.

 

[sbaxter]

Well, I liked the organic webs of the Raimi films. First, I don't see why that's a bridge too far, considering he gains all these other spider-powers -- why not that one as well? Second, I never really questioned Peter Parker's ability to conceive and invent mechanical web shooters, but for the character as he was presented in the comics, how the heck could he afford to actually build such high-precision devices? Where'd he get the materials and tools that would be required? How does Peter "I live in a hole in the ground covered with a sheet of tarpaulin" Parker pay for all this stuff? That is what never made much sense to me. Even in Raimi's films, I find the jump between his original "suit" and the real suit to be jarring. What is that thing made of? How did he make it? Intellect is one thing, but skills are acquired over time. You can have all kinds of knowledge, but will that make you a skilled tailor (or model-builder, or baseball player, or whatever) right from the jump based on your knowledge alone?

Don't get me wrong -- I can and have pushed these things aside and greatly enjoyed plenty of Spider-Man material over the years, but there's plenty of stuff in any comic book version of the character that is at least as much of a head-scratcher as anything in Raimi's films.

SSB

 

[Gregatron]

Well, I liked the organic webs of the Raimi films. First, I don't see why that's a bridge too far, considering he gains all these other spider-powers -- why not that one as well? Second, I never really questioned Peter Parker's ability to conceive and invent mechanical web shooters, but for the character as he was presented in the comics, how the heck could he afford to actually build such high-precision devices? Where'd he get the materials and tools that would be required? How does Peter "I live in a hole in the ground covered with a sheet of tarpaulin" Parker pay for all this stuff? That is what never made much sense to me. Even in Raimi's films, I find the jump between his original "suit" and the real suit to be jarring. What is that thing made of? How did he make it? Intellect is one thing, but skills are acquired over time. You can have all kinds of knowledge, but will that make you a skilled tailor (or model-builder, or baseball player, or whatever) right from the jump based on your knowledge alone?

Don't get me wrong -- I can and have pushed these things aside and greatly enjoyed plenty of Spider-Man material over the years, but there's plenty of stuff in any comic book version of the character that is at least as much of a head-scratcher as anything in Raimi's films.

SSB

That's a question I've often asked--Raimi says Peter couldn't invent the web-shooters, but he DOES somehow whip up a million-dollar costume offscreen. Um...yeah.

 

[Funky]

Taking away the mechanical web-shooters or giving Peter a rich benefactor and an Iron Man Jr. suit completely diminishes the character. Literally from Day One, Peter Parker has always been about choices, and about solving and/or accidentally creating his own problems. No crutches, no easy fixes.

A bit off topic, but this was worded so perfectly.
What the hell happened to OUR Spiderman? What happened to our selfless hero that would help others giving no thought to personal safety? The guy who JJ turned the public (and the police) against him and he STILL went out every day to help strangers sacrificing a night sleep even though he has exams in the morning only to show bruises and abrasions for his trouble. The guy could never catch a break.
Hell, in the films, he gets the girl, friends, a cool hot aunt, a high-tech suit that can damn-near run out and fight crime by itself, a rich benefactor and now controls Stark tech.
Yeah, it’s a rough life.

 

[Laspector]

I know this doesn't really count, but in the novel of the 1st Raimi movie, it is stated that the wrestler who Bonesaw took out before Peter fought him offered to have the suit made for Peter.......Take it for whatever you think it is worth.

 

[CadetTK2386]

A bit off topic, but this was worded so perfectly.
What the hell happened to OUR Spiderman? What happened to our selfless hero that would help others giving no thought to personal safety? The guy who JJ turned the public (and the police) against him and he STILL went out every day to help strangers sacrificing a night sleep even though he has exams in the morning only to show bruises and abrasions for his trouble. The guy could never catch a break.
Hell, in the films, he gets the girl, friends, a cool hot aunt, a high-tech suit that can damn-near run out and fight crime by itself, a rich benefactor and now controls Stark tech.

And then he literally lost all of that in NWH. But he didn't quit. He picks himself up, hand makes a new suit, puts on his old web shooters, and jumps back out the window. In the MCU he was Spider-Man before Tony Stark, and he chose to be Spider-Man after he lost Tony, his Aunt, his Tech, and his Friends.

 

[Gregatron]

A bit off topic, but this was worded so perfectly.
What the hell happened to OUR Spiderman? What happened to our selfless hero that would help others giving no thought to personal safety? The guy who JJ turned the public (and the police) against him and he STILL went out every day to help strangers sacrificing a night sleep even though he has exams in the morning only to show bruises and abrasions for his trouble. The guy could never catch a break.
Hell, in the films, he gets the girl, friends, a cool hot aunt, a high-tech suit that can damn-near run out and fight crime by itself, a rich benefactor and now controls Stark tech.
Yeah, it’s a rough life.

And then he literally lost all of that in NWH. But he didn't quit. He picks himself up, hand makes a new suit, puts on his old web shooters, and jumps back out the window. In the MCU he was Spider-Man before Tony Stark, and he chose to be Spider-Man after he lost Tony, his Aunt, his Tech, and his Friends.

I still can’t come to terms with this bizarro world we live in where Iron Man has essentially superseded Spider-Man as Marvel’s corporate mascot, and Spider-Man has been relegated to, “Aw, gee, Mister Stark, I wanna be an Avenger someday just like you, and I’m nothing without your awesome tech suit!”.

The most recent film may have taken the long road to try to get things back to a more on-model Spider-Man, but, after SIX MCU films featuring this version of the character, maybe they should have tried to do that with the FIRST film.

Of course, a lot of this comes from the unintended consequences of Marvel selling off various characters’ films rights to different film studios, back in the 90s. All of the legal red tape and corporatization of the characters have caused a considerable amount of problems. To say nothing of turning the characters into victims of their own success.

That being said, integrating Spider-Man into the MCU is by no means essential to telling good stories with the character, and having him hanging around with the Avengers goes against that street-level, lone wolf quality that’s been part of the character from the beginning. Each movie iteration has moved further and further away from the source material, largely due to corporate politics and legal issues. The abysmal Andrew Garfield films were made just so Sony could hang onto the rights, and the Sony/Disney movies were made because Sony turned to Disney to help them out, and Disney wanted all of the Marvel characters under one banner.

Corporate politics and greed do not serve the needs of good storytelling and artistry.

 

[Gregatron]

I know this doesn't really count, but in the novel of the 1st Raimi movie, it is stated that the wrestler who Bonesaw took out before Peter fought him offered to have the suit made for Peter.......Take it for whatever you think it is worth.

That would be Peter David trying to smooth over plot issues in the movie’s script.

 

[Halliwax]

And then he literally lost all of that in NWH. But he didn't quit. He picks himself up, hand makes a new suit, puts on his old web shooters, and jumps back out the window. In the MCU he was Spider-Man before Tony Stark, and he chose to be Spider-Man after he lost Tony, his Aunt, his Tech, and his Friends.

By far my favorite scene in the whole movie

 

[Cephus]

A bit off topic, but this was worded so perfectly.
What the hell happened to OUR Spiderman? What happened to our selfless hero that would help others giving no thought to personal safety? The guy who JJ turned the public (and the police) against him and he STILL went out every day to help strangers sacrificing a night sleep even though he has exams in the morning only to show bruises and abrasions for his trouble. The guy could never catch a break.
Hell, in the films, he gets the girl, friends, a cool hot aunt, a high-tech suit that can damn-near run out and fight crime by itself, a rich benefactor and now controls Stark tech.
Yeah, it’s a rough life.

Our Spider-Man can't exist in a post-modern world. Our Spider-Man died decades ago and it's corpse has been limping along on life support ever since. It's why I don't much care about modern superhero movies. They're all post-modern deconstructions of the tropes and I have no interest in that.

 

[Gregatron]

Our Spider-Man can't exist in a post-modern world. Our Spider-Man died decades ago and it's corpse has been limping along on life support ever since. It's why I don't much care about modern superhero movies. They're all post-modern deconstructions of the tropes and I have no interest in that.

Amen to that. The Clone Saga had already done considerable damage, but I quit modern comics entirely (with very rare exceptions) specifically after the “Sins Past” storyarc completely gutted the characters and destroyed one of the greatest Spider-Man stories of all time, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”. It was then that I knew that comics were sliding deep into post-modernism and an obsession with revisionist history. It was no longer about telling compelling new stories—just destructive archaeology and “everything you know about these beloved characters and stories is wrong”, shock-value stunts. And, of course, the industry learned absolutely nothing from the speculator boom of the 90s, because we again live in an era of endless variant covers and marketing stunts.

Nothing since has convinced me that I made the wrong decision to quit when I did. Constant navel-gazing, constant tearing down of the past, constant “creation” of derivative, tokenized characters. It’s no longer about storytelling or entertainment. Just corporate brand-management, merchandising, and political agenda. These characters have fallen into the hands of people who do not understand or respect them, or are gleefully trying to tear them down to make a statement and/or elevate knockoff characters.

And Spider-Man, one of the richest, most vibrant, most unique characters in the history of the genre, has become a corporate shill. You’ve got the MCU Spider-Boy movies, the Disney Junior Spider-team cartoon, the video games, the Miles Morales books and movies, etc. A different version of the character for every age, race, and gender, with no brand consistency, no actual character. Just endless pandering and marketing.

 

[JPH]

I thought the organic webshooters made more sense. The radioactuve spider bite may have upped his inteligence and maybe even subconsciously driven him to create webshooters, though.

As for webs firing out of his rear, how many times

he gonna make this face during the period where he lost his web mojo?