Spider-Man Week: Stop Making Peter Parker The Marvel Universe Punching Bag

Sixty-four years ago, a radioactive spider bit a teenager who had to learn a hard lesson about power and responsibility. He wasn’t a popular teenager, in fact he was picked upon for being smart and nerdy and not being the most extroverted. Yet, outside of school he was the web-slinging hero called Spider-Man, labeled as both a hero and a menace depending on who you asked.

Welcome to Comicon’s Spider-Man week, as the web-swinger is poised to leap back onto the big screen once more.

That description above is just a fraction of who and what Spider-Man is as a character. One of the most important points though was just how ordinary this guy was behind the mask. He’s someone that struggled on the regular to hold down a job and friend circles, while balancing his extra curricular superhero gig. Dating wasn’t easy and he had to sacrifice things in order to live up to the pledge of using his great power with great responsibility.

In essence, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were the “everyman” type of character. As Stan Lee noted often, anyone could be behind that mask, and we all could feel that. It’s why I fell in love with the character from the moment I was able to understand who and what he was about. I was a nerd who struggled to be around others, having setbacks that felt like they were major, and trying to put together two cents to my name when adulthood came around.

Somewhere along the way though, that sacrifice and relatability went out the window. In its place came nothing but sadness and loss. Peter Parker became the punching bag or sad sack of the Marvel Universe. He not only couldn’t have a marriage, he could never have a working romantic relationship again. He can’t keep any job to save his life, and every new creative team comes in to find new ways to stomp him into the ground, till he gets back up, and then they stomp him again.

I can’t count on one hand the number of actually good lasting things that have happened to the character since the early 2000s. Coincidentally around the time of the big Brand New Day retcon filled reinvention of the line  (check out the linked piece from day one of our Spider-Man week for more information).

Marvel, please leave Spider-Man alone.

Like seriously, let Peter Parker have some breathing space. There has to be some good things that come to the character instead of just making him sad all the time. Besides, being the sad guilty person is Daredevil’s lot in life with all that Irish Catholic guilt going on.

There are ways to have the character struggle and go up against massive odds without him having nothing to his name. Personally, I liked a bunch of what Brand New Day brought to the table, outside of the ending the marriage (that and the fact that I disagreed that he had to be single in order to be “relatable,” which really feels like some married editors and writers working out some stuff vicariously through this fictional character). I even like a lot of what Dan Slott did solo following that era, such as the Horizon Labs think tank job (one of the best ones that fits Peter) or a relationship with Bobbie Morse, the heroic Mockingbird.

Not so much the Peter being the head of his own mega tech company, as that is not really relatable, but the rest was fine. They can’t all be winners.

After that Marvel just leaned on the hard hits and we haven’t seen Peter get a break since. Hell, the character had one of the best supporting casts in all of comics and we hardly ever see most of them. It’s just focused on big action beat arc after big action beat arc where Peter is suffering and staggering. There’s no time to see his every day life anymore or see him try and work with others in his life around being Spider-Man. Then again, this has been a problem with superhero comics across the board for the last decade or more.

We’re finally seeing some change with the “lower-tier” characters or much of the work being done over at their Distinguished Competition.

Look, I want to see conflict and drama in stories, as that is the meat of how you move stories. None of that means it has to be massive battles and constant sacrifice though. Missing a date to save a life is perfectly fine level of conflict at times, or having to let down a friend because Electro struck for the millionth time.

Peter, and all characters, need their personal victories as much as they need the victories over a villain. There is no stakes or surprise if we know that no matter what he’s never going to get anything and the comics treat him like the ultimate loser. Those sweet little victories also make the natural drama richer later because there are things on the line and the hero wants to keep his life in line.

Right now Peter Parker is the equivalent of the Trix Rabbit, always losing.

Spider-Man became popular because people wanted to be the character. It’s hard to want to be a character that is getting kicked in the knee and ribs at every turn. Funny enough it’s the animated Spider-Verse movies from Sony with Miles Morales that understand the assignment. There we see a character struggle with things on a mundane level alongside the big stuff. Sure, the second one was a bigger scale, but the stakes of the first were both big and personal at the same time.

Stephen Wacker, the editor behind the Brand New Day era is now taking over as the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He was there to lead an era of Spider-Man that understood how to focus on the life of Peter as well as the stuff with Spider-Man, even if it had to deal with his marriage being erased and all that nonsense that went down right before it began.

With a shakeup happening, might be time for the (far too) long serving Spider-editor Nick Lowe to pick up another gig or something. The line has been the most depressive and only focused on big bold long-arching action stuff under his tenure.

All I’m saying is, let my boy Peter catch a break. Bring us back the everyman version of Spider-Man that we fell in love with. Stop punching the hero and give him a pat on the bag and a hug sometimes. The hits will come but they don’t have to be a barrage.

It’s a new era of Marvel on the horizon, and it’s time to treat their marquee hero far better.

Marvel, Wacker, you have great power, it’s time to use it with great responsibility. Do it for Uncle Ben. Do it for us.