Comics The obvious way to progress Peter Parker...

[Dark Spidey]

Progress is bad. For Spider-man anyway.

The answer is to regress.

Use Doc Strange and the "One More Day" story to return Spidey comics to a status-quo where Pete works at the Bugle, no one knows his secret ID, he's just dating MJ, and all his recent mutations (organic web shooters, stingers etc.) have disappeared too.

There. In three short issues they can fix all of Spider-man's problems once and for all.

 

[DACrowe]

And create a whole bunch of new ones. Like recycling the series 30 years by the sounds of it. At least 25 then.

 

[Lt. Figgnuts]

Peter Parker is Ben Reilly. Ben Reilly IS Peter Parker. Yes, they had slight differences in personality because Peter stayed with the regular Spidey life and Ben Reilly went on the road. But THEY ARE STILL THE SAME EXACT PERSON DEEP DOWN INSIDE. THEY ARE STILL BOTH PETER F'N PARKER. In my opinion, I will never see what the big deal was about him being the clone or the real deal has to do with it. In the end, Peter Parker was still Spider-Man...clone or not. So, the past 20 years of stories are made worthless because a FICTIONAL CHARACTER is told to you that he was a clone of the original? I guess I'm having trouble grasping what would make people angry.

I will always see the 90's Clone Saga as the perfect progression in the mythos of Spider-Man. It's just too bad the fans couldn't handle the change and that the big wigs at Marvel couldn't handle the criticism. It's one thing I'll give Quesada credit for...at least he can take all the criticism and do what he feels needs to be done (regardless of whether he's right or wrong) and sticks with it.

SIAT, essentially you're right. Peter and Ben? At their heart, same guy, because until a certain point in their lives they had the exact same experiences, and by the time the point of seperation had been reached, they had both developed into the man that appeals so many to the character of Spider-Man.

I think the issue here is not so much about that. It's the fan perception of the thing. Fans didn't see Ben Reilly as a slightly different version of Peter Parker taking over the mantle - they saw him as a relatively new character (sort of) pushing aside a character who'd been appealing to fans for over three decades. Even if you don't agree with it, you have to understand it to a certain extent.

I think another issue here is that Marvel is not DC. DC has pretty much always had a handle on the whole "legacy" thing - Alan Scott to Hal Jordan to Kyle Rayner and Jay Garrick to Barry Allen to Wally West to Bart Allen. While this may not be an excuse, per say, this isn't something Marvel fans/zombies/whatever are accustomed to, and around the time that all of this Ben Reilly stuff was happening (within a few years backwards and forwards) Marvel was trying that with a lot of their characters. Iron Man, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, hell - even Doctor Octopus. At one time or another all of these characters had a similar counterpart who could have been intended to replace the original.

But none of them stuck. Why? People want Tony Stark as Iron Man. People want Steve Rogers as Captain America. Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Otto Octavious is Doctor Octopus. Sometimes it's a nice change of pace to have someone new take up the mantle, but eventually She-Hulk has to leave the team so the Thing can come back and reclaim his spot on the roster, you know what I mean?

 

[kguillou]

If i may jump in, Lt. Figgnuts you couldn't have said it better. I am one of the few like SIAT who also loved the clone saga ( maybe because i was too young to fully understand it) and saw it as a great progression for the character. Ben Reilly was an awesome character and i would've loved to see more stories with him and Peter fight side by side like partners but oh well... But i suppose like Lt. Figgnuts said, you cant have a character around for 30 years with a huge fan base and suddenly replace him with another character. I think if Ben stayed Spiderman, Marvel would've lost 80% of its spidey fans and therefore the Spiderman mythos would go down the toilet.

Even in DC, there's some characters that can't be replaced. Batman and Superman for example would never work if they were replaced because they've been established for so long, and plus they're DC's staple characters. Characters like Flash and Green Lantern aren't as popular therefore it's easier to replace them without too much negative feedback. The same goes for Spiderman. Spidey is Marvel's mascot, and if u suddenly change the mascot, well, im sure u get the point.

 

[farmernudie]

^Yeh, that's the point i was trying to make too.

You can't just switch out some characters so easily....even if you tried to swap out someone like ...i dunno....Reed Richards, and swap him with some other guy..an exact clone..."Gary Stretchy"....(give him whatever name)...there would be fan backlash. The typical fan WILL NOT just see GARY STRETCHY as the EXACT SAME PERSON AS REED RICHARDS...or whom-have-you.

In some ways, if one really HAD to replace another hero, (like say green lantern before) it might be easier to bring in a whole new person, rather than a "clone" i think. But it is a hard thing to do either route.

At least with Green Lantern, you can say that it is handing down the "ring"....i dunno if the SPidey character naturally can lend itself to "handing down" to another Spidey...although thru an offspring (child) could make sense if written out properly thru time...(ala Spider-Girl)

Either way, replacing a MAJOR hero typically will result in bringing the original back if they're so entrenched as a major hero, like Spidey is in the Marvel universe.

The fact is...There are many lower tier heroes (marvel or dc) that fans would just not accept being replaced by another schmoe, let alone.....a CLONE.

Sure, SIAT points out that Ben and Peter are the same person...but are they really?? (besides the clone genetics i am talking......)

How do you expect long time fans are gonna feel when they see their hero suddenly yanked off center stage and replaced with a clone of all people...or this case, ...informing the reader that their hero they grew up with, all their lives, is nothing but a clone??

That's a lot to swallow for such a major star of comics, let alone a small time comic book hero....

And are sci-fi clone stories and mix-ups WAAYYYYY overdone anyway these days and years ago and still....who wants more clone stuff??? Clone stories have always been panned majorly in every letter page since i've been reading. Gwen clones...all were not liked by readers....spidey clones...clone clones....not been very welcomed stories yet SOMEONE every few years gets that CLONE ITCH...to bring us back there occasionally and make that "GREAT CLASSIC SPIDEY CLONE TALE THAT JUST NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN AND HASN"T YET".

LOL

I don't know how many apologies i've read from editors or writers thru the years, in letter pages, interviews, etc..relating to spidey stories...Marvel originally lost TONS of fans i remember them reporting when they did the PETER IS A CLONE STORY....it took them a long time to repair the damage of that story...(THO SOME DID LIKE IT)....they've admitted that many times!...apoligizing for their "clone story"....lol.....YET THE ONE THING YOU CAN COUNT ON IN LIFE BESIDES DEATH AND TAXES IS.....SOMEONE ELSE WILL COME ALONG AND WANT TO WRITE MORE CLONE STORIES.

EVEN GEORGE LUCAS!!! LOL

Anyway...

So, stating that Spidey fans are just totally against change is a huge sweeping statement that is don't think is very true, personally...

...although people in general, are not for big sweeping changes...in everything/anything in life. So, that i'd agree.

If someone so badly desires to replace a superhero character, my vote is to just NOT do it with a "clone",,,it's been done too much!.....imo...and won't last long, no matter the hero.

 

[diespinne]

OK, I know it's a comic book and all that BUT...

Marvel clone science is so... freakin'... wonky and ridiculous. Ben Reilly was cloned from Peter's blood, right? And somehow we're expected to believe that his blood--his dna--contains every last bit of Peter Parker-- the young adult's-- experiences from birth up until the point that he shed that blood? I mean I can handle cloning him and even artificially accelerating that clone's age somehow to adulthood, AND even educating and conditioning the clone through some speedy, artificial means, but how in the world does this clone somehow develop the SAME EXACT neural pathways, memories, and so forth in its brain that the original one has??? Did the Jackal have some kind of a magical 'Brain Development Re-creation Process' that he used on his subjects?

So, when someone says that Ben and Peter are the same exact person, that's not true at all. Yes, they have the same fundamental building blocks, but beyond that, one has lived and breathed and experienced and developed, while the other one was synthesized and somehow aged at an accelerated rate to be the exact same age as the original. But there's no real explanation how that synthesized clone can all of a sudden speak the same languages, remember the same things, and so forth. Unless, there's some magic involved... Maybe the magical spider-totem-god had a hand in this...

Anyway, I hope Marvel stays away from anymore clone nonsense until they can explain these things a little better and not have them degenerate into drawn-out, overwrought messes. Definitely not 'good change' in my book.

 

[freemadison]

So, when someone says that Ben and Peter are the same exact person, that's not true at all. Yes, they have the same fundamental building blocks, but beyond that, one has lived and breathed and experienced and developed, while the other one was synthesized and somehow aged at an accelerated rate to be the exact same age as the original. But there's no real explanation how that synthesized clone can all of a sudden speak the same languages, remember the same things, and so forth. Unless, there's some magic involved... Maybe the magical spider-totem-god had a hand in this...

Actually I'm willing to suspend disbelief of having a clone with the same memories but the thing that always bugged me was the fact that the clone (even if he aged at an accelerated rate) should not have all the scars of the original and should be "fresher" in some respects. It should've been obvious who the clone was just by the minor differences in their appearance. One of them was weathered by 25-26 years of human life (10 of which were spent taking beatings from supervillians) while the other one only lived 5. When Ben found himself alone in the smokestack he should've immediately noticed that many of the scars he thought he had weren't there "anymore" and the physical discrepencies between his internal self-image and his actual body.

Eh whatever, Peter was bitten by a radioactive spider.....so it's all stupid.

 

[November Rain]

spidey doesn't have scars, he's got a accelerated healing factor, although not to the same rate as the hulk or wolverine or maybe even normans but one nonetheless...

 

[Hades]

Give Peter testicular cancer.

 

[diespinne]

Actually I'm willing to suspend disbelief of having a clone with the same memories but the thing that always bugged me was the fact that the clone (even if he aged at an accelerated rate) should not have all the scars of the original and should be "fresher" in some respects. It should've been obvious who the clone was just by the minor differences in their appearance. One of them was weathered by 25-26 years of human life (10 of which were spent taking beatings from supervillians) while the other one only lived 5. When Ben found himself alone in the smokestack he should've immediately noticed that many of the scars he thought he had weren't there "anymore" and the physical discrepencies between his internal self-image and his actual body.

Eh whatever, Peter was bitten by a radioactive spider.....so it's all stupid.

Heh... well, it was revealed to be a radioactive MAGICAL spider.

I agree about the scars and physical weathering, but that goes hand in hand with the brain of the clone developing the same exact way as the original with the same emotional scarring and so forth.

I seem to vaguely recall a storyline from a Spectacular Spider-man annual with The High Evolutionary that retconned the cloning and said something to the effect that the Jackal had somehow simply genetically altered the dna of an adult subject that he had kidnapped to make her resemble Gwen, and I guess used some sort of hypno-therapy-whachamagidgit to make her believe she was Gwen as opposed to actually having cloned her. I imagine his 'Peter' was created the same way. However, I guess all that got retconned too...

 

[Dragon]

His supporting cast and his point in life defines eras and defines the characters. Rarely is it the villains he fights, but where he is (high schooler, college man, single, married, steady job, unemployed, etc.) that marks that point (his recovery over losing Gwen and MJ helping him and him starting to date her is much more remembered than say him fighting Kraven in this particular issue).

That's not really true. There are certainly memorable stories and battles within each era. If there weren't, Spidey wouldn't be the icon he is.

The Master Planner, Spidey & the Goblin unmasked, the Death of Captain Stacy, the Drug issues, The Death of Gwen & the Goblin, The Punisher's first appearance, Harry becoming the Goblin, the Clone saga, Kraven's Last Hunt, are all examples of stories and villain battles that stand out regardless of the phyiscal place that Peter is in his life. And there are many, many more. Of course Peter's balance of personal life vs. superhero action is what makes him a great character. But it's about balance.

Him progressing into a father (something he obvioiusly wants to be) follows thhis logic and formulla. Him stuck in a stastic timeline just fighting a new villain every issue/arc does not.

Peter progressing into fatherhood is just the problem. Peter hasn't progressed AT ALL in such a long time that were he to have a baby now, it would as I've mentioned only be an action. A gimmick. Not a progression. And for where he is right now, it wouldn't ring true. How the hell could Peter & MJ with what they're currently up against have a baby? Why would they want to? For them to be in a place where a baby would make sense- even on a superficial level, alot of things would have to happen. ALOT.
And again- as well-written, defined characters- alot more would have to happen, beginning with their actually dealing with the loss of their first child and getting over it. Being in a situation where they wouldn't fear for another child's life and being in an emotional place where they could make that decision. None of those things have happened. And until they do, having a baby would just be another pointless "event".

 

[diespinne]

That's not really true. There are certainly memorable stories and battles within each era. If there weren't, Spidey wouldn't be the icon he is.

The Master Planner, Spidey & the Goblin unmasked, the Death of Captain Stacy, the Drug issues, The Death of Gwen & the Goblin, The Punisher's first appearance, Harry becoming the Goblin, the Clone saga, Kraven's Last Hunt, are all examples of stories and villain battles that stand out regardless of the phyiscal place that Peter is in his life. And there are many, many more. Of course Peter's balance of personal life vs. superhero action is what makes him a great character. But it's about balance.




Peter progressing into fatherhood is just the problem. Peter hasn't progressed AT ALL in such a long time that were he to have a baby now, it would as I've mentioned only be an action. A gimmick. Not a progression. And for where he is right now, it wouldn't ring true. How the hell could Peter & MJ with what they're currently up against have a baby? Why would they want to? For them to be in a place where a baby would make sense- even on a superficial level, alot of things would have to happen. ALOT.
And again- as well-written, defined characters- alot more would have to happen, beginning with their actually dealing with the loss of their first child and getting over it. Being in a situation where they wouldn't fear for another child's life and being in an emotional place where they could make that decision. None of those things have happened. And until they do, having a baby would just be another pointless "event".

Totally agreed on this-- Peter's far too responsible (or atleast he's supposed to be) to just want to have a kid, so he can play Spider-Dad. I think he'd want to atleast have some sort of steady income and a more structured/efficient crimefighting regimen (a better WIN/LOSS ratio) before even considering expanding his family. Hmmm... maybe that's why he was so hip to the SHRA... he could have had a nice, cushy job as a government operative with lots of benefits and started putting aside some of his earnings for his kid's college fund.

 

[SpideyInATree]

Give Peter testicular cancer.

Wanting someone, even a fictional character, to get testicular cancer is a pretty messed up thing to say.