Spidercide

Simply put what are the defining traits of Peter Parker/Spider-Man that appeal to you and why do you feel most people like him as a character?

Archnemesis?

Greatest enemy?

However you want to phrase it. What should the criteria be, if we presume every superhero innately has one?

A question.

Often times DeMatteis who wrote this story and many other commentators have described the scene of Spider-Man rising out of the grave as occurring due to his love for Mary Jane.

However looking at the scene and scenes before and after it in the story over all there seems to be an implication that Kraven himself brought Spider-Man out of the the grave via voodoo?

In other words MJ or no MJ Peter was going to get out of that grave due to Kraven anyway?

Or am I misreading that scene (I hope so).

Could it be both perhaps?

I’d really like to get people’s thoughts on this one.

For the record here are some images from the 6 part story that got me pondering the question above.

In Dragon Ball Super Goku taps into an ability called Ultra Instinct. It's a fictionalized version of a real life martial arts phenomenon wherein you move via instinct without thinking. It's perhaps more commonly known as muscle memory. In DBS it allows him to dodge essentially anything and turn his dodges and counters into attacks with blistering speed and strength because he is no longer thinking. Goku is just...doing....he is riding on instinct alone.

When you take his years of experience against a vast array of foes and couple it with his speed, strength (which he usually subconsciously restrains) and most of all his spider sense (originally called his spider instincts in fact) Spider-Man could probably manifest something similar to Goku (obviously minus the stuff with ki).

The spider sense is itself directional and even works in his sleep so this is something that helps him auto-dodge stuff anyway.

He's got insane speed feats that really only active speedsters like Speed Demon can counter (e.g. he has out maneuvered guys like Fire Lord).

And he's way stronger than people think. In Spec #290 he was angry enough to just pummel Rhino into submission and he has tussled with the Hulk. His lifting power is even more impressive as he once helped support the Daily Bugle. It's also essentially agreed upon that he ALWAYS holds back his full power, e.g. in ASM #700 Doc Ock in his body casually punched off Scorpion's jaw by accident and Scorpion is supposed to be stronger and more durable than Spidey. In an issue of Venom by Daniel Way, Spidey was able to even over power Venom.

In the JMS run more than once Spidey sort of lost himself in battle and this was referred to as 'the spider' part of him taking over, which sounds a lot like Spidey was giving into base animal instincts to fight and survive.

For these reasons I think Spidey could when pushed fight in a similar way to how Ultra Instinct works and become yet more formidable.

Pre-OMD he was routintely not an incompetent goof.

Like seriously he was never incompetent during his battle with Morlun, Kingpin or Shathra during JMS' run.

He was incredibly competent during his fight with Juggernaut and Firelord considering he didnt know their powers

Actually he could probably take Iceman. He's got the speed to do it.

Pre-Worldbreaker he was stated to have a method of killing the Hulk too.

Yeah no.

Spider-Man's power levels grossly exceed that.

First of all he's fast enough to dodge rapid machine gun fire no problem.

Second of all 10 tons is actually what he can lift WITHOUT exerting himself. He's got feats grossly exceeding 10 tons. The iconic Master Planner trilogy involves a younger, not yet fully developed, injured, exhausted, mentally distressed Spider-Man from a position with little leverage lifting something the story states to be the size of a locamotive...which would've been way more than 10 tons.

Scale that up to an older and fresher Spider-Man and he's way beyond 10 tons

Outside of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, the USM cartoon and USM or the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon I cannot think of a single rendition of Gwen where she is built up without it being at the expense of SOMEONE.

Like they can't put MJ into the 2017 cartoon because Gwen is a protagonist in that show.

Gwen is never depicted accurately but instead they almost always flanderize her to ridiculous degrees.

In contrast MJ gets screwed in adaptations because she is rarely depicted at her full potential/power

I meant Gwen but yeah a lot of adaptations do change MJ but retain comparatively more

This is an essay on why I do not think most Marvel fans who hated legacy characters in the 2010s actually felt that way due to racism and sexism.

This isn't discussing people who don't like America Chavez, or Squirrel Girl, or Ice Man being gay.

This is EXCLUSIVELY about examples in the 2010s where older heroes were replaced with new ones, specifically the new ones who were of different races and genders to them.

This is also NOT me saying bigotry was DEVOID in the backlash. My argument is about the MAJORITY of people's reactions.

My challenge to people reading this is for you to ACTUALLY read the whole thing and TRY to consider the points. If you disagree explain how and why you feel that way intelligently. Don't go in having already made up your mind and religiously grip to the idea that 'Of course comic book fans are bigoted white male virgins!!11!!!!'. CONSIDER maybe there is an alternative POV.

In recent years A LOT of discussion has been devoted to issues of diversity and representation within comic books and their movie counterparts. A large chunk of this discussion has centred upon how in the 2010s Marvel featured many of their iconic characters being temporarily replaced, often with characters of different genders, races/ethnicities, etc.

Sam Wilson replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America. Riri Williams replaced Tony Stark as the lead of the Iron Man book(s). Jane Foster replaced Thor Odinson as Thor God of Thunder and wielder of Mjonir. Amadeus Cho replaced Bruce Banner as the Hulk. Laura replaced Logan as Wolverine. And Miles Morales replaced Ultimate Peter Parker as Ultimate Spider-Man.

There are other discussions regarding diversity (such as Ice Man being gay) but I want to discuss the backlash many of those diverse characters faced when they existed as legacy replacement heroes to the older characters.

Let me be upfront.

I’m not denying racism, sexism or other forms of identity politics bigotry was devoid in this backlash.

I don’t think anybody reasonable could honestly argue that there was 0% sexism going on with the backlash against Jane Foster Thor or 0% racism going on with Ironheart.

However my contention is this. That was honestly not the place from which most people who disliked those replacement heroes were coming from and it was/is unfair to broadbrush paint the majority of the detractors of those replacement heroes as bigots (in terms of being racist, sexist, etc, I’m not talking about literally any form of bigotry).

Being absolutely blunt it’s frankly lazily dismissive and ignorant to just do that. “You hate Sam Wilson being Captain America and want Steve Rogers back? You are hating on his stories? You must be a racist who wants to ‘Make Cap White Again’.”

However that is itself a form of ignorance born of a lack of understanding of how most comic book readers think, feel and just plain operate as fans of these characters.

To get this we need to establish some important context.

FIRST of all...comic book fans did not react positively to the instances where characters were going to be replaced in the 1980s and the 1990s. Even the much lauded Bucky Cap era was INITIALLY met with scepticism and negativity. It was not embraced until it WON people over.

Meanwhile even Knightfall in the 1990s was and still is criticised by a fair number of people, many of whom failed to recognize it was not sincerely trying to float the idea of Jean-Paul Valley as a worthy successor to Bruce Wayne but actually showcase why he was UNWORHY and why Bruce was the true Batman.

It is well known that the majority of Marvel/DC readership are in fact older and/or hardcore fans. In this sense they are actually different to the audiences of most other franchises in other mediums.

The MCU film audiences are comprised of a segment of hardcore and older fans but they are drowned out by younger and newer viewers along with casual viewers. Most MCU fans aren’t trying to figure out how stuff fits together or explain continuity problems. The script is flipped for the audience of the actual comic books themselves though. The readers who jumped on board in even the last 10 years are actually in a minority and MOST comic book fans pour over the continuity and history of the characters trying to explain continuity errors and pointing them out as flaws in stories (which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do btw).

Heck this is so typical of comic book fans that Marvel INVENTED the No. Prize and have written stories and mini-series specifically to address continuity problems. Remember the Osborn Journal from the 1990s? That is an entire extra length one shot DEVOTED to just explaining the Clone Saga.

Even before that Marvel made respectable sales off the back of reprint series like Marvel Tales and information titles like the Marvel Handbooks and Marvel Saga.

Your average Marvel reader is very much aware of the broadstrokes of a characters history and is even aware of significant events in the Marvel universe as a whole simply via osmosis.

I never read an Iron Man story in my entire life until the mid-2000s but even before that I KNEW about Demon in a Bottle and Armor Wars. I have NEVER read the Kree/Skrull War but I know it was inspired by WWII. I know Werewolf Captain America is a thing that exists and I’ve read maybe 5 Cap stories in my entire life.

Understanding that the average Marvel reader has either been around for a good long while and has read/is reading/is aware of the broader history of the characters/series they are following is critically important to understanding my POV on why they reacted badly to the 2010s legacy heroes.

Why?

There are several key reasons.

1) We’d been here before.

For most of the heroes being replaced this was not the first time this had happened to them.

Riri Williams, Jane Foster and Sam Wilson each represented the THIRD time technically that Iron Man, Thor and Cap respectively had been replaced across their histories dating back to the 1980s (an era a chunk of Marvel’s readership were reading during).

Sam replacing Steve as Captain America was ESPECIALLY egregious because this was actually the second time in LESS THAN 10 YEARS that Cap was being replaced and it was following a long string of ‘shake up the status quo fundamentally’ stories for Cap dating back to just the mid 2000s in Ed Brubaker’s iconic run.

Red Skull’s death. Bucky’s resurrection. Steve becoming a fugitive. Steve dying. Bucky becoming Cap. Steve growing old. Many of these stories in isolation were good-great but when you then have so many stories in such a small space of time actively NOT simply have Steve Rogers operate as the hero Captain America without stuff that shakes the foundation stones it starts to look desperate and like you have run dry with the character.

When you then replace him AGAIN (followed by making him an evil HYDRA agent) it outright confirms that fact for many people.

The same holds true for most of the other replacement heroes. Most readers had seen this same status quo/foundation stone shaking trope pulled before so it came off as unoriginal , desperate and the fact that so many characters were doing it around the same time made exacerbated that.

Even though Wolverine (to my knowledge) had never been replaced by a new character ever before seeing it happen around the time of all these other replacement legacy heroes smacked of shallow trend chasing.

I know that there are only so many types of stories you can tell so you do have to use the same tropes more than once but there are some types of stories within the same narrative that you can and should only tell once.

The heroes being ousted from their identities and roles as the lead of their own titles is one of those...and for some this wasn’t their first time.

Think of it like this.

Imagine if Gwen Stacy died AGAIN. Or if one of Spider-Man’s girlfriends died in the crossfire of one of his battles AGAIN. Or if Captain America went up against a conspiracy regarding a high ranking politician secretly being a super villain AGAIN. Or if Iron Man went on a somewhat self-destructive quest to shut down every user of his stolen technology AGAIN.

Like...yeah it’s not unrealistic that that COULD happen again but it’s also from a storytelling POV not a good idea to repeat those kinds of things.

It’s difficult to articulate but Spider-man can defeat Electro and Reed and Sue can reaffirm their love for one another and their family essentially an infinite number of times but those types of stories are from a storytelling/reader POV fininte.

2) The replacement hero thing was an example of 90s nostalgia.

Part and parcel of people’s frustrations with seeing the characters replaced AGAIN was the fact that for many readers it was blatantly an example of 1990s nostalgia.

Most DC and Marvel characters were replaced in the 1990s through various stories (e.g. Knightfall, Avengers: the Crossing, etc) and not only were most readers aware of this fact, but there is an actively (often unfair imo) negative bias AGAINST 1990s comic book stories and tropes in general.

Thus the industry engaging in such a well known (and to many notorious) trope was automatically going to raise their ire.

3) Many of the older characters were in the 2010s stories written out in mean spirited or undermining ways.

As G. Willow Wilson, co-creator of for my money the most creatively successful new legacy character/general marvel character this decade, Kamala Khan, said Carol got a promotion which left her old identity on the table for Kamala to pick up.

This is a far cry from Captain America turning old specifically to get rid of him so Sam can become Captain America.

Or Tony Stark engaging in a ridiculous civil war that renders him comatose so that Riri can replace him (not to mention also killing off Rhodey because he’d be the logical replacement).

Or the long suffering Bruce Banner being murdered by a fellow Avenger as part as previously mentioned ridiculous civil war so that Amadeus Cho can remain as the one and only Hulk.

Or Thor LITERALLY BEING PRONOUNDED AS UNWORTHY OF BEING the God of Thunder, losing the source of his power, his mantle as the God of Thunder and even giving up the name he was BORN with just for Jane Foster to replace him.

It is also a far cry from some of the 1980s/1990s replacement hero storylines which first and foremost were geared around the idea that the replacement heroes were not just UNWORTHY of their predecessors but were written with the intention of proving why the original characters WERE/should be the ones to hold those mantles. E.g. John Walker’s turn as Captain America was built around the inherent idea of showcasing why STEVE should be Captain America and why John was so wrong for the role.

4) Comic books moreso than any other medium generate deep long term emotional investment within the readers.

I won’t break down all the psychology of this for you but essentially in real life two people who like each other are going to grow more emotionally invested in one another the longer they spend with one another and the more intimate they become.

I don’t mean physically intimate. This can apply to platonic relationships. But when you learn more about someone you like (provided what you learn doesn’t make you dislike them) you grow more emotionally invested in them.

Fiction actually applies these same principles. We look to fiction to escape and entertain but the most successful forms of fiction to do this are the ones that emotionally invest us and if it is a serialized form of fiction that investment grows because we spend more time with the characters.

Comic books enhance this to a degree other forms of fiction do not.

Most Marvel characters are published once per month and have been for DECADES, with the Big Name titles existing since the 1960s!

Much like TV soap opera characters that means you can spend A LOT of time with the characters because you get to check in on them at least once per month.

And since most readers are older readers/readers who look in on the history of the characters that means comic book readers spend comparatively more time with the characters than followers of other forms of fiction.

Even TV soap operas rotate cast members out and unlike most Marvel superhero titles they are not centred around one specific character’s life the way Iron Man, Wolverine or Thor’s series are.

Compounding all this is the fact that superhero comic books regularly dive into the heads of the characters making the readers, and the readers alone, privy to their private thoughts and feelings.

That’s the intimacy I spoke about above. We get to know more about the characters and have a degree of insight into them that we share with the characters alone.

Intimacy+Time=Deeper emotional investment.

This is to say nothing of the FINANCIAL and physical investment of just buying and accumulating so many comic books over the years.

So when you switch out the protagonists for other characters it very naturally irks readers because even if we know they’re coming back it doesn’t change the fact that the new guys are NOT who they want to read about in the first place because they are NOT who they are emotionally invested in.

5) Exacerbating that last point is the fact for fans of MARVEL characters specifically in comparison to DC characters, legacies come off as incredibly undermining.

I’m not knocking DC here, but the fact is that most of their iconic protagonists were created prior to 1961 when Fantastic Four #1 was published and comic books began to dramatically change.

Prior to that the overwhelming majority of superheroes from both companies were created as powers first and people second. The emphasis was upon their super powers, their costume, their gimmick, who they were as individual people and what their actual personalities were like was less important to the point where for many of them their personalities were interchangeable. There were exceptions of course but they served to only prove the rule.

And this is one of, probably in fact THE biggest reason legacies have worked so much better over at DC than Marvel.

You could legacy Green Lantern and the Flash in the Silver Age and then do it again because so long as you had a guy with a ring that shone green light and another guy with super speed who wore a red shirt with a lightning bolt on it you had nailed the core concept of the characters. Because their powers and costumes were more important than the people underneath them.

The Marvel characters were the other way around though. People first, powers second. Real talk Peter Parker would’ve been talked about regardless of having spider powers. Reed Richards being able to stretch is almost irrelevant to his character and it barely makes a difference whether Ben Grimm is a reptilian looking monster or a rocky Golem inspired monster, the point is he looks like a monster and is upset about it.

Their personalities and personal lives from day 1 was what was important.

The Mighty Thor comic book was never about whoever happened to be called Thor, held the title of God of Thunder and wielded Mjonir. It was story of the life of Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard, son of the Allfather Odin, adopted brother of Loki God of Trickery, friend of the Warriors Three, lover of Jane Foster and Sif.

The Wolverine comic book was never about whatever mutant with metal claws, a healing factor and anger issues happened to go around and call themselves Wolverine. It was the story of James ‘Logan’ Howlett, the mutant who’s healing factor enabled him to wander the Earth since the 19th century (making an enemy of Victor Creed in the mean time) but also led to him being horrifically experimented upon by having adamantium bonded to his skeleton before he found a family in the X-Men (specifically the ones from Giant Sized X-Men #1).

Being Spider-Man was never about anyone, be they an average joe or not who happened to live in NYC, wear web spandex, have spider powers and fight crime, whether they had guilt issues or what. It was the story of the life of Peter Parker, the guy who’s uncle Ben Parker was killed by a criminal he failed to stop when he had the chance, who then looked after his sickly widowed mother figure Aunt May, was bullied by Flash Thompson at Midtown High before attending Empire State University where he befriended Harry Osborn, fell in love with Mary Jane Watson and before that fell in love with Gwen Stacy who he accidentally killed on the Brooklyn Bridge

Etc.

To be Thor is to be Thor Odinson. To be Wolverine is to be James Logan Howlett. To be Spider-Man is to be Peter Parker.

Put simply the Marvel heroes were ALWAYS characters first costumes second. People not powers. Memories not mantles.*

Consequently when legacies pop up and these new characters are pushed as being just as good as or in some cases lowkey pushed as being better than the originals it naturally rubs those fans with decades of emotional investment the wrong way.

Not to mention it makes them come off as outright usurpers when they literally take over the series which is supposed to be about another character’s life.

OBVIOUSLY a woman or a POC can be just as worthy and just as capable as a man or a white person.

But series to series and character to character, it’s was the equivalent of Marvel taking away your pet Rex you’d known and loved for years when there was nothing wrong with them and gives you another clearly different pet with Rex’s collar, who gets Rex’s bowl, Rex’s food, Rex’s toys. Rex’s bed and even Rex’s name and asks you to treat him not as just a new dog but straight up the new Rex.

Except he isn’t Rex.

Rex is Rex.

The new Rex playing with Rex’s toys, doing the same tricks as him or having his collar doesn’t change that.

Because Rex was more than a collar, his toys or his tricks he was an individual that you’d known and loved.

And even if you know Rex is going to come back having Rex taken away from you at all, having the new Rex supplant them (especially if old Rex was screwed over for the sake of new Rex’s arrival) and having so many people insist new Rex is just as great or more great than old Rex (to the point where many people loudly proclaim they don’t even want the old Rex back and the old Rex was kinda lame and boring) is going to create a massive dissonance.

Like you would’ve been chill with the new Rex is he was just another additional pet called Rover or even like RexY who was similar yet different to Rex, but not actually promoted AS Rex as his replacement. And you would’ve been okay with the new Rex if the old one got too old, died naturally or accidentally.

But you aren’t okay with it because there was nothing wrong with Rex and you LOVED Rex and Rex had been with you and around generally forever so the new Rex felt like he was undermining and usurping him, including of his individuality.

It floats the idea of ‘Hey ANYONE can be these heroes’.

Which on the surface seems like a lovely progressive idea and I yeah I feel you on the idea of the Marvel heroes being the relatable only goes so far if most of them are straight/white/male.

But at the same time that approach to the characters ONLY works if the heroes within the narrative are clearly emphasised as symbols, mantles and mere roles as opposed to being built around the idea that they are individual people with their own distinct personalities, relationships and lives.

But as I said that’s aggressively NOT been Marvel’s message from day 1, both in-universe AND via the creators’ agendas for most of Marvel’s existence.

‘Anyone can be Spider-Man’ only works within the context of a series where being swinging around NYC in web spandex and fighting crime with your spider powers is both the core concept of the series and the thing around which everything is built.

Except...it’s not and never ever was. Peter Parker’s very specific personality, very specific relationships and very specific life circumstances was the core concept and point of everything.**

That’s how I think most comic book fans feel about practically EVERY legacy situation that’s ever cropped up not just the recent ones. Like I said they reacted negatively or apprehensively in the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s.

Back then you could never accuse Captain America fans who wanted Steve Rogers back as ‘wanting to make Cap white Again” because the Captain Americas they replaced him with were ALSO white.

And hey, I know some of you are going to want to bring up Superior Spider-Man. How fans didn’t react negatively about Doc Ock replacing Peter Parker compared to say Jane, Riri or Sam replacing Thor, Tony or Steve.

Because he was white right?

Sorry but...no.

Putting aside how several Spider-Man fans DID NOT like the idea behind Superior Spider-Man (me among them), like I said above more than once fans got pissed off when white male characters were replaced with OTHER white male characters.***

More poignantly though...Jesus...pre-Superior Spider-Man was an exceptional situation compared to most other characters who got replaced.

For one thing everyone knew Amazing Spider-Man 2 was around the corner and correctly guessed Peter would be back in time for that film’s release meaning we’d only have to go through Superior for a year or two vs. the comparatively longer periods that many of the other replacement heroes dominated their titles.

For another thing the Spider-Man fandom has been broken ever since One More Day with most, or at least a large contingent, actively hating post-OMD Spider-Man stories and characterization of Spider-Man, not least of all because of how desperately Brand New Day tried and failed to chase nostalgia and the message of ‘this character will NEVER go anywhere ever!’ was hammered into the fandom.

It was a message honestly hammered in harder than with ANY other Marvel character, at least of recent years.

Spider-Man fans were in a different mental/emotional place compared to most other fans. A great big, bold and sexy idea involving a long time character that most people liked a lot thus seemed far more appealing to them as opposed to Cap’s status quo fundamentally rocked AGAIN with him being sidelined AGAIN or Aaron’s generally well received Thor run benching the lead. As for Laura as the new Wolverine, guys Wolverine fans have had an off and on relationship with how much they like that character ever since she showed up in X-Men Evolution.

My point is Spider-Man fans were by and large following the series out of habit and/or hoping things would get fixed/trying their best to enjoy the book in spite of how broken things had become.

And when you are in that headspace something like Superior seems more appealing. The car has already broken down and doesn’t seem to be getting fixed anytime soon. Might as well have some jumping on the hood.

In conclusion bigotry played a factor in the blowback against the 2010s replacement Marvel heroes but the majority of the umbridge against them by the fans stemmed from factors independent of that bigotry.

*Captain America is obviously an exception but this is probably why he lends himself better to legacies than everyone else. It is precisely because he was created alongside the big DC characters in the Golden Age so he fundamentally began more as a symbol and powerset than a person.

On the flipside it’s why DC fans got pissed when Wally West got undone as the Flash for the sake of Barry Allan because he was the first Flash with a legitimate and nuanced personality and character. In Captain America’s case though he was not replaced by a new character who’s personal life and personality was emphasised over their powers, he simply evolved into that over time himself.

By the way, this is also why I suspect Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman survived from the Golden Age into the Silver Age without needing to be legacied like GL or Flash. Because they were the DC characters who more than any of the other ones had actual personalities/substance to them.

**Which isn’t to say you can never have spin-off versions of the characters.

To be Spider-Man is to be Peter Parker but Miles Morales for instance can still be the best ‘Miles Morales Spider-Man’ there ever was. Ben Reilly can still be an awesome Scarlet Spider. Riri could be a good Ironheart, etc.

But they’re not interchangeable with the original guys you feel me?

***Guys comic book fans routinely dislike it when you replace the NUMBERS on the front of covers with new #1s. They hated it so much in the 2000s Marvel put the OLD numbers back on the covers.

Hell in the 1980s Spider-Man fans hated the idea of Spider-Man getting a new black costume so much that EIC Jim Shooter ordered that Spidey lose the costume a mere issue later. He had to be convinced to keep it around for as long as he did by which point fans had fallen in love with it.

But that’s how much comic book fans reacted against the COSTUME they knew and loved being taken away and replaced with something else.

Can you see why they’d react against the CHARACTER they knew and loved being taken away and replaced with someone else?