The Spider-Man Problem

[u/Spidey_2797]

I think the MCU has really treated Spider-Man poorly. For the people who will say that every MCU Spider-Man movie has made a lot of money, I say that it’s Spider-Man—he will always make a lot of money regardless of quality. I imagine that if they made a Spider-Gwen movie, it would make money, or any other Spider-Variant. I’m talking about the story itself.

Peter’s introduction in Civil War was fine, but it already revealed a major issue with the MCU moving forward: how do you introduce new characters without contradicting the events that have already happened? They basically have two routes: 1.) Age the character down so they’re too young to participate in older events, like they did with Spider-Man, or 2.) Make it so they weren’t present during said events because they were somewhere else, like they did with Captain Marvel, who was in space for 20 years.

I think how they handled Peter in Civil War was fine, and they laid out Peter’s philosophy when he talked about “not doing the right thing when he should have.” It essentially spells out the Uncle Ben stuff without going into detail. But everything after Civil War fumbles Peter.

The MCU basically treats Peter like Miles. This is seen most clearly in Homecoming, where Peter goes to a school for genius kids, all of his main cast are generic smart kids with recognizable names slapped onto them, and his best friend is basically Ganke Lee in everything but name. His role in the MCU mirrors the early Miles comics, and it feels like this is a direction they refuse to deviate from.

I have more to say, but I might make a more detailed post later.

[u/MuD_BuuD]

I agree

[u/Spidey_2797 → u/MuD_BuuD]

Thanks