Doing Whatever a Spider Can: 3 Nontraditional Uses For an MCU Spider-Man

Graphic from joblo.com

No sooner than I write about leaving the issue alone, a true miracle rises to bring the conversation back around.

After decreasing critical reception and box office revenue, controversial direction decisions by producers and executives ignoring the input of the filmmakers and companywide controversies unveiled to the public by a security lapse that has only exacerbated corporate financial difficulties, “The Amazing Spider-Man” series has been cancelled.

While it’s been clear for a long time now that Sony had no plan in place when they made their ploy to keep the franchise from Marvel by rebooting it, the stars have fortuitously aligned to prematurely end the mess of a franchise in favor of a shared licensing deal with Marvel Studios to reboot the character via their own highly successful “Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

Little interest seems to exist in rehashing the origin, for obvious and understandable reasons, but the announcement that the film will again revisit a high school aged Peter Parker sticks out as a sour note in a move that otherwise has me giddy. Marvel’s influence may prevent things from going down a different path but if Sony’s creative control is going to undermine any stride towards actual quality, maybe it’s time for Marvel to force their hand and seize total control once and for all.

The details and boundaries of the new deal are still fresh and forthcoming but here are a few potential routes that Marvel can take to give the Wall Crawler the desperate shake up that he desperately needs.

 

Kill Peter Parker

Admittedly, I sort of tossed this one around in my head as a joke initially.

However, after really reflecting upon the fact that this franchise is cinematically 13 years old, featuring 2 tellings of the story and realizing that neither versions protagonist has made it past senior year of college, I think I’d truly rather see him dead than be put back into adolescence.

Whether or not the mistakes of the past are learned from or not, the fact of the matter remains that Marvel is tasked with reintroducing him to the world in one of their own productions before the 2017 solo reboot film, with most evidence pointing towards “Captain America: Civil War.” This means that it’s up to them to set the stage regardless of Sony’s follow up.

With the ball in their court for a storyline meant to shake up the status quo of their universe to being with, adapted from a story that rocked the foundation of the comics at the time, why not take advantage and force the change.

Spider-Man shows up for a significantly heroic and public sacrifice, revealing the death to be that of young, intelligent, noble, potential-filled Peter Parker; his innocence highlighting the senseless nature of the violence driven by the film’s conflict.

The results?

A scrambling Sony must now...

A. work with the perfect setup to a Miles Morales Spider-Man that so many people are clamoring for while continuing to posthumously respect and honor the legacy of Peter Parker. 

B. figure out how to bring Parker back from “death” and into a world that knows his secret, forcing him to grow up fast and tackle his problems with a new level of thoughtful introspection required of somebody living life without a safety net or...

C. collapse in an effort to fall back to a nonfunctional formula that Marvel can choose to support or not, putting the company further and possibly fatally in the hole and making their hold of the license useless.

Highly unlikely, I’m sure, but a curious idea nonetheless.

Live Action Television

Lots of people have been tossing around the idea of teasing Spidey in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” but I would suggest going one step beyond.

While it remains to be seen how this upcoming vision of the character can be legally utilized across multiple forms of media, the fact remains that Marvel does technically still own the rights to all potential television adaptations of “Spider-Man.” While Sony may not necessarily be obliged to follow continuity with any production that Marvel would start with the character, their track record doesn't exactly inspire independent experimentation.

But putting spite for Sony aside, if they’re really so hell bent on rehashing the high school days, why not at least milk it for all its worth.

If “Smallville” could run on network television for 10 years, why not get a high school drama mixed with an urban action series exploring Peter’s down time in between movies?

Can’t decide to have him pursue Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy to differentiate it from previous iterations? Throw them both into a love triangle as a minor subplot and add Liz Allen while you’re at it. It’d also be pretty nice to have those student peers actually amount to something down the line rather than be faces that fade away. Will he graduate within a single film? Let’s see the college years on television and save the flashiest Avengers grade stuff for the big screen.

No need to go cheap with it either. The exploration of Netflix as a release platform is looking to be very promising with “Daredevil,” and the two do share a city, so why not promote a little more crossover. The Kingpin was a “Spider-Man” character first after all.

And if that’s not good enough, nobody at Marvel seems to have taken advantage of Disney’s stake in Starz. Between “Outlander” and “Spartacus,” the channel isn’t exactly cold to ambitious programming.

Grow Up Already

Here’s a revolutionary thought; let’s take the character who’s game changing gimmick was that his superhero career was a coming of age story and let’s actually have him come of age.

“Spider-Man” media of the last 5 or 6 years seem to have an obsession with exploring Peter Parker in his youth but never actually show how his experiences transform him. If he’s supposed to be the superhero of the everyman than why isn't he allowed to mature like everybody else?

I’m fine with watching the trials and tribulations of a high school kid trying to find his way in the world but that’s not all that there is to the character.

For all of "Spider-Man 3's" flaws, its addressing of more mature issues in Peter's life, such as marriage, full time employment, and leaving past grievances behind to look toward the future have become downright refreshing now that the most complex conflict of the character in recent history is avoiding curfew breaking to not be grounded rather than making ends meet to live. 

Spider-Man has aged, developed, hit rock bottom, risen back up, lost loved ones and in general matured since the Silver Age, yet we can’t get past this hump of him being between 16-18 years old. Finding dates, struggling with bullies and peer pressure and working part time jobs while balancing anonymous heroics is fine for the kids, but do you know what was also nice? When he finally started to grow up with those kids.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I actually enjoyed watching him have to work through college, find odd jobs to pay bills, cope with the loss of loved ones, marry his long-time girlfriend and even longer-time best friend, get a full-time job teaching the field that he paid higher education for, counsel kids being bullied in the same way that he was, bring his family in on his heroic secret to be shared together and generally living life as he grows, becoming wiser and more confident along the way while still fighting the good fight as a hero.

He felt like a real person; someone that overcomes their struggles without remaining stuck in the past, always working towards a better future. That feels like more of an everyman than the same teenager spiel that’s been regurgitated for the last several years.

I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy the adventures of teenage Peter Parker coming into his own but what made those adventures so great is that they were just the next phase of progression in his complicated life.

Peter Parker grew up because he was always meant to grow up and the insistence of executives to constantly emulate an era of his life that encompasses less than 3 years of the character’s nearly 53 year publication history while cramming in elements, references, and stories that occurred long after said era was dead and buried is completely beyond me.