My manager, Hank, is the Man as far as the store is concerned. Having worked there since time immortal, customers know to come for him to know what’s good in the store. It’s automatic with him while I’m over here wracking my brain for just the right pitch to make sure more people look at Dan Slott’s Thing. Suffice it to say… we don’t see eye to eye all the time and I have a bad habit of proclaiming ‘Well, maybe because I’m a girl, but…’ on a few things. Let it be known that he started it all those years ago with stupid Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man.
Anyways, my firm stance on Civil War and Spidey’s Big Reveal has put us at odds again. Chatting during dead time, he mentioned an old Newsarama article that talked about Superman and Lois and whether or not baby should make three. As he is a big proponent of the end of Spider-Man’s marriage, I asked him why Kal-El and Lois get to talk kids while Heaven help us Peter Parker should be saddled with matrimony. Something was mentioned of Clark being more ‘All American’ and I said something about ‘And Spidey isn’t?’ and oh, it was on.
Honestly, I live for working on days like this.
Basically, my point was that given everything that’s been going on with the poor guy, Peter Parker needs to keep some form of happiness in his life. Let’s face it, he’s not exactly the poster child for happy sunshine days and yes, I know he became a hero out of tragedy and that he can’t be happy all the time, but you know? That’s not what defines him. He’s a hero. He perseveres and wins the day for us in a little adolescent power fantasy. If you keep kicking him, killing him, giving him back loved ones only to take them away, adding new powers and on and on without giving him a break or a breather or what I termed ‘a cookie’, some sort of reward for surviving all this instead of ‘hey, here’s the next big tragedy!’…
To use a pro-wrestling analogy, there was a guy in the WWE who’s gimmick was that he would always lose, then throw a tantrum. Sure, he was a heel on the show and we weren’t supposed to like him, but the whole act just got old. The start might have had us interested as to how he was going to lose this time, but too much just got to be boring. The wrestler lost some cred with the fans too, as he became ‘the losing guy’. Spider-Man should not be the losing guy. Divorcing him from his wife (as that has worked so well in the Marvel Universe in the past) or worse, making him a widower, and maybe it’s because I’m the girl at the store and are far fonder of a romantic angle on characters… I just think Spider-Man will lose more than he would gain in the long run.
‘But he’s living in a mansion!,’ I was told. ‘He’s got a father figure in his life in the form of Tony Stark! He’s a teacher! He’s married to a supermodel! How could he not have a good life?’ Because, said I, the Avengers are disassembling again, Tony Stark maybe a father figure, but one who put him in a very bad position and has certainly hindered as much as helped, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen him do any teaching (an awesome story angle I always liked) and you’re the ones saying he should be divorced! Spider-Man needs to win, something, anything at this point. There hasn’t been a good ol’ fashioned Stilt Man comeuppance or a basic bank robbery in forever! Just give the man a cookie.
Then Jon said he was hungry for cookies and it all just got sort of set aside.
3 Comments
Exactly. Thank you. Marvel could at least depict Peter just going out and web-swinging and climbing walls for stress relief, because it’s been established he finds that enjoyable.
I’d settle for ‘Hey, I found a quarter! Neat.’ at this point. The Marvel Romance books were nice but they were their own little stories over there while the big plot engine of one problem after another was still rolling along. There’s dramatic licence and there’s just COME ON!
Peter doesn’t even go out web-swinging to “clear his head” anymore. He goes “on patrol” almost like he’s a cop or (dare I say it) Batman. Yes, Spider-Man looking for a crook to catch or someone to rescue is him being responsible with his powers, but it can get a little tiresome and also make Peter Parker less interesting.
While these are just comic books and if we have Spider-Man take his power and responsbility too seriously, we edge into Miracleman territory (as someone said on another blog) or Daredevil establishing himself as “the new Kingpin.”