Marissa Reads Marvel: Part 2 - Spider-Man

Hello there, Faithful Reader! Welcome to Part 2 of my Marvel comic-reading adventures. This time, I revisit my favorite childhood hero: Spider-Man!

When I say "favorite," I don't simply mean that 8-year-old me thought Spider-Man was the funnest of cartoons (though that was also true): she thought that Spider-Man was the very definition of superhero. If someone asked her to name the first thing that popped into her head when she heard the word "superhero," she would reply, "Spidey." (And she was watching all the superhero cartoons available in the 90s, too: the X-Men, Batman, Superman... Spider-Man still won.)

Then, for some reason, I just stopped paying attention to him for like, 15 years - the occasional Spider-Man film notwithstanding. Even when I downloaded Marvel Unlimited, I tried out a few other superheroes before finally diving into Spider-Man's catalog. I think I thought I had outgrown him.

I was very wrong, as it turned out - for a few reasons (like, plots), but not the least of which being that he'd grown up, too, at the same time I had. Peter Parker and I are the same age now, in the comics, give or take a year or two... and at first, that was so weird. I'm not even sure if I expect him to be perpetually older than me by a decade (as was the case when I was little), or if I expect him to be perpetually in high school (which I got used to from the movies)... But either way, we are not supposed to be on the same page in life.

But the more I read, the more I came to think it's actually really cool to see how someone my own age balances regular life with superheroics - and, even more so, to follow the story of a superhero who is, for once, neither considerably older nor considerably younger than me. This is someone who could very possibly be a friend of mine, and looking at it that way made reading Spidey's comics really, really fun. And, funny.

Honestly though, reading Spider-Man is the most fun I've had with this comic-reading project so far. 8-year-old me knew what was up: Spider-Man is the best. The. Best. I can't believe I basically ignored him for 15 years. I made a terrible mistake. (... Please forgive me, Spider-Man?)

So here I go, making up for lost time.

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Some general notes:

• WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR COSTUME IS IN TWO PARTS, SPIDEY!? IT'S A SHIRT AND PANTS!? ... Everything I've ever known is wrong; my life is a lie. I thought it was a one-piece jumpsuit thing! Why can't we see the edge of the shirt, or the waistline of the pants!? How does the shirt never fly up, even when you're fighting bad guys?! (I mean, yes, I can see that it's skin-tight, but still.) What sorcery is this?!
• Whatever sorcery it is, bottle it. You'll revolutionize the fashion industry. Goodbye, double-sided dress tape! Hello, whatever-Spidey-invented! 
• Wait. ... Does it stay still because you can make yourself sticky? ... Maybe don't bottle it?

• On the subject of your suit, by the way, I've always wondered - how the heck does the mask work? It moves with your face! You can make facial expressions, through the mask, and it's glorious, but I want to know how it works.

• THERE ARE CLONES OF PETER PARKER?!? 
• ... ... ? ... imeanwhatisthis?idonteven-icant-i-areyouserious? ... ... ?!
• Apologies. My mind has blue screened and it is unavailable to make intelligent comments at the moment. Please hold. Your music today will be No Doubt.
• Sorry, I'm not home right now, I'm walking into spiderwebs - so leave a message and I'll call you back...

• Why can't Spider-Man ever swing past the F train while I'm on it? 

  

  This would make my day. No - my life.

• How - seriously, how - is J. Jonah Jameson so wrong about everything!? Is he trying!? It can't be possible to be that wrong, that often, by accident. Oh, my God, he's awful. (Yeah, yeah, he's funny, sure. But he's also awful.)
• Wait. No, back up. New York City elected him as mayor!?!? Who was he running against!? Because unless it was, I don't know, Dr. Doom - or I suppose, a more likely candidate would be Wilson Fisk - I fail to see how JJJ could possibly have been the lesser of two evils. *sigh* Seriously, New York!? I expect better from you. Up your game.

• Peter Parker's apartment building has a doorman. ... I hate him, too. (Yet more #NYCproblems)

• Mary Jane Watson in the comics, is so much more awesome than I ever remember her being in anything I've watched.

• I keep jumping around in Spider-Man's timeline, because I just picked story lines that looked interesting with no regard to where they fell chronologically. Now I know what it feels like to be River Song.

• I want to be best friends with Peter Parker. 
• Does Spider-Man have a sidekick? Does he need one? Because I volunteer as tribute.

• But whyyyyyy doesn't Spider-Man Peter Parker realize how great he is!? (I mean, I know why, from a writing standpoint: that's one of the main tenets of his character. But. Like. Why?) It makes me so sad. And frustrated. I want to reach in there and shake him by the shoulders - or maybe give him a hug - actually, why not both? - and make him see how much good he's done, instead of focusing on the one person he wasn't able to help, or the one thing that didn't go to plan.
• Though it is possible that if he knew how great he was, he'd become insufferable, and that would suck.
• Still. I wish he knew. At least a little.
• Peter!! Hey there. You're awesome. You are so so so special. You are the definition of "superhero" - 8-year-old me knew that, and 26-year-old me hasn't seen anything that would change my mind. Chin up, sweetheart - you're doing just fine. :)

From unknown series (I didn't always write it down at first):

• You have Captain America boxers. That's wonderful. All the cool people are Cap fans, obviously. :)
• I didn't note what issue this came from, but I did take a screenshot. Which doesn't make me seem creepy at all. 

  

  I'm just gonna gloss over the massive amount of trouble you've stumbled into here, Peter. You're welcome.

• Peter's co-worker, Uatu Jackson, is wearing a sweatshirt that reads, "Big Damn Hero." Ahhh! A fellow Browncoat! (Both Uatu and the artist, I assume.)

  

  Shiny!
  Peter, I hope you appreciate how cool this kid is.

From the "Spider Island" run (Slott/Caselli):

• So, your girlfriend, Carli, has what appears to be a tattoo of Spider-Man's face on her hip. ... Does that ever get awkward? I'd think it'd get awkward.
• I don't actually want you to answer that question. Please don't.

• I'm beginning to think it's a theme that Peter's girlfriends/ex-girlfriends all make really cool Spider-Heroines. (A la Spider-Gwen.) Look at MJ go!! (Carli was great, too. But, my goodness, MJ.)

• This is one of my favorite panels ever.
  

  

  No such thing as too many quips from Spider-Man. No such thing.

• "Sharing a toothbrush." <sass> You've got to be kidding me, Peter. You are an adult - a full-fledged, gainfully-employed, living-on-his-own adult - and you can't say, in actual words, that you've slept with your (equally adult) girlfriend?? Seriously?? Peter. Get it together.
• Okay, okay. I understand that maybe you had to put it that way because some of your readers may actually be like, twelve years old. Fair enough. I forgive you. 
• I'm still laughing at you a little though :P 
• But, admittedly, I do kind of want to add this euphemism into my lexicon. 
• </sass>

• J. Jonah Jameson just lit up the Empire State Building in Spidey-themed red and blue, to say thank you. To Spider-Man. ... I think I might cry.

From the "I Killed Tomorrow" couple of issues (Slott/Ramos):
(In which I freak out about "Doctor Who," actually.)

• I'm disappointed in Spider-Man for not watching "Doctor Who." (But his co-worker, Grady Scrapps - the blue text - does, so, go Grady!)

  

  "Is the Doctor on the Defenders," oh, for crying out loud. (... Though now I want to see that crossover.)
  Also, Peter: between Grady and Uatu, your workplace is awesome.

• I solved the problem using "Doctor Who" logic!! (Sure, MJ solved it, too, accidentally, without any knowledge of "Doctor Who" - or even, indeed, any knowledge that there was a problem to solve in the first place - but, still.) It's a looooong story - which funnily enough only took 2 issues to tell - but it boils down to: Spider-Man wasn't needed to save the world; Peter Parker was. Which is "Doctor Who" logic at its finest: sometimes, an "ordinary" person can do the most extraordinary things.
• Obviously Peter Parker is not the standard definition of "ordinary" -  I mean, he's Spider-Man - but Spider-Man wasn't needed here at all. In fact, bringing in Spider-Man made things worse. All that was needed was the very human Peter.
• But I cannot stress enough how excited I am that I solved the problem - before Mary Jane did, mind you, so I had no help from her - literally by thinking, "This is a time travel problem! What would the Doctor do?"

From the "Ends of the Earth" run (Slott/Caselli):

• This was written well before Agent Melinda May became a character, but we can retcon her in here anyway, right?

  

  But now Agent May hates you, Spider-Man. She hates that nickname.

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Okay. We're at the end of this post now, and thinking back on everything I read/wrote, I have a question.

I understand that the whole thing with Spider-Man is that Peter Parker is shy and awkward and generally uncool, but then he puts on the superhero suit and gets to be all witty and charming and generally cool. I comprehend that that's the intended story. 

But I'm over here, reading the comics, and wondering where this "uncool" Peter Parker is? I don't think he's uncool at all! He's great! He's funny, and smart, and - and this list could go on for a while, so let's just say, he's totally cool! Sure, he lacks the swagger of, say, Tony Stark or Johnny Storm, but, so does Steve Rogers, and no one calls him uncool. (... They don't, right?)

I'm confused, people. Where is everyone getting "uncool" from? Do I have to go back to the 1960s or something? Because present-day Peter Parker is awesome.

... Is it just me?

... It's just me, isn't it?

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* Real-world side-note: I recently attended the same "Doctor Who" panel as Dan Slott did, at a Wizard World con in Philadelphia. I would never have realized it - mainly because I have no idea what Dan Slott looks like - but a guy in the front row of the audience yelled out some factoid the moderator had forgotten, and after thanking him, the moderator said, "That was Dan Slott, by the way, of Spider-Man fame." So, that was cool.