This thread's for the Spider-Man comics and spin-offs, whether they're decades old or brand new.
- Apart from the main Marvel Universe titles, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man "What If?" stories, crossovers, guest appearances in other books, Alternate Universe tales and things like Marvel's manga adaptations are all on-topic here.
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- Characters and comics that originated in Spider-Man but are no longer directly connected to the spider-franchise (e.g. Punisher, Silver Sable) are not on-topic, unless you're discussing historical connections and crossovers. If in doubt, check before you write a long post. If this isn't the right place, there's a more general Marvel Comics thread
which covers them.
Technically, Marvel's Infinity Comics (and their predecessors, Infinite Comics) are webcomics, not comic books, but it's fine to talk about their Spider-Man stories here.
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Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 10th 2023 at 10:58:13 AM
I freaking adored JMS’ May and wish the character was written like that all the time.
The scene where she told off Tony Stark and Reed Richards still sticks in my head. Get rekt, assholes.
Also, people talk all about the things OMD robbed from us, but among them often unsung was the surprisingly sweet Aunt May / Jarvis relationship.
Jarvis’ age is also inexplicable
When his mom shows up she looks like she’s around May’s age.
But May and Jarvis had a good dynamic
Forever liveblogging the AvengersMay and Jarvis as a couple was such an inspired idea that worked so perfectly for both characters. I’m still so mad they didn’t commit to that. If you’re going to insist on keeping May around at least use the ideas for her from the one and only writer who seemed to give a shit about her. Admittedly, making Peter and Jonah stepbrothers was a really funny idea that could’ve been mined for a lot but they didn’t commit to THAT either.
In regards to Jarvis’s age, I think it’s just another expression of how May in 616 tends to be written and drawn as looking and acting way older than she logically should be. Timelines and canon considered, Jarvis and May should probably be about the same age, maybe her being a tad older than him but not by a lot. But she’s constantly drawn and written as if she’s nearing her hundreds while he’s was written and drawn as being more lower end of middle age when first introduced and is now late middle age. Jarvis’ age is the one that makes sense, May’s throws it off.
Aunt May. While the Clone Saga was becoming an attempt for one true Spider-Man who would also be single, De Falco mentioned his goal was to push Peter into a family man while Ben would be akin to US Agent, War Machine and Thunderstrike to give us another Spider Hero, but one who would be single.
But yeah I suppose I would have thought carefully before going through, cause it would yes be a death that shouldn't be undone.
That said, he never explained how, but former Spec writer Glenn Greenberg once mentioned that he did offer a means for her return without being so dismissive of ASM #400.
And I think the actress bit was as much to undo the reveal that May knew her nephew is Spider-Man.
People like to make fun of stuff like Ultimate or MCU when they make May a total milf who’s in her forties or fifties at oldest, but that age range and appearance frankly makes much more sense for how May should be and look when Peter’s starting out; Richard and Mary being in their twenties or thirties when they die, Ben and May in their forties or fifties or maybe sixties. Hell it’s been mentioned in this thread that she was stated to be only sixty in the original Lee-Ditko run, but there she looks about two decades older than that.
Ironically, if she actually were only sixty at the start of Peter’s career, her still being around yet looking super old and being really frail would actually make some sense. By my headcanon math based off decades of Marvel lore, the MU as is has probably gone through about twenty to thirty years in-universe (miss me with that “10 to 15 years since the FF” idea Marvel goes with, that number hasn’t worked since the 90s). She would be late middle aged at most at the start and still able to support herself, then it would take about two decades to get her looking like a wizened crone and no longer being able to really support herself completely alone. But she’s always been written as an aging woman near death’s door from day one, so now she comes off as some undead lich who’s been “almost dead” for most of Peter’s life.
That really sums up a lot of problems with the Clone Saga. Peter as a family man and Ben as Spider-Man is perfect. That would’ve been a fantastic status quo moving forward. But Editorial just HAD to do the “Ben is the real one the stupid married Spider-Man is a fake because we don’t like it!!!!” instead of just treating Peter and Ben as equally important and they ruined it by doing so and tried to sweep it all under the rug instead of owning up to what really bungled the story.
The insistence on May not knowing Peter is Spider-Man just makes it all even more embarrassing. Both times May was established as knowing the secret were among the most acclaimed stories in the book’s history, so why is it so important for her to not know? Because she didn’t know when editorial were kids and her knowing would be too mature and emotionally nuanced. The actress retcon is especially hilarious because logically it should be the other way around; the real May figuring it out years ago made sense because he literally raised Peter and went through so much shit with him doing Spider-Man that her inferring the truth was just common sense, while the actress not knowing also made more sense since of course Norman probably wouldn’t tell her about that (quoth Batman in Hush, “the answer to a riddle everyone knows is worthless”).
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 11:39:22 AM
It was never even said how they even explained how May came back to life to everyone was it? It's not like they could admit Norman kidnapped her without everyone asking "why"? But as far as Post OMD goes it's just a narrative dead end no matter how you look at it. Everyone is just trapped in a faux 1970's status quo because that's what current editorial grew up on...so we can never have true character development. Peter and everyone else is essentially a Barbie doll..."Peter is a wealthy CEO today...he'll be broke again tomorrow and no one will seem to remember he was richer than Bill Gates". "Oh today how about we throw MJ in an alternate dimension where she gets magical kids...a genocidal boyfriend that plays daddy for them...and we'll just pretend that she didn't love Peter yesterday".
Edited by knightstorm on Nov 1st 2023 at 12:05:58 PM
It’s depressing how true everything you said is. That Barbie doll comparison is hauntingly appropriate.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 12:06:27 PM
Incidentally if the choice came down to it in the future (I'm speaking purely from a fantasy stand point), I would prefer reviving a previous Alt-Continuity story VS starting another variation, but one I wouldn't mind is a series sequel to the Clone Saga mini by De Falco and Howard Mackie.
Basically sans the fact that May didn't die and Harry is back rather than Norman, you do variations of stories say following the Clone Saga up to the JMS stuff minus Civil War and OMD. Basically keeping what could work, but with polish of a streamlined Spidey book.
Maybe working in Anna-May so that with or without a super powered MJ you could have a Spidey team family. Maybe Harry does reform down the line and occasionally tries to be a crime fighter or just technician.
And Ben Reilly who still lives and without the character assassination.
Cool, although the difference is it is more like RYV in that Peter is still active and it doesn't skip to May's teen years.
Basically starting off right after the revised Clone Saga with still young Peter and MJ, plus Baby May.
With them being maybe in their 30s by the time Anna-May is born with May being 5-9? I guess factoring in how many Christmas stories there were from after the Clone Saga to JMS' run (Well a using any bits from it that could work with the different continuity).
Those are both good, but I do think it’s telling of an endemic problem when the best they can come up with for May to do is run a soup kitchen and marry Jonah’s dad and they don’t even let her have the latter for very long leaving her with just the soup kitchen. Not to mention she barely appears anymore anyways.
It’s clear that nobody involved in bringing May back after her perfect death in 400 nor the ones involved in OMD and still insistent on her remaining didn’t have any idea what to actually DO with her once she was brought back. They just wanted her back because she was around in the high school/college years that they idolize, but once they brought her back in that position they just got a reminder of why everyone disliked her and why their predecessors killed her off to begin with. JMS is pretty much the only Post-Gathering of the Five writer to actually have any idea or desire for how to use May. Everyone else just has her hang around like a shade, never doing anything particularly noteworthy but never going away either.
I feel like that kinda spells out a lot of the problem with OMD and the wider “Peter HAS to be young and single” nonsense. Its chasing after this idolized Nostalgia Filter idea of what early Spider-Man was like and trying to emulate it, but once they bring everything from it back it becomes clear to everyone with a brain that the stuff they’re trying to bring back is something the series had long moved on from at best, just plain sucks ass at worst.
Its this weird idolizing of the Lee-Ditko era, acting like it was flawless and perfect in every immaculate way and then when we crowbar everything back to a bastardized version of that era, we’re reminded that it was far from perfect and that a lot of the best stuff about Spider-Man didn’t come until way later in the eras that Editorial scorns… so basically, everything past Gwen’s death and before OMD, a very significant chunk of the franchise’s history.
Yes, Jonah still knows Peter is Spidey and they’re still friends. Probably one of the few Post-OMD developments that I really like.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 1:54:49 AM
And fittingly enough if you made an Alt-Series following the revised Clone Saga, while her passing might be an inevitability, while around being a caretaker for the younger May is something that helps.
Heck while I find the mini to be decent (Should have been 12 issues and not like a cliff note in story form), I like that bit of interaction between her and Kaine where he states that she doesn't know him. And that's as he puts it, his loss.
Plus as much as it still would have been meh to revive her in the main continuity, keeping her knowledge of Peter's double life could have worked out as in JMS' run.
As former article writer Madgoblin put it, upon losing the apartment, he chose homelessness and later moving in with Randy over staying with Aunt May.
Which to be fair it is more common past the 2000s for people to live with relatives if moving out is solely for independence.
Also in fairness, I don't see all properties (Like Barbie) needing to have an evolving narrative and such to work.
The only problems are when simple and episodic stuff (especially romance) is the default for stories.
Sonic the Hedgehog (Mostly IDW) and My Litte Pony (Both favs) work cause they know what they want and go with it. Whereas Marvel and DC want to be seen as more, but don't have much conviction (and a misunderstanding on what mature stories mean).
Plus simple stories done well can arguably hold up over failed stories promising much more but not delivering.
And yeah, if I found more back issues at the comic stores, I would go for Marvel's Barbie comics.😁
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Yeah, that’s the thing. For this whole “Spidey in Stasis” idea to work, it would need to be a series built top down with a Strictly Formula “nothing is ever going to change too much” kind of setting in mind.
Barbie doesn’t have any real continuity or plot outside of one-off stories, because it doesn’t need that. Stuff like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm was based entirely around episodic storytelling. Sam and Max, Spongebob, Tom and Jerry, James Bond, Indiana Jones, almost every sitcom ever made. None of these things need any sort of real “progress” except sometimes acknowledging actors getting older and usually not even that. They’re not serial stories. They’re episodic adventures. And that’s fine.
But Spider-Man was a story built on forward momentum. The entire thing that the series was built around and which set it apart from the crowds was that sense of progression. You weren’t watching episodic stories where nothing would change, you were watching Peter’s life progress and go on. Characters got older and died, Peter grew up, everything changed and aged. It wasn’t just Peter swinging around webbing up Otto’s glasses and trying to pay Aunt May’s rent every single month in freeze frame.
Spider-Editorial mocks people who disagree with them by suggesting we just want Peter to grow old and die… and the thing is, they’re right to an extent. Peter should eventually grow old and die. But we’re decades away from that happening. If we had kept progressing at the rate things did up til OMD, Peter would currently be in his thirties, his forties at oldest. Far from old, and considering we’ve seen acclaimed elseworlds where Peter keeps the act up well into his golden years and he’s gotten many candidates for successors who could transition into the role, it’s clear nobody objects to Spider-Man aging and that it wouldn’t stop stories from being told.
You can’t keep the 616 Spider-Man in stasis because he’s a creature of change. If you want an “evergreen” Spider-Man who never gets old, you’ve got to go to alternate universes and adaptations. And even most of those don’t cling to the idea of Peter never growing up.
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That is fair. It is easy to forget that human lifespans are longer than in the past and only getting longer, such that sixty is seen nowadays is probably middle aged rather than senior citizen.
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The hilarious thing about the "you want Peter to get old and die" accusations...is that aside from the fact that Peter is a fictional character...is the fact that whether they like it or not...Peter has aged...and will continue to do so because the rest of the characters in 616 will. He's been Spider-Man for roughly a decade and a half at this point...so writing him to still be this young guy just starting out just makes him look like he's going to start trying to hang around Miles and his friends and say "hello fellow kids". He's not a teenager anymore no matter how much they try to write him like one.
Edited by knightstorm on Nov 1st 2023 at 6:01:18 AM
Yep. You can’t get back water that’s gone down the sink. And the attempts by them to do just that by having Peter act like he’s mentally regressed into a teenager despite the fact that time has objectively passed is just creepy and weird.
I remember a much earlier point in this thread where we all observed that a big reason the attempts at “young and single Peter” fail is because the rest of the Marvel Universe isn’t subject to the same thing. Yeah, Comic-Book Time is still a thing, but everyone else is clearly progressing and growing older. Iron Man is acknowledged now to be entering middle age. People who were teens when Peter was like the OG X-Men or Rick Jones are all written as well into their thirties or forties. People who were teens while Peter was graduating from college and getting married like Nova or Kitty Pryde are in their late twenties or early thirties. People who were teens the first times they tried to deage Peter like Jubilee are now in their early to mid-twenties.
You can’t have Peter acting like he’s a teenager and will never get old when the world around is filled with people getting visibly older and changing. Because if you do, it just makes him look like a creepy weirdo just begging for Memetic Molester jokes.

As a general rule, it seems like the idea is that any symbiote can do both. They can work with their host and let them retain their free will if they want, or they can try to dominate and control them. Or they can even play a middle ground and try to influence the host without controlling them outright (like with Peter and the black suit). And in the latter cases, whether or not the host can resist them doing so seems to depend on the host.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 10:51:08 AM