Spider-Man: Moving Forward or Running in Place

Spider-Man is one of a few characters that predates my memory. I have zero recollection of my first Spider-Man experience; he was just part of my life. When I was a kid, Spider-Man represented little more than a power fantasy, but the older I got, the more I saw myself in Peter Parker. During high school. I began to relate to his struggle to balance responsibility with personal desires. As I’ve transitioned to college, finding that balance has become more difficult; Peter Parker had a similar experience as he moved to college.

I’ve found it hard to connect with Peter Parker’s Spider-Man in recent comics because he can’t move forward in his life anymore. Since 2007, Peter Parker hasn’t been able to sustain any meaningful changes in his life because Marvel's executives believe that he needs to stay “relatable” to readers. Former editor-in-chief Joe Quesada believed that flagship characters like Mickey Mouse, Superman and Spider-Man shouldn’t be married. Eventually, his vision stripped Peter Parker of his marriage and his ability to progress as a character. Spider-Man comics weren’t always this way though. Almost every legendary run on The Amazing Spider-Man comics prior to 2007 had one thing in common; they all moved Peter Parker forward as a character. From the early 1960s to the mid-2000s, Spider-Man was the shining beacon of growth in a comics industry built on status quos that ensures stories can be published forever.

I recently read through the first 149 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, which includes Stan Lee’s and Gerry Conway’s runs on the character. Lee was the co-creator of Spider-Man and he wrote 106 of the first 110 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. Conway was the first writer after Lee to have a substantial run on the book, writing from issue 111-149. Both of these legendary runs have moving forward as one of the central themes. Lee ages Peter roughly 6 years during his run, more than any other writer in mainline Spidey comics. Lee’s run also features Peter's most lasting development as a person. Peter is introduced as an outcast among his peers and has built resentment for basically everyone outside of Aunt May and Uncle Ben, going as far as saying “the rest of the world can go hang for all I care”. By issue 50, his attitude has totally shifted, saying, “I can never permit one innocent being to come to harm because Spider-Man failed to act”. As Peter grows to care for people by being Spider-Man, he lets go of his resentment and builds a community of friends during his first semester at college. Lee progresses Peter Parker from an angry, vengeful 15-year-old boy to a responsible (trying to be) and kind young man in his early 20s. Stan Lee created the character and set the standard, and Gerry Conway would double down on the theme of growth with his run. 

By the end of Stan Lee’s legendary Spider-Man run, Peter had grown immensely as a person, and he had somewhat of a promised future. Peter had friends like Harry Osborne, Mary Jane and Flash Thompson, as well as his girlfriend Gwen Stacy, who he intended to marry.  At 19 years old Gerry Conway boldly decided to burn Peter's promised future to the ground. He famously had Gwen die in a fight between Spider-Man and The Green Goblin, ripping Peter’s future away from him. After the death of Gwen, Peter is sent into a spiral of grief and self-loathing, blaming himself for her death. Through Peter’s grief, Mary Jane is there to support him and make sense of that grief. Eventually, Peter and MJ fall in love, allowing Peter to move forward with his life. But Conway has one last test for Peter to affirm his ability to move forward. The final arc of Conway's 39-issue run features a clone Gwen Stacy coming into Peter’s life with all of her memories up until her unfortunate death. Peter is faced with two choices: live the lie with an artificial version of his first love, or let go of Gwen and move forward with his life. Peter, of course, lets go of Gwen and moves forward.

This precedent set by Stan Lee and reinforced by Gerry Conway served as the blueprint for the majority of great Spider-Man runs in the future. Tom Defalco would progress the romance between Peter and MJ to marriage, David Michelinie would write Peter and MJ’s early years of marriage and introduce Venom and J. Michael Straczynski would have Peter become a teacher and have Aunt May learn that he’s Spider-Man. For the first 45 years of his existence, Spider-Man was constantly growing. 

Unfortunately, the editor-in-chief Joe Quesada demanded that Spider-Man be reset to a young bachelor because he believed readers can’t relate to a married Spider-Man. In a story so controversial writer J. Michael Straczynski initially refused to put his name on it, Peter Parker sells his marriage with Mary Jane Watson to the devil to save Aunt May. The character who has constantly been able to move on and come out the other side of his grief a stronger person sold his marriage to the devil to save his Aunt who has been on death's doorstep since the 1960’s. Not only was this outcome the antithesis of what the character had represented for over 45 years, but Peter still can’t sustain any meaningful life changes to this day.

Spider-Man comics have lost their stakes because readers know every major change made by a writer in mainline Spider-Man comics will inevitably be thrown out the door when the next author takes over. In the pursuit of relatability through struggle, Marvel has stripped their flagship character of his most relatable quality: the ability to grow up.