Spidey is a 12-issue Lighter and Softer modern reimagining of Spider-Man. It features a teen Peter Parker trying to do his best as a superhero and balancing it with going to school and having friends. The reality of the comic has been designated as Earth-16220.
Has a Broad Strokes 6-issue sequel named Spidey: School's out!, which borrows heavily from Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Not to be confused with Spidey Super Stories nor Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
Spidey and Spidey: School's out! contain examples of:
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Flash has dark hair instead of his usual blond, and May also has dark hair instead of grey in School's Out. The Osborns are black haired instead of redheads.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Glory Grant in School's Out, nicknamed GG, is portrayed as a gifted programmer who made a machine that could create hard-light holograms.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Norman Osborn is a much better father to Harry in this version, seemingly keeping good track of his progress in school and hiring Peter to be Harry's tutor. He even makes it clear that he plans to hire Peter at Oscorp if his current school trajectory keeps up. Even the Goblin also shows genuine respect for Spider-Man after their fight, calling him a Worthy Opponent for his sheer determination.
- The Adjectival Superhero: In the first issue Peter calls himself the Amazing Spider-Man before admitting that since he was just starting out he hadn't earned the name yet, changing it to the Spectacular Spider-Man before meekly settling on Spidey. In the final issue however, after defeating the Sinister Six and making a new costume after his last was destroyed, he calls himself the Amazing Spider-Man as he had now earned the name.
- Age Lift: May at first looks to be the same age as she is usually portrayed, but School's Out makes her look much younger. Gloria Grant is also a teenager like Peter and meets him at the Stark Camp.
- And the Adventure Continues: How the series concludes.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: In their confrontation, Green Goblin takes advantage of Peter's Chronic Hero Syndrome as well as his limited amount of webbing by putting civilians in danger, forcing him to waste his webs outside of combat. The result is that Peter runs out of webs in mid-air and falls straight into a sewer.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In issue #4 Dr Doom makes off with a painting by a Latverian artist, to be hung in a museum in his country.
- Broad Strokes: School's Out is canon with the rest of Spidey, but the characters are changed to better match Homecoming with May getting an Age Lift and Adaptational Dye-Job and Peter becoming friends with Ganke Lee (who Ned Leeds from Homecoming was based on) and Glory Grant who now better matches Michelle Jones from the films.
- Chekhov's Classroom: At the beginning of issue #2, the history teacher Mr. Maxwell explains how Leonidas used the environment to get the advantage. Later in the story, Spidey uses the environment to defeat Sandman.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Harry appears as Peter's best friend in the first few issues and Norman did hire Peter to tutor him, but he disappears from the series just when Gwen convinced Peter to tutor Flash so the two could become friends. He reappears in School's Out but Flash also disappears and doesn't even appear after May ends up in the hospital to support Peter while Gwen and Harry did.
- Composite Character: Gloria Grant acts as an Expy of Michelle Jones from Homecoming instead of her usual self.
- Demoted to Extra: While still his girlfriend, in School's Out Gwen only appears before Peter goes to the Stark Camp and to support him after May ends up in hospital.
- Disappointed by the Motive: In School's Out Peter fights the Vulture and several other villains, coming to the conclusion that everything that has happened since he arrived at the Stark Camp was part of their plan to steal an arc reactor and that they were aware of his secret identity. However it turns out that while Vulture was planning a theft it had nothing to do with the arc reactor, and Peter later learns the true masterminds were Lachlan and Ethan who were rich kids that were also accepted into Stark Camp. Having created a game app that would make lots of money through several microtransactions, they planned to steal the Arc Reactor to make more money. When Peter had criticised their app they felt threatened, especially since he was underprivileged, and tried to set him up for the crime and hired Shocker and Rhino to kidnap May to force him to take the fall. However when this didn't work they stole the arc reactor and some hologram tech to pretend they were Iron Man and another armoured person to try and kill Peter. When Peter learns all of this he was shocked they were willing to go so far over such a petty reason.
- Dramatic Irony: Following one of their confrontations as their alter-egos, Peter and Norman have an encounter where they both notice the other has sustained the same injuries as their counterparts. As quick as they both make the connection, both of them shoot it down, with Norman not believing a teenager could be such a threat to the Goblin while Peter believes a genius like Norman couldn't be such a vicious killer.
- Grand Finale: Issue #12, where Peter & Gwen finally get together and several previous villains return as The Sinister Six.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In issue #4, Electro had a cameo where he was Ambiguously Brown and had a different costume. After that, he's got back to his original look.
- Heroic Bystander: Owen, a little boy who gives Spidey the idea of shutting down Doctor Doom's power source in issue four.
- Kid Hero: Peter is only 15 when the series takes place.
- Lighter and Softer: Since this is about a younger Spider-Man at the start of his career, he hasn't suffered as much tragedy as his main universe counterpart and his foes have yet to become as dangerous as they are usually shown to be.
- Medium Awareness: Peter is somehow aware he's in a comic as one of his thought boxes even asks the reader to not turn the page, though it doesn't come up often and could easily be explained away as him having an overactive imagination and simply talking to himself.
- Mythology Gag: Norman Osborn is drawn to resemble Willem Dafoe.
- Pet the Dog: When Peter tells J. Jonah Jameson that he needs his payment immediately so that he can buy a tux for prom, JJJ breaks his rule against immediate payment to give him a good night out.
- Race Lift: Both Harry and his father Norman are Ambiguously Brown here, while Shocker is African-American.
- Retcon: Cindy Moon had a cameo appearance as a photo in Spidey where it was implied she was deceased (or at least missing like her main counterpart) due to the picture saying "Remember Cindy", but she later appears in School's Out.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Spidey spends almost all issue eleven to try to defeat Scorpion to get into the "ultimate team-up" (the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange fighting Galactus). When he finishes, they are already done and he is left there to clean up the mess.
- Shout-Out: Both Peter and Gwen are fans of The Lord of the Rings. Harry also implies that Norman binges Game of Thrones.
- Ultimate Universe: A minor example, especially when compared to Ultimate Spider-Man, as while the series is a Setting Update of the original Lee-Ditko Spider-Man and reimagines several characters to be more connected than they were in the original comics, such as Harry and Gwen being Peter's classmates in school, it doesn't stray too far from what has already been done. However School's Out reimagined more characters while taking some inspiration from the version of Spider-Man shown in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which made this version of the character a little more different from the main comic version.
- Villain Team-Up: As usual, the Sinister Six.
