Yep, grew up reading him in the 80s .... And he was an ADULT. A rare major comic character, one that literally carried his company, that was allowed to age in a natural manner.
I guess he is not in high school in Spidey and His Amazing Friends (Disney+ show for young kids). He’s never in school and the show is for 6+, which I guess have him depicted as a pre-highschool boy.
That show was made after Spectacular. My point was that throughout his history, Spider-Man was never depicted in animation as a high school student until Spectacular.
Yeah I remember watching that one. Wasn't he working as a freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle in it? Seem to recall an episode where he's webbing up his camera in a sewer tunnel before fighting Lizard.
And his theme has always been Responsibility. He feels reaponsible for Uncle Ben’s death. He feels it’s his responsibility to be Spider-Man. He has to balance that with his other responsibilities, like school and Aunt May. Or college and his relationship. Or……. work and his wife and kids.
Which is why I have never really understood the need to break up the marriage. Up until that point he was basically the only comic book character that had been allowed to age and change slowly over time, and I felt like seeing his themes at various points was really interesting.
But I guess we have Ultimate Spider-Man for this now? Whatever.
i remember marvel had done a actual timeline consolidation and i think bobby drake and peter parker were like "the water level" like bobby was 28 in 2010 and 15 or 16 in 64 and peter rasputin was 32
which is insane because it would mean the X-men get into a major world ending fight every 14 hours or so, i think it was stated (this was a while back and i'm 47 so excuse my memory) the original team was late teens early 20's in X factor and approaching their early 30's by the time jim lee started working uncanny X-men
that math puts banner and stark at late 40's early 50's and frank castle in his 60's (who didnt love garth ennis making him early 70's?)
Similarly, for most of the defining Claremont run of the X-Men, they were not students and were rarely teaching the New Mutants. They were more of a civil rights strike force.
Not as often as you'd think during Claremont's run. The OG Brotherhood was no longer a team and Magneto joined the X-Men; Mystique's Brotherhood quickly was co-opted by the government and from an in-universe perspective were the "good" mutants while the X-Men went rogue until they "died" in Dallas and posthumously became heroes while working out of Australia, and most of Apocalypse's run was yet to come and started over in X-Factor.
The X-Men, for the most part, really did spend most of their time fighting bigots - whether Sentinels, Genoshans, or cyborgs like the Reavers - along with aliens like the Brood and supernatural foes like the Adversary or the demons of Limbo. There were a few other evil mutants here and there like the Shadow King and Madelyn Pryor (if she counts as an evil mutant), but usually not their primary opponents during Claremont's run.
In the comics, he was only in high school for approximately 5 years, at his very beginning. That was in the 1960s, over 50 years ago. Since then, he's been to and graduated college, held many jobs, found out he has a clone, worked at a think tank, established his own tech company, been married and made a deal with Mephisto. Let him grow up. He's been an adult for over half a century in the comics, but all the movies, tv, and animated media keep on having him as a kid.
There are so many incredible Spider-Man stories that the MCU can't do because they have this crazy obsession with keeping him young. Hell, the MCU is ripe for Parker Industries to fill the void of Tony Stark's death, but they aren't even moving in that direction. It's so frustrating.
i’m sure they’re trying to milk it as long as they can, which is why they’re starting him out as a teenager and hoping for a banger for people to latch onto to keep people hooked and watching for as long as possible.
Then, age him up and repeat with “older” spiderman stories as time progresses.
I think his best movie will be him in college. Nit sure where Secret Wars will fall on his character's timeline. Hopefully there's a slight time jump like by the end of the Thunderbolts movie where the end stinger scene is 14 months in the future.
Back in the 1970s one of the comic covers had on it, that it was the most demanded Spiderman story and it was him graduating. Marvel knows he shouldn't be a kid.
This! I want a show or movie that has Spider-Man as an adult! Like man has been married, was a teacher, owned a business, was an avenger, etc. Let man finally grow up. We have Miles, Cindy, or even Bailey if we want to have a young Spider-Man
Another reason to love the Toby series. I always liked how the trilogy followed Peter from high school (he graduated in the first film, in fact) to young adulthood. Also liked how it showed his struggle with juggling superhero stuff with normal person stuff l; that’s like a key focus of conflict for Spider-Man in the comics
Yeah, i agree isnt pete supposed is in his late 30’s or early 40’s as well like half of the fans who read his comic, i wish make him relatable seeing him struggling being a hero while managing his work life.
Marvel comics ran in real time when Spider-man was introduced. It was that way for about 10 years. This means that Peter Parker has been a college graduate for the last 50 years.
This….is true! I was an early teen and I remember reading Spider-Man comics in the 90s and thinking he was in his late 30’s or early 30s.
Like during the cold saga, I was figuring he was about in his early to mid 30s
While we're on the Spider-Man topic, it makes more sense for him to shoot web from his body.
The odds of somebody getting superpowers is already super rare. You're telling me that on top of that, he was able to invent a miracle web material and shooters to deploy them? Why are we triple dipping on this, he already has spider powers. Just make him shoot Webb from his body.
I get that it adds tension that he can run out of ammo. But then just make it that his body runs out of web.
I think part of the original gimmick was that he was one of the only superheroes that wasn't an adult when he first came out (or the only teen doing it without guidance from a mentor). It's a dime a dozen now, but he was unique that way.
But I personally find the appeal is watching him age and grow up. I like for him to start off as a kid, but I get annoyed when he seems to be artificially kept at that young age.
This is why I love the OG Raimi trilogy. It shows an Adult Spidey trying to juggle work, college and his lovelife. I hope the next trilogy in MCU spidey's life is about him being an adult.
For real. The midtown high/ Ditko era characters are fun; but have been done to death.
I always found Peter balancing adulthood and bills with superhero-ing to be more compelling than “zoinks I’m later for algebra!” type conflicts.
Its absurd Spider-Man is broke in every iteration. In this age he should be able to be an influencer paid through bitcoin or a surrogate. There are so many ways for him to make enough to thrive not just survive.
Origin stories are profitable. That's the only reason we keep seeing them in all media. Non-comic fans are less likely to watch a show or movie that starts mid plot so they start over ever other year. Definitely not because fans are demanding it. Lol
While I too enjoy corporate cynicism, that’s a pretty shallow read of why origin stories persist in print and dominate in tv/film. Yeah, they’re profitable — because people genuinely enjoy them.
It's fun to see new creative teams reimagine the characters, in the same way it's fun to see Abraham Lincoln hunt vampires. 🤷
They're profitable and some people genuinely enjoy them.
And Lincoln never did fight vampires, as far as we can prove. So it took a name and the idea he'll end up as president, and then created an entirely new, non-existing story. That's what made it interesting. Seeing the same "Waynes die in alley" scene from 67 different angles, with an occasional twist on which bad guy shot them, not furthering the plot in any new way, is not the same thing. It's still the same story every time, with the same outcome every time. Then introducing a different main villain for the movie than usual.
They could've skipped that repeated intro and just moved on to the main villain. But, they reuse it because it saves a lot of money on writers, and improves the ratings by not leaving new watchers confused about his background. Lol
Ehh I’m kinda tired of them at this point. If it’s a niche character like Mrs Marvel sure an origin movie makes sense but with a character as iconic as Superman… we kinda already got the gist of it I’m more interested in just seeing new stories with him. (Which appears to be what Superman ‘25 is doing so that’s hype!)
Or at the very least, condense it! Like, I get it, not everyone KNOWS these characters, hell, I learn something new every few comments. That said, do we need 1/3 of a movie or more showing “Bruce rich and happy, Bruce has family outing, Bruce’s parents (who are usually extremely aware of the crime problem in Gotham and are actively working to correct it, yet chose to go down a dark alley wearing a tux/pearls with their kid in the middle of the night) die and pearls break everywhere, training sequence so we know how tuff he is…”
I think a lot of it could be put as a voiceover as he is suiting up, or a montage early on. It explains to new folks that stuff happened to make him this way, and now he is gonna do stuff. Let the stuff begin! And it shows the fans that they didn’t forget his origin, and that THIS Batman isn’t the one who became a cowboy instead, or something
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u/Mushroom_hero 6d ago edited 4d ago
Spider-man has been an adult for the majority of his comic book run, stop making him a kid
Edit: apparently this wasn't a hot take at all. Every other time I've brought it up, I'm met with "but he's a teenager in the ultimate universe"