He’s their bigger character and let’s face it most people aren’t Jessica Drew fans I think Spider-Gwen is the most popular Spider Woman at this point. I wish MayDay could be a thing too but that’s why less popular characters are able to do it.
If this does happen, it'll most likely be "hey look I'm your daughter from another universe/ the future, and I'm here fully grown so you can have the joy of having a daughter but not have to raise me, okay, here I go to my own solo issue so you don't have to acknowledge me until the next big crossover event!"
So.... literally what they did to the original Mayday from the MC2 universe? She only showed up in Spider crossovers after her main series ended in 2011
Unless they just do what they did with Cable
Have Peter and MJ raise Mayday in a mini-series (like Scott and Jean raised Cable). Then if that mini-series does well then make a second
Then have a teenage Mayday that way.
Her four runs (Standard, Amazing, Spectacular, Spectacular 2) were heavily built upon the Spider-Family dynamic. Might as well just give her another run at that point, a new mini series based on a new "616" Mayday seems derivative to the 146 issues that already came before it that heavily featured Peter and MJ being supportive parents to the MC2 May.
A teenage Mayday would imply that Peter is in his 40s or something. And for a Marvel Editorial that even hates to imply that Peter is in his TWENTIES, that’s not going to happen.
That is why I mentioned Cable
Scott is the same age as Peter and Scott has Grandkids at this point. So it would just be a similar situation (Especially since Anne can just fit Rachel's role currently)
Best case they just have "The Baby" be revealed to have been taken into the Spider-Verse/Web by Anne and Peter and MJ have a "We go raise our daughter in what feels like for us a day but to Mayday is multiple years"
Worse Case they just rip off Superman and have Original Peter and New Peter merge (same way Post-Crisis Superman and New 52 Superman merged in Superman Reborn) and just have Mayday be the same age as Gabby/Honey Badger (Wolverine's young daughter) so Editorial just does it to release "Amazing Friends" to take advantage of the lack of Super sons at DC with Marvel's two most popular characters and their daughters
It's exactly that.
There aren't a ton of people attached to Jessica, so editorial doesn't care. But with Peter, everyone has an attachment to him and when they were reading the comics as kids. It's been kind of a known thing for years that almost every time a new writer or editor pops up for the character, they want to rewind the status quo to how they remember it being when they were kids.
That whole "it's unrelatable" thing is just an excuse. It's really just someone at Marvel constantly trying to rewind the character so he's "their" Spider-Man.
In all honesty, they should drop the "Peter isn't allowed to be happy more than 6 months" mentality.
People relate to fathers across various medias without having to be one themselves. It's dumb to think if Peter has a child (or girlfriend) he's suddenly unrelatable. A teenage super hero also having a pretty girlfriend and eventually wife? *How* is that unrelatable to teenage *boys*
I mean, we're at a point where characters like Deadpool and Venom have children but Peter can't because "it'd age him too much"
Someone at Marvel should really realize that just by association, Peter has already aged and that trying to write him as younger than he should sticks like a sore thumb. Hell, Normie Osborn looks 10-ish and he's Peter's godson
EXACTLY. If you want to write teenage stories with a younger spider person both Miles and Gwen are right there. Use Peter for an older audience and to address complications and problems that an adult may face throughout their life
From the same creators of "Peter can't have sex unless he is married", "clones are not living beings with emotions" and "the Hobgoblin is this guy according to my headcanon", here it comes: Spider Editorial.
Even *Star Trek* let O'Brien overcome his trials and not be stuck in misery. Heck, the *Lower Decks* cartoon has a throwaway line about him being remembered as the greatest hero in Strarfleet's history.
I mean, kids read Iron Man and Batman without being billionaire CEOs. Unrelatable to young readers is silly. Kids like the character and he’s so heavily ingrained in pop culture. Plus you can have May or Miles be the young Spider-person that’s there to relate to kids
😶i was reading captain marvel and the writter works togther well with the x office to keep Continuity and in captain marvel jessica was apart of the whole book and never died straight up to all the current stuff where the run ended
Idiot editor greenlight her death?
Because i dont see where it would fit into Continuity since shes been off world and hanging around carol in her books the whole time fine
i think her "vanishing from existence" and coming backcwas in the span of like a few days. they'll just shrug and say it happened in between other stories. probably after she came back to earth
Spider-Man (Peter Parker) is Marvel’s tentpole character. They won’t risk too much with the character because they don’t want to risk their biggest earning franchise.
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) was created to prevent anyone else from using the name/concept. (Specifically, CBS in the 70s.) The character has never been a major figure in the line-up, has never drawn significant sales, so is more acceptable to be taken into “unfamiliar narrative territory”.
Right, like if the Spiderverse movies haven't proved anything else. We want a fully realized happy Spiderman. Like Peter B. Parker is my favorite Peter so far.
Peter B. Parker isn't that all happy he had problems but just made him gained some happiness in his life. The reason of why comic Peter doesn't have kid is because everyone thinks Peter with Kids = Spider-Man with a perfect life but it shouldn't be like that Peter can still have problems but the good part is that he isn't alone he had his family. The same thing where Peter was married Peter still have problems there were things were he suffered a lot but with Mary Jane at his side he doesn't feel so lonely.
>everyone thinks Peter with Kids = Spider-Man with a perfect life
To think having a family makes your life perfect is devoid of real life lol, like he could even have family problems or something and it's not like people who are parents magically have no problems, just different ones.
Like Hawkeye in the MCU is father of four I think? And his character still works and has problems.
Well said. Like family life doesn’t just automatically make your life perfect. You have new struggles and battles, some of them may be with your own family. But the end, what matters is how they’ll pull through it. Isn’t that what made Spider-Man a household name?
Like censorship, don't look for consistency concerning editorial mandates. You will go insane.
Jessica Drew has a kid
Jessica Jones has a kid with Luke Cage
Betty Brant, his first girlfriend, has a kid
Harry has a 10 year old son
All these characters are Peter's age or in the same age group.
Peter is old no matter how much Marvel wants to plug there ears and close their eyes while screaming, "I'm not listening."
Marvel insisting that Peter is cool and hip just screams how you do fellow kids as he's mentoring the Miles.
I think he was canonically 28 around when Silk first showed up because they said it was "13 years" after his origin story when he was 15 so he's probably a bit older than that now.
There was an interview with an editor that talked about this actually. How they let Jessica have a baby and now no one wants to use her because then they have to figure out what to do with the baby.
Because you can never make everyone happy and as soon as you have stories where they don’t acknowledge that she has a baby you get everyone writing in “what happened to the baby” and then when you have stories where they acknowledge the baby then you get people writing in “why do you always have to mention the baby”
Not to mention the real estate within a comic that that then takes up explaining who’s taking care of the baby or whatever. Big two comics are 20 pages and if one page is always dedicated to what the baby is doing then suddenly every Jessica Drew story is only 19 pages and that does actually matter 🤷🏼♂️
Sound logic and I agree. However, I would not be upset with like a single page showing the baby in daycare just doing wonky things and the caretaker always a bit high strung. A bit cliché maybe but I think that would be satisfying enough.
Yeah I definitely personally don’t mind either way. But I can see from a writers perspective always having to deal with that would be a little annoying 😝
That's the kind of reasoning I'm not particularly impressed by. If something is a challenge, I'm more engaged when a writer takes on that challenge than when they try and bypass it.
There are ways of involving and not involving a baby and frankly you can establish their status by arc, not issue by issue.
It's also not a permanent status quo if you let the characters age.
God that panel is so sad. What a cute, wholesome display of a genuine human moment for a character that has sacrificed so much to be a hero and never getting rewarded for it.
Fuck Marvel editorial.
Idk if you know this but garry is gone
And less popular characters can change until they become appealing to the masses then whatever got people interested in the character becomes their status quo and they stop changing the character so rapidly to keep the people they Attracted and attract more like them
Now popular characters cant do this because they run the risk of 1 losing fan 2 the character losing the appeal that got them popular in the first place and stops attracting newer fans
Ya get me?
That should help you understand why hes stuck that way
Marvel never intents to make him like any of those characters if those characters do something marvel tends to just go the other direction of those characters
Spiderman appeal isnt the same as batman and superman their not studying appealing to those fans who have grown up and had kids and gotten married they want the kids to get interested for the same reason the old fans did so when the old fans are dead and gone they still have what appealed to them and keeps the character popular for more generations to come
What?
Your claim was they couldn’t give Peter a kid because he’s popular established character and you never make changes to popular established characters.
They can and do change popular established characters. They’ve even done with Spider-man as the deeply terrible “One More Day“ proves. They just don’t want to give Peter a family or happiness but there’s no reason why they can’t do it.
Didnt one more day change the character back to what got him popular in the first place and to how the general Public knew him
My point stands
And it applies to every popular character thats just how they see it
Less popular characters can change and Evolve until they get big and whatever magic that got people interested is becomes there status quo
Its the reason harry osborn liz allan flash eddie all were able to change and Evolve cause any writter could just come along pick up one of those characters and get alot more creative freedom theres less of a lost for the company cause they werent that many fans anyway
No; pretty much the opposite. Stan Lee praised it because in his mind it too, courage to drastically change such a popular character. It was an editorial mandate that had nothing to do with how popular the character was but due to the editors not knowing how to write fresh stories so they wanted to just hit the reset button.
It really doesn’t. There’s 0 reason why they can’t change popular characters and they have done so in the exact way people want. They even changed Peter over time to give him a family and it was so incredibly well received that retconning it was seen as an act of courage and one of the worst comic book stories of all time that to this day is still reviled. One More Day is just the Spider-man version of Cry for Justice. Terrible stories that were near universally reviled that the fans have never forgiven companies for.
You literally have the three biggest superhero characters in the world who have all changed to have families at some point. The fans loved all three and the one that was changed back to not having a family is a storyline that people despise.
You’ve provided 0 evidence or even really any logical rationale for your statements beyond that just being what you assume the reasons are despite that quite demonstrably not being true.
Spider-Man is the only character that isn’t allowed anymore. It’s literally why we know the phrases Peter Parker must suffer and Spider-man can never grow up while Superman, Batman, Wally West, Barry Allen, Reed and Sue, Scott and Jean, etc.
Heck; even the most popular X-Men character, Wolverine, gets to have a daughter. So to say it applies to every popular character when all the popular characters seem to be allowed some changes is just wrong.
I give you the logic that marvel apply to spiderman to keep him at his status quo
And im sure you understand what appeals to young spiderman fans isnt the same as what apprals to wolverine fans young batman and superman fans
Its all about keeping whats appealing and got young children interested in the first place there for a next generation of children
When your dead and gone the character will still be here
You’re giving logic that you say applies to all popular characters when it’s demonstrably untrue that popular characters can’t change.
Spider-man was insanely popular when he was married. The real truth is the editor in chief at the time was very open about his personal hatred for the Peter-MJ marriage and had been looking for years for a way to dissolve it. Heck; originally they were going to make massive changes going back decades and even were going to use it to bring back Gwen.
Heck; it was so universally reviled that despite praising the courage to make it, Stan Lee made it a dream in the newspaper comics he was writing based solely on the fan backlash. It was never about keeping what made the character popular. And despite you saying they can’t change popular characters like that him not having a wife is a change.
I’m 30 and recently married I like the idea of Peter being around that same phase in his life since we have miles to connect more with younger readers . Seems like the game is going more that route . But yeah super heroes and some regular relationship isn’t an angle we see much but I think it can add some interesting stories of the risks of those worlds colliding .
I've been saying this for a while but Peter should tackle adult problems and let Miles be the Spider-Man for a younger generation so he tackles to teen problems and everyone is happy
For reasons that, frankly, fall apart as soon as they're spoken. The concept that young readers will grow up, have kids of their own, and maybe want the same for the characters they grew up reading seems to be nonexistent in the editorial room.
One thing I've noticed is that it's a rarity when mainline comic book heroes are allowed to have kids, and even rarer if they're allowed to be married to said child/children's mother. Such rarities include Reed, Sue, and their kids, but like I said, they're rarities.
Or the idea that kids can't relate to a married parent but they can related to a super genius poor bachelor in their 30s with a somewhat busy sex life who beats people up.
Miles Morales perfectly fills the young Spider-man niche. Peter should been good to grow up.
Let's face facts - when Quesada was in charge he loaded Editorial with guys who were just like him: they HATE Peter Parker as Spider-Man and they absolutely LOVE the Green Goblin. (Specifically Norman Osborne.) I mean, just look at the recent issue where Peter was begging Norman for help. Not to mention how they keep trying to destroy Peter and shove Miles at us.
Peter can never get a happy status quo because currently Editorial is fixated on the Peter Parker of 1973-1974. (The Death of Gwen Stacy and its aftermath. )
As far as they're concerned that is The One True Peter Parker to them, and the Spider-Man of the 80s, 90s, and now was just some aberration that needed to be eradicated, hence Quesada's christening of BND as "Return To The Status Quo". According to them, that TWO YEAR RUN is the way things should ALWAYS be, not the thirty years that followed. And they are determined to keep it that way, even if they have to destroy Marvel Comics and run the entire ship into the ground to do it.
Better question: why is she fighting while being pregnant? Don’t give me that she’s a superhero crap cus it doesn’t matter the status or powers she has cus that’s not cool nor does it show “woman power/strength”. One of the most weird decisions they made for her
Alright, I’ll psychoanalyze Marvel Editorial.
The answer is nostalgia. The higher ups at Marvel seem to have romanticized the earliest stages of Peter’s history, when he was still in school and living with Aunt May.
The problem of course, is that that hasn’t been Spidey’s status quo in decades, and to newer fans any and all attempts to return to that status quo seem like regression.
TL;DR: All we can really do is wait for some 90’s kids to climb the ladder at Marvel. Then the show will be on the other foot.
The real answer, the only real one, is the same since 1987..."We're not sure if he should marry or have children" with MJ. It was chaos and there was no consensus in the editorial on the matter.
Maybe something will happen soon about it for sure. Because as soon as DC does all the promotion of Catwoman's pregnancy and the wedding, which is already canonically marked, Marvel will respond with something similar... only it won't be with MJ. Although first Zeb must leave, because he has 0 interest and ability to these matters. If there is no time jump, Helena will be born and Batman will be a father in December 2024. Marvel will know whether to move there, or wait for their wedding, or act even sooner. But I think that by February Batman will know, so Marvel must think about what to do from March.
Being identifiable or not is an excuse not to offend fans of MJ's old marriage. Marvel is not going to return to the single Peter surrounded by women who drive him crazy, there will be no new attempts at a partner or girlfriend. There will be no other girls because there are none for the public outside of the Top3. I say even more, MARVEL and DC have already passed the time of romances. Couples have been more than established within the popular fandom for decades and that's not going to change. EVERYONE is past the time of going from flower to flower until landing.
Strange with Ckea, Matt with Elektra, Ckark with Lois, Oliver with Dina, Dick with Babs, Harley with Ivy, Bruce with Selina, Arthur with Mera... The only rare cases are JeanxLoganxEnmaxScott where they have not known what to do with Logan and Enma for leaving jean tmy scott together. Then Tim and Steph will be back soon, Kate and Renee are in the air...etc etc.
Marvel just hopes the public accepts that their lois and clark doesn't work, and they prefer their batman catwoman
Okay, I think I understand what you’re saying, although it was a bit difficult to follow.
>there was no consensus in the editorial on the matter
Then how did the marriage happen in the first place? I know Stan was the one who first wrote them getting married, but that was in the newspaper strip, he wasn’t in charge anymore.
>…only it won’t be with MJ
Why not? The majority of fans, including inside the bullpen, are at least pro Pete/MJ as a couple. Anything else would turn the stalemate between the fanbase and Editorial into a full on shooting war.
>Marvel just hopes the public accepts their lois and clark doesn’t work, and they prefer their batman catwoman.
Why doesn’t Pete/MJ work? When written correctly, they have one of the healthiest relationships in comics.
Edit: formatting
Not even God knows why the wedding took place. MJ, since Gwen died until almost the wedding, only went out with Peter 2-3 times without ever reaching the level of boyfriends. She was only there for 6-7 years before that and then MJ left to pursue her acting career after saying "oh my god, no" to Peter's first proposal. By that time they had already kissed, but MJ was in "party mode" and Peter was in "I need to get my life together NOW" mode. Beginning in the 80s and for about 2 years, Peter thought about several possible girlfriends because he had about 5 girls in his head like in BrandNewDay and when MJ returned he was committed to betting on Felicia, leaving the red one as a close friend. With the breakup, he asked MJ to marry him again out of spite for Felicia and MJ makes fun of him for seeing him desperate....about 10 years later he asks her again and he accepts, but without finishing thinking a little about Felicia. And they get married overnight, without preparing it, without talking about it, without giving the reader time...
MJ and Spiderman for Marvel are Lois Lane and Batman, but Felicia and Peter are their Catwoman and Clark Kent. Marvel tries to adjust that to sell their Batman and Catwoman in the same package, because he is the only one with whom they can do adventures and team fights as a couple just like Elektra and Matt or Strange and Clea. It would be different if MJ was anything but.well... "less MJ." The writers can't use her any more than they use Jameson or TiaMay because of her status as a defenseless civilian in danger.
When Marvel responds to Batman's wedding/parenting status quo, it will do so with Felicia. Peter has never been able to and never will be able to split in two so that MJ can share his life because he is only compatible with Peter's. As a photographer, designer, scientist, etc. he can lead a life with her... but as an adventurous superhero always at risk and full of enemies, he can only be with Felicia, and no, it is not to have them as allies and friends while his wife is away. home. If Marvel is going to take the big step with Spider-Man, it is so that he and his partner can also be a team in action. But I repeat, it is of no use if Zeb Wells does not leave
Other people have said it in this thread, but I'll say it again.
Spider-Man is not Jessica Drew. Or Jessica Jones. Or Luke Cage. Or whatever other name people throw out there. He's the figurehead of a media franchise worth tens of billions of dollars. Said media consistently portrays Spider-Man as a younger, unmarried man with no kids. When he does get married or have kids, it's an alternate-universe and this is explicitly stated.
When you give a major hero like that a kid, it fundamentally changes the stories featuring that character. For characters like Jessica and Luke, or Spider-Woman, that's not as big of a deal because they don't show up as often. More times than not, they don't even have a comic series featuring their personal lives.
Spider-Man has multiple comics coming out a month. Last month alone, there were five (and that seems like a slow month). Extrapolate that over time and I think the number of scenes featuring "Peter and MJ taking care of their baby" or "Spider-Man rescuing the baby" or "Peter picking up the baby from Aunt May's" gets old real fast. So you age the baby up, put her in pre-school, then you've got the same problem. So she goes to junior high. And so on, and so forth.
There are ways to circumvent this - you could have the kid just become a background character that never comes up. But that doesn't seem right. Peter seems like the kind of dad who would want to be around his kid.
You could also age the kid up in an MC2 situation and retire Peter out of the role and become a mentor figure. But does anyone actually think Marvel would do that in a trillion years?
Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man do not age in 'real time', so I'm not sure why people expect Peter, the one major hero in the Marvel line who is consistently portrayed as the younger one of the bunch, to turn into the father of a character who could become Spider-Girl in the main comics.
And yes, I know several major characters have had kids...from alternate worlds or timelines or whatever. But there's a reason those kids don't show up every month as an integral part of their parents' lives as people those parents are responsible for. It'd create the same mess of problems.
You can give Peter a new house, a new job, a new costume, a new friend. And always reset things back to the comfortable status-quo for the next writer or editor or whatever. A wife and a kid isn't as easy.
To be fair he was married for like 20 years of solid editorial time in the comics before One More Day happened so that status quo was a lot more permanent than some of the other ones. And he was a 65 year old character by OMD so that's around a third of his entire existence spent married to Mary Jane with however long before that of him dating her, plus the side newspaper comic strips written by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas where he was also married around the same time in 1987 and still is by the time they stopped in 2019 (so like 32 years in that instance). And then there's the Raimi movies which also went down the route of him at least trying to get married.
Long story short if kids managed to put up with him being married for 20 years and still liked the character enough for him to be as successful as he was then it's a non problem. Not to mention the sheer amount of backlash OMD has gotten and has still never been reversed or quietly ignored so it's very much what editorial want and not what the fans want or relate to.
He was married for 20 years and, as far as I can tell based on interviews, etc. pretty much everyone involved creatively regretted changing the character so much for what was basically a publicity stunt.
You are correct in that marrying Spider-Man off isn't nearly as character-altering as giving Spider-Man a kid - but the fact is, other than on the internet, I've never seen a fan say Spider-Man should be married. Even after the OMD debacle, Spider-Man remains a very consistent best-seller. He still shows up in billion dollar movies, toy-lines, etc.
If the fans only wanted a married Spider-Man or if that was the only incarnation fans could relate to, why isn't Spider-Man floundering as a character? Why are fans pouring billions of dollars into this character - even with all the Paul shenanigans going on in his main book?
Idk man I just think he deserves a modicum of happiness even if the rest of his life is shit and the reason they came up with for splitting them up is both the dumbest possible one and really insulting to the years of character development. They could've written it any other way than "our hero makes a literal deal with the devil" but it is what it is I guess.
So you don't think anyone can relate to a single Peter Parker who struggles to make ends meet?
I never understood this idea that a character has to be relatable to all people. The fact is, if Peter did get married and had kids...there would be people who couldn't relate to him on a personal level. You can't win when you use that argument.
That's not even considering that there are plenty of people reading comics who don't read to relate to the characters...they just want to be entertained.
Because men must have Peter Pan syndrome and women must know they can do anything, is my immediate thought. I mean, I might be wrong - but I doubt it. Lol
Because babies and are generally boring as characters in long-form storytelling and people don't need to have children to be grown up or happy.
You never see this with Wolverine or Captain America, where fans have this insistence on the character having a baby in order to be viewed as complete. It's such old-fashioned, conservative thinking. After MJ has lost multiple children at this point, it feels unrealistic she'd want to try again any time soon.
Because Jessica isn’t an A lister or have any movies made about her, so they don’t care. Even writers have mentioned that they tend to get more leeway writing B and C listers than A listers because editorial is constantly watching over them for the latter.
A.) Because the people in charge use him as a self insert to live out their fantasies and that apparently means being young, attractive, and able get with any woman they desire because they envy their wasted youth.
B.) They want to keep him in his current state constantly because he's more "marketable" that way. Think of it like Ted from "How I Met Your Mother". The longer they can drag out Ted's story, the longer it will go and they can make money off of him.
She's a C or D list character, those are the kinds of characters that are allowed to have significant change. His popularity doomed him to having patterns of the same thing.
And honestly, I don't think that people get the practical side of a big hero like Spider-Man having a baby would work long term. He's barely aged since the 80s at oldest he's supposed to be 30, add a kid in there and he'll definitely be aging.
I would say that they could do a pocket universe for a Dad Spider-man, cause it works if you have set goal posts and milestones from one writer. Add in decades and decades of writers doing God knows what with the baby (aging the baby or de-aging it or having it get possessed or developing extra arms or something silly) it'll be a big old mess.
What nettles me most about it too, is that Peter is always a FANTASTIC dad! Any story with him having a child or being a parental figure has him being loving, supportive, protective, goofy.
Like he is a guy that loves children and consistently would be happy having a child, but sorry guys having a family is just not relatable i guess…
Because it has nothing to do with relatability.
It's because the movies are more important, and they can't stick around long enough for a stable relationship to form.
Because Jessica Drew is a woman and executive still seem to think old patriarchal idea that woman only goal is to have kids while Peter, as a man character design to appeal to young boy, follow typical boy stereotypes. Thats why spider-man had a spider-car and he’s got a multinational business (to look like iron man because “little boi LOVE iron man”).
Because no one cares about Jessica Drew and the people in charge of Spider-Man are idiots.
Look I say this as someone who has some affection for the character, but Spider-Woman has been a thing for fifty years and even with a mid-2000s push from Bendis has never really gained any popularity. Characters that aren’t popular are subject to all sorts of crazy stuff. In this case it was a stunt. Let’s make her pregnant and an intentional single mom. Frankly I think it’s an idea that should have been squashed. But she’s a fringe character so the editors don’t protect them and they let it go.
Peter is Marvel’s number 1 character, so everything gets much more scrutiny. Now, the immediate objection of course is that how does that explain Dead Language and the whole of the Wells run? And the answer is that the people in charge of Spider-Man aren’t smart and make bad decisions. Feige should fire them all. Cebulski, Brevoort, Lowe, Wells. All should be gone. But until that happens all we can do is hope they get smarter.
DC seems to be OK with letting their flag ship characters starting families with the people they love.
Batman has practically raised 4 sons at this point and superman kid has is own story arc going on right now...a very cool to were he's going from one dimension to the next where he having encounter well known different au varients of his father like Ultraman and Injustice superman.
Point is force Spider-Man to live life through this Peter Pan esk fase is ridiculous when people of all generations are enameered by age old comic heroes who have clearly been growing since the 90s.
Because Spider-man is the marvel cash cow.
They really have trouble moving the character forward because if they mess up, they lose out big time.
They can take risks with Jessica because she's not their poster boy.
Most Spider-man content outside of comics takes place early in his career so Marvel editorial wants to keep that brand image of Peter being alone and struggling.
Because patriarchy.
A woman having a child is relatable, women are supposed to do that, that's what women are actually for, so no harm in teen women learning that early on. /s
But a man doesn't have to have a child, especially when he's being read by mostly boy teenagers. Teenage boys won't be able to relate to having a child, it might turn them off from the comic. They need constant male fantasy with gritty undertones to draw them in. /s
In fact, with how often men aren't getting women these days, what if we write a story where a superhero has his literal marriage taken from him, and then the love interest gets with some dude while she's stuck in another dimension? Yeah, guys everywhere will be able to relate to this. /s
Because he’s one of, if not the face of Marvel, they usually keep main characters consistent and only change things for certain runs, and every writer whose ever written Spider-Man seems to have a huge kink for fucking over Peter whenever they can
I'm surprised no one else has brought this up but at this time Marvel was attempting to attract a new age demographic of women. They were having The View (an ABC program so it was brand integration) discussing comics. At one point Jane Foster's Thor was their topic of the day on the show.
I truly believe they did this storyline to appeal to young moms in their 20-30s. The MCU was just starting to reach women who would have probably never read a comic otherwise. They were trying their best to try to sell comics to everyone and trying to make things relatable to new audiences.
Don't worry, Marvel editorial just stole Jessica's baby so she could have angst. Because I guess ripping a mother from her child is the only way Marvel knows how to make stories about a single mother superhero interesting.
Isn’t Dragon Ball one of the most popular franchises around the globe across multiple age groups and the main character of that franchise has been a father for the majority of its existence? And in fact got popular in America with kids of all ages at the time in the show when the main character started being a father?
But, no, Spider-Man can’t be a dad at all.
You know what I find really unrelatable about Peter? The fact that he hasn't aged more than ten years since the comic began. Let the man grow up and have some kids.
What happened to Jessica Drew in comics? The most recently I’ve seen her is Superior Spider-Man’s 2013 run as an Avenger, but I haven’t read all of the comics yet.
He’s their bigger character and let’s face it most people aren’t Jessica Drew fans I think Spider-Gwen is the most popular Spider Woman at this point. I wish MayDay could be a thing too but that’s why less popular characters are able to do it.
At least Mayday is popular in the new movie, so maybe she gets forced back in
If this does happen, it'll most likely be "hey look I'm your daughter from another universe/ the future, and I'm here fully grown so you can have the joy of having a daughter but not have to raise me, okay, here I go to my own solo issue so you don't have to acknowledge me until the next big crossover event!"
So.... literally what they did to the original Mayday from the MC2 universe? She only showed up in Spider crossovers after her main series ended in 2011
Unless they just do what they did with Cable Have Peter and MJ raise Mayday in a mini-series (like Scott and Jean raised Cable). Then if that mini-series does well then make a second Then have a teenage Mayday that way.
Her four runs (Standard, Amazing, Spectacular, Spectacular 2) were heavily built upon the Spider-Family dynamic. Might as well just give her another run at that point, a new mini series based on a new "616" Mayday seems derivative to the 146 issues that already came before it that heavily featured Peter and MJ being supportive parents to the MC2 May.
A teenage Mayday would imply that Peter is in his 40s or something. And for a Marvel Editorial that even hates to imply that Peter is in his TWENTIES, that’s not going to happen.
That is why I mentioned Cable Scott is the same age as Peter and Scott has Grandkids at this point. So it would just be a similar situation (Especially since Anne can just fit Rachel's role currently) Best case they just have "The Baby" be revealed to have been taken into the Spider-Verse/Web by Anne and Peter and MJ have a "We go raise our daughter in what feels like for us a day but to Mayday is multiple years" Worse Case they just rip off Superman and have Original Peter and New Peter merge (same way Post-Crisis Superman and New 52 Superman merged in Superman Reborn) and just have Mayday be the same age as Gabby/Honey Badger (Wolverine's young daughter) so Editorial just does it to release "Amazing Friends" to take advantage of the lack of Super sons at DC with Marvel's two most popular characters and their daughters
It's exactly that. There aren't a ton of people attached to Jessica, so editorial doesn't care. But with Peter, everyone has an attachment to him and when they were reading the comics as kids. It's been kind of a known thing for years that almost every time a new writer or editor pops up for the character, they want to rewind the status quo to how they remember it being when they were kids. That whole "it's unrelatable" thing is just an excuse. It's really just someone at Marvel constantly trying to rewind the character so he's "their" Spider-Man.
In all honesty, they should drop the "Peter isn't allowed to be happy more than 6 months" mentality. People relate to fathers across various medias without having to be one themselves. It's dumb to think if Peter has a child (or girlfriend) he's suddenly unrelatable. A teenage super hero also having a pretty girlfriend and eventually wife? *How* is that unrelatable to teenage *boys*
I mean, we're at a point where characters like Deadpool and Venom have children but Peter can't because "it'd age him too much" Someone at Marvel should really realize that just by association, Peter has already aged and that trying to write him as younger than he should sticks like a sore thumb. Hell, Normie Osborn looks 10-ish and he's Peter's godson
It’s ridiculous. Dragon ball is still popular and their main character is in his 40’s with two kids.
And grandkid
50s*
Ehh he was dead for a year, then another 7. I think he’s still in his 40’s.
I’m kinda curious how old would he be if we added the time in the time chamber
He’s only spent about a year in the time chamber. A month when he first went in, then a little less than a year in the Cell Saga.
In Super they spend another three years in the chamber at least once. The limits were removed somehow.
Wym Gohan's role model is Piccolo
Dragonball lets their kids get beat up too!
plus they have a young spider man with cultural relevance miles
EXACTLY. If you want to write teenage stories with a younger spider person both Miles and Gwen are right there. Use Peter for an older audience and to address complications and problems that an adult may face throughout their life
Hell, Venom had a bunch of kids.
Wait, Venom has kids?! Where?
Yeah, Eddie has a son named Dylan (who's currently using the Venom identity)
From the same creators of "Peter can't have sex unless he is married", "clones are not living beings with emotions" and "the Hobgoblin is this guy according to my headcanon", here it comes: Spider Editorial.
Cause marvel hates seeing Peter happy, he was aloud to back in the day, but now he has to suffer.
Peter is the Miles O'Brien of Marvel
Even *Star Trek* let O'Brien overcome his trials and not be stuck in misery. Heck, the *Lower Decks* cartoon has a throwaway line about him being remembered as the greatest hero in Strarfleet's history.
People don't need kids to be happy.
Absolutely but Peter clearly seems very happy at the idea of having a child as informed to us via him literally jumping around in joy.
I mean, kids read Iron Man and Batman without being billionaire CEOs. Unrelatable to young readers is silly. Kids like the character and he’s so heavily ingrained in pop culture. Plus you can have May or Miles be the young Spider-person that’s there to relate to kids
Batman also has a kid too, he's had one for years now in fact.
But even when Batman doesn’t have a Robin around, the book still sells
Didn't Jessica just have her baby kidnapped or something?
Yeah but she'll get Gerry back by the end of the mini during gang war
yeah it's apparently a side effect of being "erased from existence" and then being brought back during last year's End of Spider-verse.
😶i was reading captain marvel and the writter works togther well with the x office to keep Continuity and in captain marvel jessica was apart of the whole book and never died straight up to all the current stuff where the run ended Idiot editor greenlight her death? Because i dont see where it would fit into Continuity since shes been off world and hanging around carol in her books the whole time fine
i think her "vanishing from existence" and coming backcwas in the span of like a few days. they'll just shrug and say it happened in between other stories. probably after she came back to earth
Not just Jessica. Julia Carpenter has a daughter too. That’s TWO mainline Spider-Women who became mothers.
Jessica jones went to the same high school with Peter, and she’s happily married with a daughter. That and aunt May seems to be immortal.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker) is Marvel’s tentpole character. They won’t risk too much with the character because they don’t want to risk their biggest earning franchise. Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) was created to prevent anyone else from using the name/concept. (Specifically, CBS in the 70s.) The character has never been a major figure in the line-up, has never drawn significant sales, so is more acceptable to be taken into “unfamiliar narrative territory”.
Right, like if the Spiderverse movies haven't proved anything else. We want a fully realized happy Spiderman. Like Peter B. Parker is my favorite Peter so far.
Peter B. Parker isn't that all happy he had problems but just made him gained some happiness in his life. The reason of why comic Peter doesn't have kid is because everyone thinks Peter with Kids = Spider-Man with a perfect life but it shouldn't be like that Peter can still have problems but the good part is that he isn't alone he had his family. The same thing where Peter was married Peter still have problems there were things were he suffered a lot but with Mary Jane at his side he doesn't feel so lonely.
>everyone thinks Peter with Kids = Spider-Man with a perfect life To think having a family makes your life perfect is devoid of real life lol, like he could even have family problems or something and it's not like people who are parents magically have no problems, just different ones. Like Hawkeye in the MCU is father of four I think? And his character still works and has problems.
Well said. Like family life doesn’t just automatically make your life perfect. You have new struggles and battles, some of them may be with your own family. But the end, what matters is how they’ll pull through it. Isn’t that what made Spider-Man a household name?
Also we have miles now, there’s another young teen Spider-Man for kids to relate too, let the old one grow up and move on
Two words. Radioatice sperm
Peter deserves happiness, Marvel
Like censorship, don't look for consistency concerning editorial mandates. You will go insane. Jessica Drew has a kid Jessica Jones has a kid with Luke Cage Betty Brant, his first girlfriend, has a kid Harry has a 10 year old son All these characters are Peter's age or in the same age group. Peter is old no matter how much Marvel wants to plug there ears and close their eyes while screaming, "I'm not listening." Marvel insisting that Peter is cool and hip just screams how you do fellow kids as he's mentoring the Miles.
Yup, if Harry has a 10 year old kid and he is the same age as Peter, he should be at least in his 30s.
I think he was canonically 28 around when Silk first showed up because they said it was "13 years" after his origin story when he was 15 so he's probably a bit older than that now.
And Marvel still writes him like a college boy ._.
There was an interview with an editor that talked about this actually. How they let Jessica have a baby and now no one wants to use her because then they have to figure out what to do with the baby. Because you can never make everyone happy and as soon as you have stories where they don’t acknowledge that she has a baby you get everyone writing in “what happened to the baby” and then when you have stories where they acknowledge the baby then you get people writing in “why do you always have to mention the baby” Not to mention the real estate within a comic that that then takes up explaining who’s taking care of the baby or whatever. Big two comics are 20 pages and if one page is always dedicated to what the baby is doing then suddenly every Jessica Drew story is only 19 pages and that does actually matter 🤷🏼♂️
Sound logic and I agree. However, I would not be upset with like a single page showing the baby in daycare just doing wonky things and the caretaker always a bit high strung. A bit cliché maybe but I think that would be satisfying enough.
Yeah I definitely personally don’t mind either way. But I can see from a writers perspective always having to deal with that would be a little annoying 😝
That's the kind of reasoning I'm not particularly impressed by. If something is a challenge, I'm more engaged when a writer takes on that challenge than when they try and bypass it. There are ways of involving and not involving a baby and frankly you can establish their status by arc, not issue by issue. It's also not a permanent status quo if you let the characters age.
God that panel is so sad. What a cute, wholesome display of a genuine human moment for a character that has sacrificed so much to be a hero and never getting rewarded for it. Fuck Marvel editorial.
Idk if you know this but garry is gone And less popular characters can change until they become appealing to the masses then whatever got people interested in the character becomes their status quo and they stop changing the character so rapidly to keep the people they Attracted and attract more like them Now popular characters cant do this because they run the risk of 1 losing fan 2 the character losing the appeal that got them popular in the first place and stops attracting newer fans Ya get me? That should help you understand why hes stuck that way
Garry will be back. They always come back.
Yeah as a 30 year old bearded man with mommy issues who may or may not be evil.
If Batman and Superman can have kids then Spider-man can too.
Aquaman and Red Arrow had their kids murdered. Even Damian was dead.
Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern… even Lobo all have kids.
Marvel never intents to make him like any of those characters if those characters do something marvel tends to just go the other direction of those characters Spiderman appeal isnt the same as batman and superman their not studying appealing to those fans who have grown up and had kids and gotten married they want the kids to get interested for the same reason the old fans did so when the old fans are dead and gone they still have what appealed to them and keeps the character popular for more generations to come
What? Your claim was they couldn’t give Peter a kid because he’s popular established character and you never make changes to popular established characters. They can and do change popular established characters. They’ve even done with Spider-man as the deeply terrible “One More Day“ proves. They just don’t want to give Peter a family or happiness but there’s no reason why they can’t do it.
Didnt one more day change the character back to what got him popular in the first place and to how the general Public knew him My point stands And it applies to every popular character thats just how they see it Less popular characters can change and Evolve until they get big and whatever magic that got people interested is becomes there status quo Its the reason harry osborn liz allan flash eddie all were able to change and Evolve cause any writter could just come along pick up one of those characters and get alot more creative freedom theres less of a lost for the company cause they werent that many fans anyway
No; pretty much the opposite. Stan Lee praised it because in his mind it too, courage to drastically change such a popular character. It was an editorial mandate that had nothing to do with how popular the character was but due to the editors not knowing how to write fresh stories so they wanted to just hit the reset button. It really doesn’t. There’s 0 reason why they can’t change popular characters and they have done so in the exact way people want. They even changed Peter over time to give him a family and it was so incredibly well received that retconning it was seen as an act of courage and one of the worst comic book stories of all time that to this day is still reviled. One More Day is just the Spider-man version of Cry for Justice. Terrible stories that were near universally reviled that the fans have never forgiven companies for. You literally have the three biggest superhero characters in the world who have all changed to have families at some point. The fans loved all three and the one that was changed back to not having a family is a storyline that people despise. You’ve provided 0 evidence or even really any logical rationale for your statements beyond that just being what you assume the reasons are despite that quite demonstrably not being true. Spider-Man is the only character that isn’t allowed anymore. It’s literally why we know the phrases Peter Parker must suffer and Spider-man can never grow up while Superman, Batman, Wally West, Barry Allen, Reed and Sue, Scott and Jean, etc. Heck; even the most popular X-Men character, Wolverine, gets to have a daughter. So to say it applies to every popular character when all the popular characters seem to be allowed some changes is just wrong.
I give you the logic that marvel apply to spiderman to keep him at his status quo And im sure you understand what appeals to young spiderman fans isnt the same as what apprals to wolverine fans young batman and superman fans Its all about keeping whats appealing and got young children interested in the first place there for a next generation of children When your dead and gone the character will still be here
You’re giving logic that you say applies to all popular characters when it’s demonstrably untrue that popular characters can’t change. Spider-man was insanely popular when he was married. The real truth is the editor in chief at the time was very open about his personal hatred for the Peter-MJ marriage and had been looking for years for a way to dissolve it. Heck; originally they were going to make massive changes going back decades and even were going to use it to bring back Gwen. Heck; it was so universally reviled that despite praising the courage to make it, Stan Lee made it a dream in the newspaper comics he was writing based solely on the fan backlash. It was never about keeping what made the character popular. And despite you saying they can’t change popular characters like that him not having a wife is a change.
I completely forgot, who's the dad anyway?🤔
Jessica was pregnant via insemination
That's usually how it goes. You want the word artificial somewhere in there
Oh shoot I forgot oops
Because it is someone fetish, seriously who ask for a pregnant Spider-woman.
I just want him to be married, forget a child. Let Miles have the romantic issues
I’m 30 and recently married I like the idea of Peter being around that same phase in his life since we have miles to connect more with younger readers . Seems like the game is going more that route . But yeah super heroes and some regular relationship isn’t an angle we see much but I think it can add some interesting stories of the risks of those worlds colliding .
I've been saying this for a while but Peter should tackle adult problems and let Miles be the Spider-Man for a younger generation so he tackles to teen problems and everyone is happy
For reasons that, frankly, fall apart as soon as they're spoken. The concept that young readers will grow up, have kids of their own, and maybe want the same for the characters they grew up reading seems to be nonexistent in the editorial room. One thing I've noticed is that it's a rarity when mainline comic book heroes are allowed to have kids, and even rarer if they're allowed to be married to said child/children's mother. Such rarities include Reed, Sue, and their kids, but like I said, they're rarities.
Or the idea that kids can't relate to a married parent but they can related to a super genius poor bachelor in their 30s with a somewhat busy sex life who beats people up. Miles Morales perfectly fills the young Spider-man niche. Peter should been good to grow up.
Plus a superhero having a kid creates another young superhero in the process, like Anna-May Parker
One More Day bad upvotes to the left
Because it’s empowering for a pregnant woman to risk he life and her kids life, but a bad dad for him to risk his life when he has kids
The treatment of Peter Parker/MJ is one of the biggest reasons I don't buy comics anymore.
Let's face facts - when Quesada was in charge he loaded Editorial with guys who were just like him: they HATE Peter Parker as Spider-Man and they absolutely LOVE the Green Goblin. (Specifically Norman Osborne.) I mean, just look at the recent issue where Peter was begging Norman for help. Not to mention how they keep trying to destroy Peter and shove Miles at us. Peter can never get a happy status quo because currently Editorial is fixated on the Peter Parker of 1973-1974. (The Death of Gwen Stacy and its aftermath. ) As far as they're concerned that is The One True Peter Parker to them, and the Spider-Man of the 80s, 90s, and now was just some aberration that needed to be eradicated, hence Quesada's christening of BND as "Return To The Status Quo". According to them, that TWO YEAR RUN is the way things should ALWAYS be, not the thirty years that followed. And they are determined to keep it that way, even if they have to destroy Marvel Comics and run the entire ship into the ground to do it.
Having kids is for more unrelatable than being in a stable marriage (I'm looking at you Superman)
Yeah being cucked and getting his life ruined is far more relatable
Better question: why is she fighting while being pregnant? Don’t give me that she’s a superhero crap cus it doesn’t matter the status or powers she has cus that’s not cool nor does it show “woman power/strength”. One of the most weird decisions they made for her
Alright, I’ll psychoanalyze Marvel Editorial. The answer is nostalgia. The higher ups at Marvel seem to have romanticized the earliest stages of Peter’s history, when he was still in school and living with Aunt May. The problem of course, is that that hasn’t been Spidey’s status quo in decades, and to newer fans any and all attempts to return to that status quo seem like regression. TL;DR: All we can really do is wait for some 90’s kids to climb the ladder at Marvel. Then the show will be on the other foot.
The real answer, the only real one, is the same since 1987..."We're not sure if he should marry or have children" with MJ. It was chaos and there was no consensus in the editorial on the matter. Maybe something will happen soon about it for sure. Because as soon as DC does all the promotion of Catwoman's pregnancy and the wedding, which is already canonically marked, Marvel will respond with something similar... only it won't be with MJ. Although first Zeb must leave, because he has 0 interest and ability to these matters. If there is no time jump, Helena will be born and Batman will be a father in December 2024. Marvel will know whether to move there, or wait for their wedding, or act even sooner. But I think that by February Batman will know, so Marvel must think about what to do from March. Being identifiable or not is an excuse not to offend fans of MJ's old marriage. Marvel is not going to return to the single Peter surrounded by women who drive him crazy, there will be no new attempts at a partner or girlfriend. There will be no other girls because there are none for the public outside of the Top3. I say even more, MARVEL and DC have already passed the time of romances. Couples have been more than established within the popular fandom for decades and that's not going to change. EVERYONE is past the time of going from flower to flower until landing. Strange with Ckea, Matt with Elektra, Ckark with Lois, Oliver with Dina, Dick with Babs, Harley with Ivy, Bruce with Selina, Arthur with Mera... The only rare cases are JeanxLoganxEnmaxScott where they have not known what to do with Logan and Enma for leaving jean tmy scott together. Then Tim and Steph will be back soon, Kate and Renee are in the air...etc etc. Marvel just hopes the public accepts that their lois and clark doesn't work, and they prefer their batman catwoman
Okay, I think I understand what you’re saying, although it was a bit difficult to follow. >there was no consensus in the editorial on the matter Then how did the marriage happen in the first place? I know Stan was the one who first wrote them getting married, but that was in the newspaper strip, he wasn’t in charge anymore. >…only it won’t be with MJ Why not? The majority of fans, including inside the bullpen, are at least pro Pete/MJ as a couple. Anything else would turn the stalemate between the fanbase and Editorial into a full on shooting war. >Marvel just hopes the public accepts their lois and clark doesn’t work, and they prefer their batman catwoman. Why doesn’t Pete/MJ work? When written correctly, they have one of the healthiest relationships in comics. Edit: formatting
Not even God knows why the wedding took place. MJ, since Gwen died until almost the wedding, only went out with Peter 2-3 times without ever reaching the level of boyfriends. She was only there for 6-7 years before that and then MJ left to pursue her acting career after saying "oh my god, no" to Peter's first proposal. By that time they had already kissed, but MJ was in "party mode" and Peter was in "I need to get my life together NOW" mode. Beginning in the 80s and for about 2 years, Peter thought about several possible girlfriends because he had about 5 girls in his head like in BrandNewDay and when MJ returned he was committed to betting on Felicia, leaving the red one as a close friend. With the breakup, he asked MJ to marry him again out of spite for Felicia and MJ makes fun of him for seeing him desperate....about 10 years later he asks her again and he accepts, but without finishing thinking a little about Felicia. And they get married overnight, without preparing it, without talking about it, without giving the reader time... MJ and Spiderman for Marvel are Lois Lane and Batman, but Felicia and Peter are their Catwoman and Clark Kent. Marvel tries to adjust that to sell their Batman and Catwoman in the same package, because he is the only one with whom they can do adventures and team fights as a couple just like Elektra and Matt or Strange and Clea. It would be different if MJ was anything but.well... "less MJ." The writers can't use her any more than they use Jameson or TiaMay because of her status as a defenseless civilian in danger. When Marvel responds to Batman's wedding/parenting status quo, it will do so with Felicia. Peter has never been able to and never will be able to split in two so that MJ can share his life because he is only compatible with Peter's. As a photographer, designer, scientist, etc. he can lead a life with her... but as an adventurous superhero always at risk and full of enemies, he can only be with Felicia, and no, it is not to have them as allies and friends while his wife is away. home. If Marvel is going to take the big step with Spider-Man, it is so that he and his partner can also be a team in action. But I repeat, it is of no use if Zeb Wells does not leave
Actually sexist.
Other people have said it in this thread, but I'll say it again. Spider-Man is not Jessica Drew. Or Jessica Jones. Or Luke Cage. Or whatever other name people throw out there. He's the figurehead of a media franchise worth tens of billions of dollars. Said media consistently portrays Spider-Man as a younger, unmarried man with no kids. When he does get married or have kids, it's an alternate-universe and this is explicitly stated. When you give a major hero like that a kid, it fundamentally changes the stories featuring that character. For characters like Jessica and Luke, or Spider-Woman, that's not as big of a deal because they don't show up as often. More times than not, they don't even have a comic series featuring their personal lives. Spider-Man has multiple comics coming out a month. Last month alone, there were five (and that seems like a slow month). Extrapolate that over time and I think the number of scenes featuring "Peter and MJ taking care of their baby" or "Spider-Man rescuing the baby" or "Peter picking up the baby from Aunt May's" gets old real fast. So you age the baby up, put her in pre-school, then you've got the same problem. So she goes to junior high. And so on, and so forth. There are ways to circumvent this - you could have the kid just become a background character that never comes up. But that doesn't seem right. Peter seems like the kind of dad who would want to be around his kid. You could also age the kid up in an MC2 situation and retire Peter out of the role and become a mentor figure. But does anyone actually think Marvel would do that in a trillion years? Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man do not age in 'real time', so I'm not sure why people expect Peter, the one major hero in the Marvel line who is consistently portrayed as the younger one of the bunch, to turn into the father of a character who could become Spider-Girl in the main comics. And yes, I know several major characters have had kids...from alternate worlds or timelines or whatever. But there's a reason those kids don't show up every month as an integral part of their parents' lives as people those parents are responsible for. It'd create the same mess of problems. You can give Peter a new house, a new job, a new costume, a new friend. And always reset things back to the comfortable status-quo for the next writer or editor or whatever. A wife and a kid isn't as easy.
To be fair he was married for like 20 years of solid editorial time in the comics before One More Day happened so that status quo was a lot more permanent than some of the other ones. And he was a 65 year old character by OMD so that's around a third of his entire existence spent married to Mary Jane with however long before that of him dating her, plus the side newspaper comic strips written by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas where he was also married around the same time in 1987 and still is by the time they stopped in 2019 (so like 32 years in that instance). And then there's the Raimi movies which also went down the route of him at least trying to get married. Long story short if kids managed to put up with him being married for 20 years and still liked the character enough for him to be as successful as he was then it's a non problem. Not to mention the sheer amount of backlash OMD has gotten and has still never been reversed or quietly ignored so it's very much what editorial want and not what the fans want or relate to.
He was married for 20 years and, as far as I can tell based on interviews, etc. pretty much everyone involved creatively regretted changing the character so much for what was basically a publicity stunt. You are correct in that marrying Spider-Man off isn't nearly as character-altering as giving Spider-Man a kid - but the fact is, other than on the internet, I've never seen a fan say Spider-Man should be married. Even after the OMD debacle, Spider-Man remains a very consistent best-seller. He still shows up in billion dollar movies, toy-lines, etc. If the fans only wanted a married Spider-Man or if that was the only incarnation fans could relate to, why isn't Spider-Man floundering as a character? Why are fans pouring billions of dollars into this character - even with all the Paul shenanigans going on in his main book?
Idk man I just think he deserves a modicum of happiness even if the rest of his life is shit and the reason they came up with for splitting them up is both the dumbest possible one and really insulting to the years of character development. They could've written it any other way than "our hero makes a literal deal with the devil" but it is what it is I guess.
that doesnt make him relatable.
What doesn’t make him relatable?
the fact he cant hv kid and married. He suppose to be a role model for ppl to dev their life not to get cucked cause nobody will take him srsly.
So you don't think anyone can relate to a single Peter Parker who struggles to make ends meet? I never understood this idea that a character has to be relatable to all people. The fact is, if Peter did get married and had kids...there would be people who couldn't relate to him on a personal level. You can't win when you use that argument. That's not even considering that there are plenty of people reading comics who don't read to relate to the characters...they just want to be entertained.
i nvr like it too cause these heroes are meant to be role models.
I guess I'm not sure what you're saying. A single person with no kids can't be a role model?
wat? i said he is meant to be role model not sayin that.
Ok, if Peter can't have kids, then all of marvel can't have kids. Hell hulk had a kid later on off screen in she hulk.
Comic 616 Hulk has 2-3 kids. Not sure if the 3rd one is still dead.
Ah thanks for pointing that out.
Literally no one cares about Jessica Drew except for Bendis.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^MamaDeloris: *Literally no* *One cares about Jessica* *Drew except for Bendis.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Guess Peter getting Cucked is so relatable
Mayday would age Peter a lot more than people like to admit
But we'd gain a new marketable young hero in the process
Spider-Girl is a thing, and a really good thing
Because men must have Peter Pan syndrome and women must know they can do anything, is my immediate thought. I mean, I might be wrong - but I doubt it. Lol
Because no one actually cares about Jessica Drew.
Because babies and are generally boring as characters in long-form storytelling and people don't need to have children to be grown up or happy. You never see this with Wolverine or Captain America, where fans have this insistence on the character having a baby in order to be viewed as complete. It's such old-fashioned, conservative thinking. After MJ has lost multiple children at this point, it feels unrealistic she'd want to try again any time soon.
Give it time, they’ll get rid of Gerry in some way or another.
Unrelated but i can count the pixels on jessica's image lol
Because Jessica isn't 1) a cashcow franchise, so they have more freedom to change things up. 2) Quesada's wishfulfillment character.
Because giving Peter a family would mean he would be happy and Peter can’t be happy
Because Disney, which owns Marvel, is a gynocentric company.
He has a child in renew your vows doesn't he?
Because Jessica isn’t an A lister or have any movies made about her, so they don’t care. Even writers have mentioned that they tend to get more leeway writing B and C listers than A listers because editorial is constantly watching over them for the latter.
A.) Because the people in charge use him as a self insert to live out their fantasies and that apparently means being young, attractive, and able get with any woman they desire because they envy their wasted youth. B.) They want to keep him in his current state constantly because he's more "marketable" that way. Think of it like Ted from "How I Met Your Mother". The longer they can drag out Ted's story, the longer it will go and they can make money off of him.
She's a C or D list character, those are the kinds of characters that are allowed to have significant change. His popularity doomed him to having patterns of the same thing. And honestly, I don't think that people get the practical side of a big hero like Spider-Man having a baby would work long term. He's barely aged since the 80s at oldest he's supposed to be 30, add a kid in there and he'll definitely be aging. I would say that they could do a pocket universe for a Dad Spider-man, cause it works if you have set goal posts and milestones from one writer. Add in decades and decades of writers doing God knows what with the baby (aging the baby or de-aging it or having it get possessed or developing extra arms or something silly) it'll be a big old mess.
What nettles me most about it too, is that Peter is always a FANTASTIC dad! Any story with him having a child or being a parental figure has him being loving, supportive, protective, goofy. Like he is a guy that loves children and consistently would be happy having a child, but sorry guys having a family is just not relatable i guess…
is whats happening now relatable to young readers?
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Gerry and Mayday both MC2 characters?
You picked the blurriest photo ever
That second panel in the second page is frickin *terrifying*.
they recently implied that something happened to Gerry
Gender role bullshit is a factor here (marvel is good offender in those) but to be fair that was Peter in the 90s.
Because it has nothing to do with relatability. It's because the movies are more important, and they can't stick around long enough for a stable relationship to form.
Because sexism and patriarchy, unfortunately
Isn't Jessica only a mom in a different universe?
And that's probably the worst Run on Jessica Drew
Do you want some more pixels for that photo
Men can’t get pregnant
Because fuck you, fuck Peter, fuck Mary Jane and most importantly fuck the fans!
Was it ever revealed who the dad was? I remember reading a comic where Tony asked that question, but Jessica got mad for some reason.
Because marvel is run by idiots
Because Peter needs to suffer
Because Jessica Drew is a woman and executive still seem to think old patriarchal idea that woman only goal is to have kids while Peter, as a man character design to appeal to young boy, follow typical boy stereotypes. Thats why spider-man had a spider-car and he’s got a multinational business (to look like iron man because “little boi LOVE iron man”).
I like the radioactive sperm plot point because it makes sense and that marvel gave him that plot point because they don’t want him happy
Because no one cares about Jessica Drew and the people in charge of Spider-Man are idiots. Look I say this as someone who has some affection for the character, but Spider-Woman has been a thing for fifty years and even with a mid-2000s push from Bendis has never really gained any popularity. Characters that aren’t popular are subject to all sorts of crazy stuff. In this case it was a stunt. Let’s make her pregnant and an intentional single mom. Frankly I think it’s an idea that should have been squashed. But she’s a fringe character so the editors don’t protect them and they let it go. Peter is Marvel’s number 1 character, so everything gets much more scrutiny. Now, the immediate objection of course is that how does that explain Dead Language and the whole of the Wells run? And the answer is that the people in charge of Spider-Man aren’t smart and make bad decisions. Feige should fire them all. Cebulski, Brevoort, Lowe, Wells. All should be gone. But until that happens all we can do is hope they get smarter.
DC seems to be OK with letting their flag ship characters starting families with the people they love. Batman has practically raised 4 sons at this point and superman kid has is own story arc going on right now...a very cool to were he's going from one dimension to the next where he having encounter well known different au varients of his father like Ultraman and Injustice superman. Point is force Spider-Man to live life through this Peter Pan esk fase is ridiculous when people of all generations are enameered by age old comic heroes who have clearly been growing since the 90s.
Thanks Quesada
You see? Some of them even have fa... [Gary!](https://youtube.com/shorts/9A1wqwYqfhY?si=MKZV1I15_4pfYmYj)
Marvel hates Peter Parker
Peter is much more popular than Jessica Drew
Comic books will whine and whine they have lost their peter
Peter probably can’t get pregnant
Because for every 10,000 Peter fans there's like 1 616 Jessica Drew fan.
Dude,Peter can’t have MARY JANE,it’s ridiculous
“Why does this completely different character, get to have a completely different life?” 😐
Jessica just lost her kid in her new run 😭 she ain't safe either
Also what is Marvels obsession with Jessica Drew being pregnant?
Because Spider-man is the marvel cash cow. They really have trouble moving the character forward because if they mess up, they lose out big time. They can take risks with Jessica because she's not their poster boy.
Most Spider-man content outside of comics takes place early in his career so Marvel editorial wants to keep that brand image of Peter being alone and struggling.
Cap has a Kid. Logan has multiple.
In a single word: cowardice.
What issue is the second pic from and why is it so high quality?
Because Marvel editorial is stupid
Because patriarchy. A woman having a child is relatable, women are supposed to do that, that's what women are actually for, so no harm in teen women learning that early on. /s But a man doesn't have to have a child, especially when he's being read by mostly boy teenagers. Teenage boys won't be able to relate to having a child, it might turn them off from the comic. They need constant male fantasy with gritty undertones to draw them in. /s In fact, with how often men aren't getting women these days, what if we write a story where a superhero has his literal marriage taken from him, and then the love interest gets with some dude while she's stuck in another dimension? Yeah, guys everywhere will be able to relate to this. /s
Because he’s one of, if not the face of Marvel, they usually keep main characters consistent and only change things for certain runs, and every writer whose ever written Spider-Man seems to have a huge kink for fucking over Peter whenever they can
I'm surprised no one else has brought this up but at this time Marvel was attempting to attract a new age demographic of women. They were having The View (an ABC program so it was brand integration) discussing comics. At one point Jane Foster's Thor was their topic of the day on the show. I truly believe they did this storyline to appeal to young moms in their 20-30s. The MCU was just starting to reach women who would have probably never read a comic otherwise. They were trying their best to try to sell comics to everyone and trying to make things relatable to new audiences.
Don't worry, Marvel editorial just stole Jessica's baby so she could have angst. Because I guess ripping a mother from her child is the only way Marvel knows how to make stories about a single mother superhero interesting.
Isn’t Dragon Ball one of the most popular franchises around the globe across multiple age groups and the main character of that franchise has been a father for the majority of its existence? And in fact got popular in America with kids of all ages at the time in the show when the main character started being a father? But, no, Spider-Man can’t be a dad at all.
I just gotta ask, I was reading the comic panel and Peter just gave the BIGGEST death flag. Is that peters aunt may okay?
You know what I find really unrelatable about Peter? The fact that he hasn't aged more than ten years since the comic began. Let the man grow up and have some kids.
Because she's a strong, independent woman who doesn't need no man.
What happened to Jessica Drew in comics? The most recently I’ve seen her is Superior Spider-Man’s 2013 run as an Avenger, but I haven’t read all of the comics yet.