Why the Marvel Movies Should Ditch Peter Parker

[Solomon's Ace]

I think an interesting concept would be to see Miles eventually; after all his story arc in the ultimate universe, as already mentioned, is heavily influenced by having already had Peter as the hero for some time.

Someone might find it difficult to see how Peter might just suddenly appear out of nowhere, after all he wasn't there in New york in Avengers. And no mentioning of him before the Cap 3 movie?
Yes that would be weird, but am I the only one noticing that they sort of do (maybe if-you-really-wants-them-to) mention him. Well, they say a high school kid with super powers, but that COULD be him. Though it fits both Peter and Miles, so that doesn't really leave anybody out of the picture. It just makes it a little less difficult to explain why he suddenly is there in Cap 3: He got his power some time after Avengers and sometime before cap 2, so that makes sense that he needs to explore who he is before the avengers comes all running, to bring him into the team.

Beside it would be nice to actually get a proper Peter Parker before ditching the whole idea of the original Spider-man in the MCU, for EVER!

 

[Jake Martinez]

Just because there is a market for minority characters doesn't mean that they are given the same chance as other characters. Simply making new characters to represent minorities rarely works because while many people would like to see more representation, few people are willing to take a risk by buying new and untested books. And if the readers are unwilling to risk their Money on an untested character with no history, then the Publishers that ultimatelyy have to sign on for this risk Before the readers even get a chance to support it are even worse. Comics are an expensive hobby you know. Hence why new minority characters are generally legacy heroes or related to other characters so that they can borrow some brand recognition while they get started.

Sorry, but this is a bullshit argument. Marvel alone has put out something like 3 or 4 books with female characters head-lining them in the last year alone. If they didn't want to print a full book, then they could do what they do with every other new character - try them out in an existing book and see if fan reaction is good enough to run to print.

The only reason why they gender/race swap existing characters is because every time they do this they are (for now) guaranteed to get free publicity from the press that loves to run stories like this because it always causes thread exactly like this one.

All the fans and readers are basically being played.

 

[karkashan]

So... who exactly is this Miles character and why should I care about him? Despite reading comics, I don't read the Ultimate Marvel line cause it took every characters' potential to be a pretentious hypocrite (that Marvel does so well in comics) and upped it to 11.

praisegrima

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Okay, copy paste from another thread. To all those saying 'Miles Morales' everywhere?

Yeah. It's not going to happen. Here's why.

1) Miles Morales is tied to the Ultimate Universe, which is a niche market -coincidentally, ever since Ultimate Peter Parker bit it-. Not saying that he's not a well written character, just he's not well known enough to bring even those who have a marginal knowledge of Marvel to the theaters -if you think the billions for the MCU come only from those who were hardcore comic book fans, think again-.

2) The backstory and character of Miles is much more complex and it requires Peter Parker to have existed AND to have died before he took up the tights. If you read the comics you know that a big part of Miles' arc, at least at the beginning, was trying to live up to the legacy of Ultimate Peter -which was the best thing out of the Ultimate Universe, let's be honest. That and his relationship with Ultimate Kitty Pride-. And since Miles is relatively new and not mainstream well known, that can't be addressed in a 'this happened, deal with it' way like they can and probably will with this new Peter.

3) A lot of the strength and appeal of the Marvel Universe is taking/remixing/recreating scenes from the comic books and putting them on the big screen. Peter Parker as Spider-Man has one of the biggest and longest and most variegated vault to pick from. He's fought hundreds of people, both heroes and villains, both his own and of others. He stared down the Ghost Rider, he stopped the Juggernaut, he fought Magneto, Galactus, the Phoenix Force, he was Captain Universe, etc... Miles has, what? Two years? Three?

Now, that said, while Miles is not going to be the newest Spider-Man, this new reboot of the Spider-Man universe could still present an opportunity for him to appear. How?

I suppose you've heard of the Spiderverse crossover event. Well, imagine that basic gist on the screen. You could have Spiderman 2000, Spiderman Noir, Spiderman India, Miles, etcetcetc... All on the same screen together!

But for that to happen, we need good old Peter Parker first.

Who, while has been done to death, has rarely been done as well as they should have. Especially on the big screen. McGuire did well his nerdy side but not the cool joke-quipping confident. Garfield did the latter perfectly, but not the first. It was pretty much glossed over in the AMS movies. So this is a chance to finally find an actor who will be to Spiderman what Tony Stark is to Iron-Man.

And to those who are going to say: 'hey, they used unknowns with Guardians of the Galaxy and it was AWESOME!' Well, yeah, but you're thinking of this in terms of 'MCU wants to add another notch to their belt'. That's not what's happening here.

The thing is, the MCU worked so well because of its actors tied to their roles. Particularly RDJ, and those same actors either want more money or want to go do other stuff -hell, Evans wants to quit acting altogether-. MCU doesn't need SpiderMan simply to add value, they want something they can anchor the entire Universe on for a time to not let people leave if their actors also leave. Spidey can do that by name alone.

I'm the first to admit that GotG was AWESOME -better than Avengers, if you ask me- but it was still a shot in the dark. Could have worked and could have not worked. They can't take that kind of risk in this transitional phase. Hence, the need for Peter Parker as Spidey. Except for him, maybe only Wolverine has the same star power no matter the media he's in.

And we know where Wolvie is right now.

 

[Silverspetz]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

I'll say what I've said in a lot of other threads like this:
If there is a market, then how about making NEW characters? I mean, there ARE a lot of goddesses to choose from to make another divine character. We have Amaterasu, Japanese godess of sun, Morigan, Irish goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty,Coyolxauhqui, apowerful magician goddess from Aztec mythos (Coyo for short, maybe) and a LOT of others. But nooo, Marvel is too lazy and/or stupid to make new characters anymore, so let's give Thor tits.

Same situation with Morales. We are too lazy/stupid to create another non-white male character, so let's race swap the existing one. Hell, you want African deity, maybe? Then pay Neil Gaiman and buy rights for Anansi Brothers characters. Make it so that there is a heroic duo of sons of African song and trickery god and their villain is bloodthirsty Tiger god. Nope, race swap is the only way to do these things.

Just go and piss off more nerds.

OT: Movie goers don't know anything about comicbook characters and they know only one Spider-Man: Peter Parker. Making another alter ego for movie version is risky and can push away audience.

Just because there is a market for minority characters doesn't mean that they are given the same chance as other characters. Simply making new characters to represent minorities rarely works because while many people would like to see more representation, few people are willing to take a risk by buying new and untested books. And if the readers are unwilling to risk their Money on an untested character with no history, then the Publishers that ultimatelyy have to sign on for this risk Before the readers even get a chance to support it are even worse. Comics are an expensive hobby you know. Hence why new minority characters are generally legacy heroes or related to other characters so that they can borrow some brand recognition while they get started.

Also, what's with all the God motifs for those characters? You couldn't Think of ANY other origin for a minority than just being the avatar of some deity? And I'm fairly certain that Neil Gaiman doesn't own the rights to Anansi the spider. Unless they were genuinely adapting HIS version of the character they could just do their own version of it.

Well, sometimes you actually HAVE to make risks, especially if you want to not piss of existing fanbase AND show that you are pro diversity. Maybe Marvel actually SHOULD risk and make original character once in a while.

As for "deity" question: My deity argument started from my Thorita argument. And then I combined Thorita situation with Morales situation into African deity argument.

And no, I don't think that "minority" character has to be somehow connected to deity, I was on a deity roll. Race and whatevs doesn't matter in making good character, whose character does not center around his/her etnicity.

As for Anansi, no, Geiman doesn't own this god, but I am more than sure that he owns Fat Charlie Nancy and Spider.

And please DO refrain from making assumptions about people you know nothing about. And please DO take less aggresive stance. People will be more willing do have discussions with you.

So you are the one Calling the writers "lazy/stupid" but I'M the one who is being aggressive? Funny.

Yes, I do wish they would take more risks with their heroes, but there is nothing inherently wrong about using their existing brand-recognition to LESSEN the risks of new heroes so that they can actually gather an audience. And I wish people would get so fucking hung up on that whenever some minority character pops up. I mean, did Wally West get this kind of hate/complaints when he took over from Barry Allen? Take the new Miss Marvel for instance, she has absolutely NOTHING to do with her namesake, but the brand name probably helped her to get a following and now we have a great new character in the Marvel universe. Using an existing characters name and iconography isn't necessarily being lazy, and it often requires the writers to be clever in order to work it in.

Just because there is a market for minority characters doesn't mean that they are given the same chance as other characters. Simply making new characters to represent minorities rarely works because while many people would like to see more representation, few people are willing to take a risk by buying new and untested books. And if the readers are unwilling to risk their Money on an untested character with no history, then the Publishers that ultimatelyy have to sign on for this risk Before the readers even get a chance to support it are even worse. Comics are an expensive hobby you know. Hence why new minority characters are generally legacy heroes or related to other characters so that they can borrow some brand recognition while they get started.

Sorry, but this is a bullshit argument. Marvel alone has put out something like 3 or 4 books with female characters head-lining them in the last year alone. If they didn't want to print a full book, then they could do what they do with every other new character - try them out in an existing book and see if fan reaction is good enough to run to print.

The only reason why they gender/race swap existing characters is because every time they do this they are (for now) guaranteed to get free publicity from the press that loves to run stories like this because it always causes thread exactly like this one.

All the fans and readers are basically being played.

I find it telling that you think the ONLY reason anyone gives a minority representation in comics is to exploit them. Who cares if the company also happens to gain from it? It is still a GOOD thing.

And a cameo-appearance may work out sometimes, but you are still ignoring the reality that minority character are rarely given the same chance as other characters. Sometimes a little extra help is needed to overcome decades of bias.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Also, another thing. I see everyone here making the simple assumption that just because they'd use a more diverse character for Spidey, it'd automatically be better or good.

You do realize there's also the possibility that they wouldn't know what to do with it and ruin it or try too hard? Do you remember what Miles was supposed to be at the incipit? Young, half black half hispanic, gay, etc... There's a thing as trying too hard. Also a thing as 'when did being white and heterosexual become automatically bad'?

 

[Jake Martinez]

I find it telling that you think the ONLY reason anyone gives a minority representation in comics is to exploit them. Who cares if the company also happens to gain from it? It is still a GOOD thing.

And a cameo-appearance may work out sometimes, but you are still ignoring the reality that minority character are rarely given the same chance as other characters. Sometimes a little extra help is needed to overcome decades of bias.

First off, you're talking to an actual minority so it'd be nice to understand what you think is so "telling" about my position.

Secondly, it's absolutely exploitation and it's not a good thing. It devalues the character.

Take how they put Falcon into the role of Captain America. This is a character that is extremely well liked already by fans and has even recently gotten into the MCU and was well received. So what do they do to him?

They boot Steve and give him Captain America. This is completely disrespectful to Falcon. He's a good character. He deserves his own book, not pretending to be Captain America. It's also disgusting meta-commentary on how Marvel views their black characters - basically the only way for them to be successful is if they make a white character move aside for them. It's stomach churning in it's insincerity and offensiveness.

Also, you need to re-examine your position on this. I can't believe you are advocating for some sort of fictional affirmative action for fictional characters. These are not real people, you know that right? Treating them like real people is something that crazy people would do. There is no bias on behalf of Marvel or any other comic book publisher against having black characters. Their challenge is just making a character (regardless of their race or gender) that people will enjoy reading about.

They have managed to do this in the past and I suspect they will manage to do it again. Tossing together a gender swap or a race swap that we all know will only be reverted later is the kind of fake social justice crap that I expect from hipsters and slacktivists. They always conflate media representation with influencing people's social and cultural values instead of the other way around, it just being a representation of what people want to see or read. This is why these lame attempts always fail.

People will read good characters regardless of their race, gender, whatever. They will not tolerate obvious exploitation because it's offensive.

 

[Avalanche91]

"Lets go full clone saga and bring the Scarlet Spider"- Avi Arad, probably. At some point.

 

[Mister K]

snip

While I was calling them "lazy/stupid" firstly jokingly and secondly in, probably desperate, attempt to, how do I put it, maybe challenge proffesional pride of someone who maybe works at Marvel and reads these forums (long shot, I know) in order to try and be creative, You wrote "Also, what's with all the God motifs for those characters? You couldn't Think of ANY other origin for a minority than just being the avatar of some deity?", which had an emotional content of a) you feeling that you are superior to me and can think of tons of other motifs and b) quite aggresive way of saying so. This led me to belive that what you are basically saying is "Shut up, idiot, I know better".

Slightly more on topic: Jake Martinez is right

First off, you're talking to an actual minority so it'd be nice to understand what you think is so "telling" about my position.

Secondly, it's absolutely exploitation and it's not a good thing. It devalues the character.

Take how they put Falcon into the role of Captain America. This is a character that is extremely well liked already by fans and has even recently gotten into the MCU and was well received. So what do they do to him?

They boot Steve and give him Captain America. This is completely disrespectful to Falcon. He's a good character. He deserves his own book, not pretending to be Captain America. It's also disgusting meta-commentary on how Marvel views their black characters - basically the only way for them to be successful is if they make a white character move aside for them. It's stomach churning in it's insincerity and offensiveness.

Also, you need to re-examine your position on this. I can't believe you are advocating for some sort of fictional affirmative action for fictional characters. These are not real people, you know that right? Treating them like real people is something that crazy people would do. There is no bias on behalf of Marvel or any other comic book publisher against having black characters. Their challenge is just making a character (regardless of their race or gender) that people will enjoy reading about.

They have managed to do this in the past and I suspect they will manage to do it again. Tossing together a gender swap or a race swap that we all know will only be reverted later is the kind of fake social justice crap that I expect from hipsters and slacktivists. They always conflate media representation with influencing people's social and cultural values instead of the other way around, it just being a representation of what people want to see or read. This is why these lame attempts always fail.

People will read good characters regardless of their race, gender, whatever. They will not tolerate obvious exploitation because it's offensive.

I agree with Mister Martinez in his thought that giving the role of already existing characters to minorities at the very least devalues said minorities. I.E. They can't actually be important as their own personas, they have to walk the trail, that was already blazed by white male character. In other words, while intent may be good, with such swaps they simply show that female supers/minority supers are of lesser value and/or importance than white male ones, which is, frankly speaking, bullshit.

 

[elvor0]

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.

"People would be put off if Peter wasn't there because he's so recognizable." "We should change Peter so he's unrecognizable." Does not compute.

Wait what? You argue that changing away from Peter would be bad, then argue that they should change Peters race? What on earth is your angle?

To people watching the trailer that's going to be just as freaky deaky as not having Peter be Spider Man. Spider Man is one of the most exposed super heroes there is, a non comic book reader is going be extremely confused by the fact that Spider Man is now black. /Everyone/ knows Peter Parker; Spider Man. He's been part of the public conciousness since the 60s. You don't think Peter Parker suddenly not being Peter Parker, but someone else with his name is going to be highly bizzare to the mainstream?

Either commit to Miles or commit to Peter, don't try and meet half way with changing Peters race for some racial quota, when you could meet that with Miles if that's your angle. Going with Miles fills a quota and adds an equally interesting character to the mix, changing Peters race to be black is a massive cop out and completely insane when you JUST argued that Miles would put people off. Not only that, it devalues both characters. Miles is a GOOD character, as is Peter. Argue to use the "minority" characters Marvel and DC have available or to make new ones, stop trying to change the established ones.

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.

Yeah....but why? Why change his race at all? Marvel has characters from different ethnicities they can use. How are they every supposed to become popular if people never argue for marvel to use them? "Well we could use this character who's already black and we kind of want to push....or oh fuck it, just give Peter Parker a lick of paint".

 

[Verlander]

Why Marvel should not: They didn't spend time, money and give concessions to Sony in order to bring a "new character" to the screen. They did it to bring Spiderman, so they should sell a shit ton of Spiderman toys and to totally destroy Batman Vs Superman.

As for the "quota", we've already been told that Black Panther appears in Cap 3, so we'll already have a couple of black guys at least. No, you shouldn't treat race representation like a checklist, but that's what adding a character for token reasons is.

 

[hermes]

I think there is no way Marvel/Disney make a better origin story than the first half of Spiderman (2002). Because of that, I am quite happy with the prospect of including a different version of Spiderman.

But, this is Disney, and safe is the name of their game. Avi Arad has even declare that he likes Parker a lot more than Morales, so I would put the changes as "less than nil".

 

[Kahani]

Miles Morales, comparatively, is a character that moviegoers haven't seen before. While comic book readers are familiar with him, wider audiences might not even know he exists.

The thing is, this isn't really any different from Peter Parker. Wider audiences know Spiderman, his alter-ego is much less well known. Clarke Kent and Bruce Wayne are famous, Peter Parker is just some kid who could easily be replaced by someone else without most people even noticing, let alone actually caring.

Now as an ancillary character? Sure, he works fine I suppose.

I think in that way it makes Miles simultaneously an interesting character but not a very individual character till later in his story.

Bear in mind he's being introduced as a secondary character in a big cross-over film in a well-established franchise. An ancillary character who doesn't do much individually until later in the story once he gets his own film is exactly what he's going to be.

 

[Merklyn236]

I can understand why, after five movies, people would want to see something different. I can see why a fresh interpretation of Spider-man would be more interesting to them than just another attempt at Peter Parker.

But I have two problems with this. One, which I know I'll be flagged for so I'll just get it out of the way, is that I don't care how many other people Marvel has wear the costume - Peter Parker will always be Spider-Man to me. Anyone else is a pretender. Period. So, yes, I'm biased.

And two, to my mind we still haven't SEEN a true interpretation of Peter Parker/Spider-Man on film. IMHO, we had one acter play Peter right (Maguire). Peter is a nerd, a geek, a social loser, etc. He's not "hot." He's not some cool science-y, skateboarding outsider who bears a suspicious similarity to what's-his-name from Twilight (Garfield). Conversely, we had one actor play Spider-Man correctly (Garfield). The only person who talks more crap to the people he's fighting with DURING a fight is Deadpool. Maguire's Spider-Man would occasionally throw one out there, but Garfield's interpretation was much closer to what we should see.

Tangent: Also, can we have a Spider-Man who's not losing his mask, or removing it all the time?

I don't care if Donald Glover, or someone else who's not (to quote Yankovic) "white and nerdy" play him. I'm not asking for that. I'm asking for Peter Parker, Aunt May, Mary Jane, etc.

 

[Bindal]

Miles Morales, comparatively, is a character that moviegoers haven't seen before. While comic book readers are familiar with him, wider audiences might not even know he exists.

The thing is, this isn't really any different from Peter Parker. Wider audiences know Spiderman, his alter-ego is much less well known. Clarke Kent and Bruce Wayne are famous, Peter Parker is just some kid who could easily be replaced by someone else without most people even noticing, let alone actually caring

Wrong. Why? Because mainstream audience already has been in contact with Spider-Man for DECADES and in every single one of these instances, it was made clear that Spider-Man is Peter Parker. People KNOW that after 4 different TV-Series, 5 movies and god knows what else (e.g. video games).
So, no, you're wrong to assume people won't care - in fact, it's a pretty safe bet that they will complain if Spider-Man is not Peter Parker.
That miles guy... NOBODY knows who he is because the only people that do are the hardcore comic geeks (who think only their opinion matters in regards to the movies)

 

[boag]

I would actually be more interested if they went with Gwen instead of Miles or Peter, or even Jessica

 

[Lilani]

Yeah... no. How about instead we have Spider Girl and stop pretending that race is the most important factor in choosing a superhero. The political correctness in this article is off the charts.

...Which means gender is the most important factor in choosing a superhero, then?

I really don't get this "Race doesn't matter, leave him white" logic. If you truly think race doesn't matter, then you shouldn't give two fucks either way. If you think he should stay white, race obviously does matter in some way. White is still a race as much as black is, it's not a template for a default human.

As for my own opinion, I'm kind of a comic book outsider looking into the world through movies, and I would love to see Spider-Man cast in a different light. I'm tired of Peter Parker. I don't want to see his story play out a third time on screen, because God knows Marvel isn't going to let their Spider Man come from the universe Sony's been working on. I know his story, it's practically its own trope now. No parents, Uncle Ben gets killed, boo hoo, gotta keep the secret from Aunt May, gotta bang the blonde or the redhead. Give me something new, Marvel.

 

[Vault Citizen]

Personally I hope that Peter Parker sticks around for a good few years before they switch to Milo. If they are going to switch to Milo I hope it is only after the new version of Peter Parker has 2-3 of his own movies and 2-3 appearances in other Marvel movies. I also think that it would be good to introduce Milo before him becoming Spiderman so that he and Parker can interact a bit before Peter is killed off, maybe have Peter mentor his character a bit. If you had that character relationship as a sub plot through the second and third new Spiderman movies Milo would be better placed to take up the mantle of Spiderman.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'd really like to see Miles (if there absolutely has to be a Spider-man in the MCU, which I still don't think it needs) just because Peter Parker has been done to death. No sense in wasting MCU screen time rehashing the same stuff we've already seen twice in the last 15 years.

 

[Kameburger]

Miles Morales, comparatively, is a character that moviegoers haven't seen before. While comic book readers are familiar with him, wider audiences might not even know he exists.

The thing is, this isn't really any different from Peter Parker. Wider audiences know Spiderman, his alter-ego is much less well known. Clarke Kent and Bruce Wayne are famous, Peter Parker is just some kid who could easily be replaced by someone else without most people even noticing, let alone actually caring.

Now as an ancillary character? Sure, he works fine I suppose.

I think in that way it makes Miles simultaneously an interesting character but not a very individual character till later in his story.

Bear in mind he's being introduced as a secondary character in a big cross-over film in a well-established franchise. An ancillary character who doesn't do much individually until later in the story once he gets his own film is exactly what he's going to be.

Well to both your points even though only the second one is directed at me.

In many ways Peter Parker had one of the widely recognized alter egos in comics, maybe not quite as big as Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent but he's certainly a close third. Hell he's one of the few superheroes who's reason to hold his secret identity so close is actually common knowledge. He was probably one of the earliest relatable alter egos as well, as prior to him super Heroes were larger than life people on their own in one way or another. My case and point on this one might very well be Fox News actually. Fox News never cared about any other comic book characters diversity retcon or change out. Hell even captain America got no mention, but Peter Parker on the other hand was cause enough for Fox News, who's veiwership certainly isn't your average comic enthusiast still went apeshit over Spider-Man's passing of the mantel all be it for the wrong and despicable reasons but still.

And the point addressed to me, it's difficult to say honestly what role he'll play but knowing both civil wars storyline and morales' origin, it's really easy to see how Parker will pass on the mantle, but really difficult to see how they can bring morales in without completely re-writing the character. And why re-write him? I thought his origin was cool. I get the "it's been done" angle, but it hasn't been done by marvel. And that's something I'd want to see.