Why the Marvel Movies Should Ditch Peter Parker

[CaptainMarvelous]

The thing about Miles Morales is that he is a good character, but his character is also directly informed from a Spider-man already having existed.

Spoiler

In fact his whole initial arch is basically him trying to honor Spider-man while not insulting his legacy. I think in that way it makes Miles simultaneously an interesting character but not a very individual character till later in his story.

Essentially his origin story would need to somewhat be based on already occurring events. Not that you couldn't change that but why would you? Miles shouldn't like no other superhero character, be treated with some sort of tokenism. Let it happen naturally in a well written way.

I might be bias since I'm a big Parker fan, and I never really liked the Ultimate timeline, Spider-man or no, but I do like Miles as a character from what I read of him. And I think they would be silly not to include him in the MCU later down the line.

I like the idea, but I think their big goal with Spiderman is to have a stable point as Evans, Downey JR and Hemsworth's contracts run up so I doubt they'd get to a storyline where introducing Miles directly would work. UNLESS Parker gets written off in Civil War. Which is VERY unlikely but hey, stranger thing have happened.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

I would honestly prefer that they cast a non-white actor to play Peter Parker over having them shoehorn Miles Morales in there. In all fairness it is not like a movie version (or two) of Spiderman that faithfully resembles the character as he originally appeared in comic books doesn't already exist.

Put me down for not caring either way in this specific case.

 

[Sennz0r]

I like it, now Donald Glover can play Spider Man

But seriously, I'm all for a Different Spidey. Even though Sony's reign is now mostly over, the Peter Parker Spider Man has certainly left a pretty bad taste in people's mouths. I get that a lot of people might be confused seeing a Spider Man named Miles instead of Peter, but I think a whole bunch of people might also get really confused because they don't know what the hell is going on with three different Spider Man storylines topped with three different Peter Parkers. Getting rid of that confusion might help a lot.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

I'm just tired of all these legacy characters that have almost no relation to the heroes they replace. Kamala Khan and Miles Morales being the most agrievous examples. The new Ghost Rider is the exception for me, they've made a point to show there's been a whole lot of different Ghost Riders throughout history and the mantle of Ghost Rider itself is kind of a legacy itself being the original was a cowboy and all. I prefer something like Wally West (pre-New 52 of course) Dickbats, your various Green Lanterns, or Bucky Cap, may they rest in peace (pieces in Bucky's case I suppose), something that feels like a natural evolution of the mantle since these people have a fair amount of history and experience with their predecessors.

As for another Spiderman origin reboot, I'm sure most people don't want that. However, there's still a wealth of Marvel Universe Spiderman stories that have yet to be adapted and only involve Parker such as Civil War as many people have mentioned. It would seem a bit disingenuous to just hamfist Miles Morales in that same exact role, or god forbid, have inexplicably black Peter Parker.

See, I actually got a little more annoyed by Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider because Johnny Blaze was still around and Danny Ketch was so 90's it hurts to look back on, but the recent storyline with Eli f*cking up his life is a good solid bit of work and the book looks to be headed in a pretty neat direction.

I do think you might be being a little harsh on Kamala and Miles though, Miles is probably the best take on a 'legacy' character I've read (way better than how Falcon's handling his Cap upgrade, he's kinda just being Falcon with a new code-name. Which is cool cos he gets his own book but still). And Ms Marvel is pretty much the postergirl for the Inhumans potential as a background for powers now and how to do plucky teenage girl (squirrel girl should take notes.)

Only problem is I don't see Sony doing any good spidey storylines that they haven't already done. I mean, death of captain stacey, death of gwen stacey (twice even), spiderman no more and the symbiote. What else could Sony do and what would they actually TRY and do.

 

[rgrekejin]

As interesting as a Miles Morales or a Mayday Parker (or a Ben Reilly or a Yu Komori or a Miguel O'Hara) might be, the ultimate argument against them comes down to this - for 95% of the viewing public, Peter Parker is the Spiderman they know, and the Spiderman they'll expect.

 

[Ukomba]

If Marvel wanted another character to play Spidey they would have just changed the name of the character and his alter ego.

Uhh...no they wouldn't do that, it wouldn't even work, people are way too picky. Besides owning Spider-Man equates to owning all the spider related characters as well so it would be a huge legal mess to even try something like that.


OP: Definitely expecting the old Parker luck to force us into the same character we've been getting all along. Garfield really soured me on Peter Parker and I'd love a new direction but as long as they don't make 'Twilight but with Webbing' again, it can't be too bad.

Aren't they essentially doing exactly that with the Scarlet Witch and Quick Silver?

Not really, I suppose you could maybe see it from that perspective but Marvel owns those two characters, that's why they can use them. All they are doing is slightly changing how they got their powers, that's it. Also most film-goers don't give two shits about Scarlet and Quick but we're talking about the goddamn Spider-Man here.

I meant the legal aspect. As an outside observer, the ownership of the two seems questionable since Disney and Fox are both using them. It seems Disney is getting around Foxes actual ownership of them by altering them, an alteration that might have worked for Spider-man too.

Side Note. While Spider-man is obviously a bigger deal, I do believe, After 'X-Men: days of future past', there will be quite a few people who care about Quick Silver.

 

[The_Darkness]

Between Peter Parker and Miles Morales, I honestly can't choose. Either would be fine with me. (Yes, I'm a bit tired of Peter, but I'm also interested to see what Marvel Studios can do with him. On the flip side, Miles' costume is awesome, and I like that, in the comics at least, his Uncle Ben character is Peter.)

However, if they picked Spider-Girl as the character to run with, I'd go nuts. And probably start doing silly stuff like throwing my money at the computer screen...

 

[Rednog]

I don't want Morales for one simple reason, if it was Morales either Marvel or Sony would roll out another origin movie. No, for the love of god no. I've had absolutely enough of the Spiderman origin story. You know what I want out of Spiderman's intro to the Avengers? At the end of one of the movies someone is getting a tour on Shield's helicarrier. "This is our organic synthetics department they're doing some fascinating work. Oh there's one of our eggheads now, Parker what are you working on?" "Well I'm trying to create a super strong polymer from a radioactive spider!" "Again with the spiders Parker?" *sigh* They turn around whoever they're on tour with on say "Trust me this division is going places just don't base it off Parker" You hear Parker in the back ground "OW IT BIT ME" End.

I swear if they drag out another Spiderman origins I will just vomit blood and hope it forever tanks whatever studio puts it out.

 

[K12]

As interesting as a Miles Morales or a Mayday Parker (or a Ben Reilly or a Yu Komori or a Miguel O'Hara) might be, the ultimate argument against them comes down to this - for 95% of the viewing public, Peter Parker is the Spiderman they know, and the Spiderman they'll expect.

...And the Spiderman they've already seen played by two different actors in 5 movies (more than half of which were lackluster at best) in only slightly more than a decade. So either they get another slightly different version of that same guy or they get a different version of Spiderman.

How many people go to a Spiderman movie desperate for Peter Parker rather than for Spiderman, seriously?

I don't think that surprising the audience is an automatic negative. I think it's reasonable that the number of people put off by yet another Peter Parker Spiderman film will be higher than the number of people put off by an unfamiliar Spiderman.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Does Black Spider-Man really have to wear a black costume?

 

[rgrekejin]

I don't think that surprising the audience is an automatic negative. I think it's reasonable that the number of people put off by yet another Peter Parker Spiderman film will be higher than the number of people put off by an unfamiliar Spiderman.

Assuming we had any way to test it, that's a bet I'd take in a fucking heartbeat.

I have zero faith in the moviegoing public to want anything other than "the same, but more of it". Why do you think we've had so many blockbuster movie series based on young adult fantasy books with inexplicably multipart final chapters recently? Or, hell, zombies? Even "Amazing Spider-Man 2", which had the worst outing of the series, still did *really well* by any reasonable standard, making over three-quarters of a billion dollars on a $200 million budget. Make the next one an MCU movie, and it'll be such a sure thing that no executive anywhere will want to even want to *sing* about thinking about messing with the formula.

I'm almost certain a movie with Miles would do just as well. But, well... you see that "almost"? That's an awfully scary word when you're a studio executive.

 

[Robot-Jesus]

Miles would be a marketing frailer. Parker has brand recognition and enough people know him that the average person would be put off by spider-man being a different character. Always remember, the target market is always people who have never read a comic book. With every other character the movie is the first time the audience has seen this person, this gives the studio a lot of latitude with how they portray the character; this is not the case for Spider-man


I think a better idea would be to change Parker's ethnicity. Honestly Queens has a large Korean population, how many kids there are academical gifted, socially stunted, and bullied by larger kids? Honestly it fit's the stereotype a little too well to use. Donald Glover is a little too old to play high school Peter, but if the character had been operating for a number of years that could work really well. You could also change the story that he got the bite in university.

 

[Ukomba]

As interesting as a Miles Morales or a Mayday Parker (or a Ben Reilly or a Yu Komori or a Miguel O'Hara) might be, the ultimate argument against them comes down to this - for 95% of the viewing public, Peter Parker is the Spiderman they know, and the Spiderman they'll expect.

Very true, but at the same time I doubt anyone wants another spider-man origin story re-hash. Add to that, that spider-mans first appearance will be in Captain America and it's a given that he'll have to have already been established as spiderman for a bit and then it's just how much older is he? That is also something of a problem.

If he's young, he either had to get his power after the Second Avengers movie, but before Civil War (that's pretty short), or have a damn good explanation for what Spider-man was doing during those and why he wasn't mentioned before.

If he's older, significantly older, he could be could have been active well before Ironman then vanished due to injury or retirement or what ever. Injury could explain why he had to sit out the invasion and Ultron. They could then go the Batman Beyond / Mask of Zorro rout of having him be training May / Miles or whoever. Having a family would also add to his personal conflict of the civil war.

((May existing would also punch one more day in the eye >.> <.<))

 

[rgrekejin]

If he's older, significantly older, he could be could have been active well before Ironman then vanished due to injury or retirement or what ever. Injury could explain why he had to sit out the invasion and Ultron. They could then go the Batman Beyond / Mask of Zorro rout of having him be training May / Miles or whoever. Having a family would also add to his personal conflict of the civil war.

That's, umm... that's exactly what they just did with Ant-Man, though. Michael Douglas's Hank Pym acts as the older mentor character to Paul Rudd's Scott Lang.

I suspect that we're not going to get another origin story, at least, not a full-length one, we may get the quick version during Civil War. But the Spiderman we get will be Peter. I'd be pleasantly surprised to be wrong, but I'd put money on it.

 

[Baresark]

First: I wouldn't be against this. I just want to see an interesting character in the movie. The last bunch of movies have not shown an interesting character. They haven't had any umph, or I could not get emotionally involved with the character. The issue is that his personal issues always universally stemmed from his ultimate lack of communication ability.

Second: I think it's unlikely they will do that. They are most likely going to stick with a format that moviegoers already are familiar with.

 

[faefrost]

Simply race swapping Peter Parker to be a black kid actually works far far better for the vast majority of your desired audience than Miles Morales. Miles is a fairly obscure character with little resonance or pop culture knowledge. And oh joy if they go with Miles we need to get yet another origin story. Whereas the actual character of Peter Parker and Spiderman are arguably one of the easiest and most race neutral there is. he is a kid from queens raised by his aunta nd uncle. His uncle is killed tragically in a home invasion/carjacking/etc, so its just him and his aunt struggling to get by. "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility". There is nothing about that story that does not work and damn well resonate with any race. Whereas Mile's story lacks the same punch and is really based around following in his heroes footsteps. You need Peter Parker to get to Miles. Plus outside of the nerd community Miles is virtually unknown. Maybe 100k people bought or read his books? Billions know who Peter Parker is.

But with that said I suspect that we will when all is said and done get the standard white male Peter Parker. Why? Because at this stage even if they reboot Spider-Man and throw out all of the Amazing movies, they still can stip the origin story and just jump right into the action so long as the character remains the one the viewers recognize from 50 years of comics, cartoon, tv and movies (not to mention the occasional Japanese Giant Robot).

 

[Ukomba]

If he's older, significantly older, he could be could have been active well before Ironman then vanished due to injury or retirement or what ever. Injury could explain why he had to sit out the invasion and Ultron. They could then go the Batman Beyond / Mask of Zorro rout of having him be training May / Miles or whoever. Having a family would also add to his personal conflict of the civil war.

That's, umm... that's exactly what they just did with Ant-Man, though. Michael Douglas's Hank Pym acts as the older mentor character to Paul Rudd's Scott Lang.

I suspect that we're not going to get another origin story, at least, not a full-length one, we may get the quick version during Civil War. But the Spiderman we get will be Peter. I'd be pleasantly surprised to be wrong, but I'd put money on it.

Is it? O_O I've have to admit I know very very little about Ant-Man in general and nothing about the movie.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

This can only happen if Miles got a decent cartoon first.

Spiderman is my favorite hero. and I'm also tired of the "Everything imaginable shits on Peter" freight train that people tend to think is the only way you can write Spiderman. It has me a bit fatigued with him.

I haven't seen that much of Miles. But what I have seen, I liked. The problem is two fold.

There is plenty of characters with Spider powers, all trying to catch lightning in a bottle a second time. Silk, Kaine, Miles, Mayday, Ben Reilly, Mattie Franklin, Ezekiel Sims, Anya Sofia Corazon... replacing Spiderman in the movie is useless and comes out of nowhere unless you have a reason. Like I said, give anyone of those people their own cartoon, let it get popular and ok, we'll be more primed to see the switch.

But this is Spiderman.

He is the Sonic of the Marvel Universe. He is the Mario of the Marvel Universe. He is the Master Chief, Superman, He is the Louis, Francis, Bill and Zoey. We want the originals. We want the brand names. If you want to add the others? Make a cross over flick with Peter Parker as their leader. And hell, here's your dozens of sequels for free: Once they win, show the alternate Spider heroes go to their own universes.

Boom, no need for a stupid origin story. They could have hashed that all out in a SCENE of the spider cross over movie just saying how they got their powers. And once they are back in their own universes, the sky's the limit. Go nuts. and we'll be MORE likely to see it because we already got a taste of how cool they are during the Spider Crossover flick.

You're welcome.