Amph Spider-Man & SSU Films (Madame Web, Venom 3, Kraven, Beyond the Spider-Verse)

When I first picked up Ultimate Spider-Man, THAT was what I was hoping for actually. I think it would have been an interesting idea to expand on. If you look at many of the comics, the tv series and the films, Peter's loss of Ben causes him to seek out alternative father figures via his mentors. It would be interesting to see what the added dynamic of Ben being alive could add to the story in a comic ongoing.

But not for the movie. Ben's death is perhaps the last constant in comics. Though for now, Gwen also seems to be holding. We'll see what happens after this movie.

 

Because Peter Parker realizes that his abilities are a force for good, and decides to hone them. Tragic happenings do not necessarily involve having your parents/mentors killed.

Case in point:
[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d2/JamesTKirk.jpg/250px-JamesTKirk.jpg]
Both parents alive, encourage him to enter Starfleet after witnessing the genocide at Tarsus IV. Once there, Kirk is met with people who enjoy watching him fail, so he sets out to prove them all wrong. (Then builds holographic representations of them to beat the crap out of)
Father lives to see his son become captain of the Enterprise, and is the credited with the reason he pushed himself so hard at Starfleet.

[image=http://parallax-view.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/2009_star_trek_025.jpg]
Dead father, family troubles at home. Alternate Kirk is told by Pike how his dead father was the bravest man ever, and that he should join Starfleet because it would give him stability that he wouldn't get at home, because of said dead father. Alternate Kirk accepts, just when **** starts hitting the fan and he's the only one close enough to do something about it.

As long as he's not 40 years old and still living with them, why not?

 

Uhhh no. He realizes his abilities can win him some big bucks at a wrestling match. If he *really* wanted to use his abilities for good, without having any past tragedy occur in his life, then he would have stopped the burglar who eventually kills Ben.

lol

Do you not see what you're doing here? You're taking away the fundamental reason why these superheroes are superheroes to begin with in the first place. It's like making a Superman movie only he's from Earth instead of Krypton.

 

This is a reboot, so we don't need wrestling matches or burglars shooting old uncle. There is no point in telling the exact same story all over again.

 

It would be interesting if Spider-Man doesn't become a superhero until the end of this movie, and Uncle Ben's death later.

Maybe he gets the superpowers, Peter feels responsible for Doc Connors becoming the Lizard, and "with great pwoer coems great responsibility" comes from that? And Uncle Ben dies at the very end of the movie, or in the second, under slightly different circumstances?

It would be a big risk, but it could work.

 

But why does he decide to hone them? Peter Parker, unto himself, is not altruistic, he is equally as flawed and self-interested as you or me. That's a really important part of the story and what makes him relatable. His motivation is a key element of the character. So I ask again, what is it that drives him to being Spider-Man?

 

No, it really couldn't, because the entire point of Uncle Ben's death is that he failed, irrevocably, and that that will haunt him for the rest of his life. By contrast, if you shove it off on Conners, there's an opportunity for him to atone, and then it changes from being a lifelong commitment to a "Well, until I can get this old chum back to normal" situation. Again: Uncle Ben is not important. What his death represents is.

 

I get that, but what if the new comics are based on a "what if" premise? It would be a totally different Spider-Man, but if it's going to be a reboot, might as well doing something drastically different.

 

There's nothing absolutely wrong with changing up the fundamentals - I was a big fan of the organic web-shooters, for example.

At the same time, if you're going to say, "We're doing Spider-Man, but changing this particular aspect that has been consistent through every version of the character", there should be a REASON for the change.

If believe your change can make people in the theater think, "This isn't quite the character I came to see, but it's just as good (if not better)," then by all means go for it.

But if your sole reason for change is just, "I've seen this before," forget it.

That said, I wouldn't be averse to seeing a Batman or Spider-Man dedicate their lives to fighting crime purely based on the suffering of others. Christopher Reeve dedicating his celebrity and the last decade of his life to paralysis research is laudable and easy to sympathize with, but how much nobler if he'd been expending all that money and effort BEFORE he fell off the horse?

 

I wouldn't call the mechanical webshooters one of "the fundamentals".

 

Agreed the life lesson of what happened to Uncle Ben, made Peter grow up way quick, and taught him the responsibility that had only been vocalized to him previously. He's a kid, that incident made him a man. It took tragedy to get his ideals straight, and make him a hero.

 

Fair enough. I consider it essential, because it was and is one of (I think) four rotating intro panels for the Sunday editions of the newspaper strip:
-Nerdy Peter bit by spider
-Spidey lifts bus with "proportional strength"
-Peter develops web-shooters
-Sad Peter 'cause Uncle Ben died

While there's much to be said about the (lack of) quality of the strip, I think those four panels do pretty much sum up the essentials of Spider-Man.

Again, I see where you're coming from, but I do think there's something to be said for a hero who learns to be heroic the "easy" way.

EDIT: In other words, someone who takes on the exact same punishing challenge WITHOUT having a stake in the conflict forced into their lives.

You know, as if Ben had actually succeeded in instilling those values in Peter, instead of just introducing some abstract words that it took a tragedy to get the boy to understand.

 

My issue with that is that you are taking a away what I feel is a rather fundamental aspect of Peter's character, and story. Again, as I said before, he isn't naturally altruistic, he is just as self-centered as anyone else. Ultimately, he doesn't want to be Spider-Man. Its his role in the tragedy that guilts him into choosing that life. IMO that's what makes him heroic, that he stands up and does something because he must, not because he wants to, even at the detriment of his own civilian life. The loss of that level of sacrifice I feel would be regrettable. Its part of what makes him so remarkably human and grounds him as a character.

Now most people probably won't notice a difference. But much like his humour in the Raimi series, I think its something that would be missed by those that are familiar with the character.

On the other-hand I wonder what the point of adapting the character at all, if you want to deviate enough to make it "unique". I know a lot of people are hung-up on revisiting the Origin, but frankly I don't see the issue if they are indeed exploring characters and story that are seldom explored in any iteration of the character.

Now if you (or Lee) can establish an event that serves the same role where Ben remains alive, I would be fascinated to follow that tale. But as such, simply being altruistic and noble isn't enough IMO.

 

I actually agree that there's no apparent reason to change things up with Spidey.

I'm just taking issue with the notion that it's less sacrificial for someone to do what these characters do for essentially altruistic reasons.

...hilarious. I'm rewatching the Batman Beyond movie as I type this, and suddenly Joker threatens the hero's family and says, "I always think it adds resonance to a hero's mission to have some defining element of tragedy in his background, don't you?"

Which, despite the the source, has I think some truth to it. Because how many of us are really as good as we'd like to be? Perhaps it's easier for us to buy into the heroism if it's FORCED on the character. Nor does a purely altruistic hero tap into our fears (or experiences) of losing our loved ones.

But I disagree that a Peter Parker who showed great responsibility from the start and still has all his loved ones would be sacrificing less in his double-life as Spider-Man than does the normal version. Has normal (Ben-less) Spidey suffered more loss? Sure. But sacrifice?

Consider that no matter what life decisions normal Spider-Man makes, Ben will always be lost to him. That opportunity has passed; the bullet removed all choice from the equation. Like Batman, nothing he can do will allow him his family again.

"Altruistic" Spider-Man makes that choice every day - and because being a hero is the right thing to do, he sacrifices his happy family life. Every. Day. He holds the potential for a happy normal life in his hands, then throws it away, making his uncle think the worst of him, because that's the only way to be the man Ben raised him to be.

There is, of course, an element of this dynamic in most superheroes, including "normal" Spider-Man. But IMO it's magnified to its peak when the hero actually has the possibility of a life untouched by crime.

Normal Spider-Man endures the greater loss, but altruistic Spider-Man makes the greater sacrifice.

Again, I'm not saying one is "better" than the other, or that there's any good reason to deviate from the norm at this point. Just wanted to clear up that bit about sacrifice.

 

Again I don't want to get lost in a big discussion about this (and I feel like you are nitpicking the choice of a single word), but I would say that it is a greater sacrifice to live a life you don't want to live out of a sense of guilt, loss and obligation than to choose that life from the beginning willingly.

I still feel like it fundamentally changes a core aspect of the character to have him willingly choose such a life.

 

I just wanted to take this opportunity to praise the excellent first two Raimi entries in the Spiderman story. I thought it strengthened the themes Myke is hitting on to vest Parkers' actions not only in irresponsibility, but in the petty way he lashed out at his Uncle and in his inflated sense of self. It really forced both character and viewer to confront his own faults in a substantive way, whereas the original story might rightly be argued as perhaps colored too much by survivor's guilt.

 

That's a pretty cynical assumption, isn't it? I disagree with your blanket statement, but based on what we see of the character, I could see how you might be right about Peter specifically.

Because as much as people like to canonize Uncle Ben, the truth is that he was a failure as a father. If he'd been a success, it wouldn't have taken a tragedy to teach Peter responsibility for his powers.

 

I think that's too harsh on poor Uncle Ben, Koohi.

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. What parent could possibly teach a child what the appropriate use of unanticipated super powers should be? Sure, you can instill ideas of duty and sacrifice, but altruism has its limits in even the most giving of people.

What percentage of people look at their natural talents and think to themselves "How can I use my talents [powers] to help everyone else?" instead of the natural "How can I use my talents [powers] to best help me survive/succeed in life?" Are all the parents of children who tend towards the latter statement inherently failures? Which of us could honestly say we know what we'd do with our powers if they were suddenly thrust upon us at the point in our lives where we were at our weakest and most emotionally vulnerable as was the case in Peter Parker?

Superman is a fairly unique character in comics and the only one that meets your criteria, in my opinion. In fact, one of my great frustrations with that comic is this seeming effort to give greater meaning to Superman's motivations by referring back to the death of Krypton. But to borrow from Bill's speech in Kill Bill 2, Superman did not become Superman. Superman was born Superman. Superman is who he is. And the heroism he displays is due to how he was raised by his parents. But his parents were only "successful" in this regard because they knew from the moment they met that child, he had powers beyond anything imaginable. They were only successful with him because they knew the unique challenge their child would have throughout life and prepared him for it.

Spiderman is also fairly unique in that he is the only major superhero character I know of who had his powers unexpectedly thrust onto him while he was still a kid without someone sweeping in to guide him. All the mutants (similar situation) had Xavier. Parker had no one. I think it's fair to cut the kid (and Uncle Ben) some slack if he didn't leap to the correct solution on his own.

 

A good chunk of those mutants found their way to Xavier by an interesting route: their parents. When their powers manifested, they felt that they could turn to their parents to help them deal with the situation.

It's telling that it never even seems to cross Peter's mind to share his new developments with Ben or May, even long before he's a crimefighter and "my enemies will attack me through my loved ones" comes into play.

 

Given the way many parents treat their mutant children with fear and disgust or leave them at Xavier's because the parents can't deal with/don't want them, I can't blame Peter for wanting to maintain a sense of normality and keeping his changes to himself.

 

Funny, considering X-Men's prime allegory, because when I was Peter's age my parents made a point of taking me aside and saying, "We want you to know that if you discover you're gay, you can tell us, and we're still going to love you just as much as we do now."

Now, I wasn't then nor am I now gay, but that's exactly what good parents are supposed to do (I'm not saying I have perfect parents, but that's kind of the point - you don't have to be perfect to cover this sort of basic ground). Be aware of the problems and fears surrounding their children, and make sure the children know they can always turn to them for love and support.

 

Also, I don't really understand your point, JKH. It's not like Parker went out and killed somebody when he discovered his powers. He merely A)made personal use of them and B)fell victim to the bystander effect. Neither of those are at all unreasonable, and a great majority of people practice them everyday, including many who are rightly hailed as the most morally upstanding in their societies.

Is it something to work on? Yes. But it's absolutely not a damning point about Peter, let alone the hand that Uncle Ben had in raising him.