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John Mietus
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9697
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | 1
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I'm still waiting for the Shaper of Worlds to come along, reach around the
back of the Marvel Universe, hit the reset button, and go to town.
Right after Quesada is ousted.
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Gregg Halecki
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Posts: 759
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | 2
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I see that he could as easily be 23 these days as 29, simply because whatever level of maturity or personal life dynamic he is put in, it wouldn't be all that much of a stretch to see eother a 23 yr old or a 29 yr old in that situation.
Let's say that Peter was getting married today. That in and of itself doesn't pin down his age other than "young adult or older". Plenty of people get married in their early 20s. Plenty of people get married in their late 20s. So he is a high school teacher. Is there a reason that he couldn't get a teaching job at around 23 or so? That is the right age generality (somewhere in his 20's) to encompass the widest spectrum of charachterization that doesn't contradict itself. Lots of people in their early 20s have very similar problems as they did in their late teens and also similar personality traits. In the mid 20s, the same people could SOMETIMES be awkward and flaky with those same high school-ish problems, but ALSO at other times be more confidant and secure and have more "grown up" problems and situations to deal with. If you leave his age somewhere in that ambiguous 20something zone you CAN have most of the same charachterization elements as you have with him as a teenager, but you can ALSO have the adult ones too.
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | 3
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I think the issue is that there are/were already plenty of other adult superheroes to explore those themes with. Aging Spider-Man to that point was unnecessary. And speaking generally in terms of fiction, having the hero settle down is usually the end of the story. Living happily ever after, and all that. Whether it's in comics or TV, when you have an on-again, of-again relationship between two characters, having them get together is always a mistake.
The niche that Spider-Man filled was that of a teenager learning to be a man, struggling to become the man his Uncle Ben would be proud of. That's the inherent point of the character. It's not something as superficial as age, it's about that process. Once you age Peter to a certain point, if he's still struggling with those lessons he's already failed. As others have said, a teenager/young person struggling with "great responsibility" makes sense. An adult in the same circumstances is a loser. This is one of the reasons Ultimate Spider-Man is so effective. It's a Peter Parker trying to learn those lessons on a daily basis, aspiring to be something he isn't yet, rather than being in his twenties in the Marvel universe struggling with something he should have figured out years ago.
Like you said, you can have MOST of the same elements whether he's a teen or in his twenties, but not all of them. And as for the adult ones, like I said, there are plenty of other superheroes to explore those with. You could make Spider-Man a grim/gritty avenger of the night, and explore what that would be like for him...or you could just read Batman and let Spider-Man remain Spider-Man.
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Darren De Vouge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 December 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 3586
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | 4
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Matt Reed wrote:
You like Peter as a 30-something married teacher. Sorry, but I don't
think that's appealing to kids at all. "30 years old? Married? A
TEACHER?!? COOL!!!! I'm there!!!!" isn't something I hear from my
teen-aged nieces and nephew.
*******************
How is Peter's age even relevant to what kids might find appealing?
Haven't generations of kids read Superman and Batman? For years,
Superman was by editorial decree, eternally 29 years old. Batman,
belonging to the same fraternity, is probably about the same age. I see
no reason why Peter cannot be the same age as them and still be as much
a hero for your nieces and nephews, no matter what their ages.
What does it matter if Peter is a teacher? Kids don't know any
more about being rich billionnaires or newspaper reporters than they
would about science teachers. Their individual occupations never
stopped Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne from losing favour in the minds of
kids. This shouldn't matter for Peter either. 0 stamble();
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Darren De Vouge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 December 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 3586
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | 5
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I think the issue is that there are/were already plenty of other adult
superheroes to explore those themes with. Aging Spider-Man to that
point was unnecessary
**********************
You say that as though it had been done intentionally by one writer on
the spur of the moment, rather than a gradual progression over many
years.
Kids and teenagers over a span of many years (myself included) have
read the adventures of a Peter Parker who was something older than the
high school student, he was in 1962 and never had any complaints about
him being that age.
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Jason Michalski
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 142
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | 6
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What does it matter if Peter is a teacher? Kids don't know any
more about being rich billionnaires or newspaper reporters than they
would about science teachers. Their individual occupations never
stopped Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne from losing favour in the minds of
kids. This shouldn't matter for Peter either. 0 stamble();
****
I would think kids would think a super hero being a billionaire or a reporter is cooler than him being a school teacher. Do kids really find their teachers cool enough where they would want Spider-Man to remind them of school to a certain degree? Did you ever have a classmate who pretended to be a married science teacher at recess?
Edited by Jason Michalski on 14 May 2006 at 11:14pm
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Darren De Vouge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 December 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 3586
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | 7
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I was only using Peter's current occupation as an example, Jason.
You could still have Peter be the newspaper photographer that he used
to be (something I would be greatly in favour of, mind you) and there
would still be those here who would insist that he must only be a
15 year old.
Edited by Darren De Vouge on 14 May 2006 at 11:25pm
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 14 May 2006 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | 8
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Peter had already aged Peter to a certain point before throwing on the brakes. That's why he aged to the point he did. However, there was no need to age him beyond that point, and unfortunately that's one of the effects of both the marriage and Peter being a teacher. At the point that Stan stopped the aging Peter could have stayed a college student, still more a teen than an adult. Once he became a grad student, a husband, and later a teacher, he lost that.
And just because it was a gradual progression over years doesn't make it any less of a mistake. Plus, I think it says something that since Peter was aged we've seen countless "new Spider-Man" characters like Nova, Speedball, Invincible, Gravity, Robin (Tim Drake in his own series), etc., not to mention the success of Ultimate Spider-Man. Clearly there's a desire for that archetypal character, a desire that hasn't been successfully filled by any of those later heroes.
We saw the same thing in the 90s when Superman became a married guy with long hair involved in long, gritty storylines. Suddenly you have Supreme, Mr. Majestic, and others being touted as Superman done right, when really what people wanted was Superman--something we've been getting in recent years with Secret Identity, For All Seasons, All Star Superman, and the current Busiek/Johns run. Spider-Man's trickier because of the marriage, but there are definitely ways to return Spider-Man to something more closely resembling his iconic form.
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Darren De Vouge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 December 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 3586
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| Posted: 15 May 2006 at 12:05am | IP Logged | 9
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Whether or not one regards these developments as mistakes or merely
progressions, what has happened before has been done.
I'm more concerned about what might be done (and what shouldn't be
done) to correct these mistakes. I'm not crazy about
rebooting the character because similar efforts with other
characters have created a total mess as far as I'm concerned and I'm
not anxious to see that again. Besides, we are already seeing the
adventures of a teenage Spidey in the Ultimate title and I am not happy
with what I am seeing. The only other recourse might be to
introduce various changes to the character gradually, (getting rid of
the marriage, the teacher job, etc.) but this would not settle the "age
problem" as some posters here see it.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5833
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| Posted: 15 May 2006 at 8:40am | IP Logged | 10
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How is Peter's age even relevant to what kids might find appealing? Haven't generations of kids read Superman and Batman? For years, Superman was by editorial decree, eternally 29 years old. Batman, belonging to the same fraternity, is probably about the same age. I see no reason why Peter cannot be the same age as them and still be as much a hero for your nieces and nephews, no matter what their ages.
*******************************
Spider-Man was intended as an alternative to Superman and Batman. There aren't that many teenage superheroes. Where's the gain in making him less unique?
*******************************
What does it matter if Peter is a teacher? Kids don't know any more about being rich billionnaires or newspaper reporters than they would about science teachers. Their individual occupations never stopped Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne from losing favour in the minds of kids. This shouldn't matter for Peter either. 0 stamble();
**********************
You're kidding, right? Kent and Wayne's careers were glamorous and cool. Kent was a reporter investigating crimes and weird events. Wayne was a playboy. What's cool or glamorous about a science teacher?
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Didier Yvon Paul Fayolle
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 January 2005
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 5267
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| Posted: 15 May 2006 at 9:28am | IP Logged | 11
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[ .. ] You're kidding, right? Kent and Wayne's careers were glamorous and cool. Kent was a reporter investigating crimes and weird events. Wayne was a playboy. What's cool or glamorous about a science teacher?
yep, maybe, but in the same time, Peter has always been on the drama line ( life is not fair and so on ), which makes him more likeable. I quote from memory a writer currently developping a Spider-Man project with JS Campbell : " Spider-Man was more into drama and a little bite of action at the opposite of Superman or Batman titles who were more action with a little bite of drama.
I don't know for you, but for me the life of Parker was more interesting to read than the life of Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne !
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Eric Lund
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2074
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| Posted: 15 May 2006 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 12
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Peter Parker is a newspaper photographer anything else is just plain stupid
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Topic Closed)
