Let me on the record here. I didn’t read the Ultimate Spider-Man story that killed off the original Ultimate universe version of Peter Parker. I know the Ultimate universe fell apart because the comics around it had the Hulk as a horny cannibal, The Blob also being a cannibal, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as an incestuous couple that the book seemed to be pushing as a good thing, Wolverine leaving Cyclops to die so he can steal his wife, Captain America being a total a-hole, and all that is for starters. For all the heck I give Brian Michael Bendis he was the only one who understood the assignment: create a fresh start Marvel universe for new readers who for some reason considered years of history as too much baggage, kind of like the writers today because it gets in the way of telling their story instead of their characters’ stories. Instead it’s “alternate universe, so we can get away with whatever horrible things we want to make the characters do”. Turns out they couldn’t.
So I’m not aware of the specifics of the “Death Of Spider-Man”, I can still at the reasoning of Collider contributor Eddie Possehl as to why that storyline should be adapted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and say…really? I’ve been critical of the MCU’s approach to Spider-Man, even being one of the few downvotes of Spider-Man: Homecoming and not wanting to see any of the movies after it. Thanks to Sony putting rather stupid restrictions on Marvel Studios that it’s a poor adaptation on Peter and his corner of the world no matter how good the movie itself is. Peter’s personality as Spider-Man is the only thing it got right. However, I’d go so far as to say this is when Marvel Studios started to realize that they didn’t need to stay close to the comics to get fans watching, and given how little respect they have for the source material they were more than happy to push what they were doing as far away from the things that made those characters popular enough to be worth adapting as they could in favor of their own stories. I don’t know this for certain, but it is when the problem started, before the culture war and the “MSheU” was ever a factor.
So, the question of whether or not Peter should die is now on the table, and I’m here to pick it up. Knowing my biases on MCU Spidey I still have to say…no. I don’t think it should happen. It would just be another symptom of what’s wrong with the MCU right now. The article is “It’s Time To Adapt “The Death of Spider-Man” in the MCU, and We’re Giving You 6 Reasons Why“. So let’s peruse those reasons and point out the flaw in the plan.
From the very get-go, it should be stated that no one is saying Tom Holland’s Spider-Man needs to bite the bullet in Spider-Man: Brand New Day or by the end of Avengers: Secret Wars. By the end of his next trilogy in many years, however, it honestly only makes sense that he meet his heroic end, based on a lot of factors.
“I’m not saying we should kill him, but we should kill him.” That’s how I read that opener.
There is no secret that one of the most impactful Spider-Man comic book stories is the iconic “Death of Spider-Man” from Ultimate Spider-Man (2009). Spider-Man is Marvel Comics’ bread and butter, so to kill him—truly kill him for good—would be a huge and incredibly bold move. The confidence it takes to do something like that is huge. Unlike comic books, however, the Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot last forever, and adapting “Death of Spider-Man” is most likely the best route to go.
Spidey decides to recast himself.
Why couldn’t it last forever? James Bond has gone on since the 1960s, the Muppets as we know them both on and off Sesame Street since the 1970s. We change actors all the time. Even the MCU, while “afraid” to recast Black Panther, recast General Ross and Rhodey–then proceeded to ruin both characters, but that’s another conversation. Just recast the characters every now and then. Get the right people and nobody would mind. That already screws up his first reason, because Tom Holland isn’t looking to acting as his permanent career goal (smart man).
Since the end of his first trilogy, Tom Holland has made it incredibly apparent that he does not plan on sticking around acting for a gigantic amount of time, even stating to Men’s Health that he and his fiancée Zendaya would pretty much disappear from the public eye when they start a family. If he truly plans on doing this, he’s going to want to save himself from Marvel Studios jumping up his butt about him coming back to do countless cameos, as they did to Robert Downey Jr. after his trilogy ended.
There’s a mistake that Iron Man and Stark’s later appearances was due to Downey. When he was first announced, a number of fans insisted he was a horrible choice, much like they did when then-comedic actor Michael Keaton was chosen to play Bruce Wayne. Now Keaton IS Batman to many people, including some of the same people, and Downey is Tony Stark. That’s not to say that someone couldn’t have taken over the role instead of killing him off. We come for the characters. We celebrate actors we know have a track record of doing those characters well. I thought he was a perfect choice as Stark and it turned out I was right. That doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t come along and take up the role. In cartoons we’ve have a bunch of Tony’s over the years. It just takes the courage to do it right. Switching out Keaton for Val Kilmer wasn’t the problem with the movies. I thought he was good and just needed a better…everything. George Clooney on the other hand was a bad move because he was a bad choice.
Killing off his Spider-Man would help ensure that he does not have to make a dozen cameos over the years after his departure, and there’s a big chance he wouldn’t do something like Downey Jr. did and come back to play someone like Doctor Doom. Granted, he could always just tell the studio no, but if he wants to disappear and focus on raising a family, he would certainly appreciate ending his character arc on a definitive note, and what’s more definitive than a well-executed and highly impactful death?
I don’t follow. WHY would he want a definite ending to his character? The majority of stories out there has the hero surviving and sometimes thriving when it ends for keeps. Unless he’s that interesting in doing a death scene, which technically he already did when Peter got Thanos-snapped, why not let Peter swing off for new adventures?
Next up is the impact it would make on the MCU and the other characters.
Thanks to Spidey being Marvel’s golden boy, when he died in the Ultimate Comics universe, it impacted everyone. In fact, it impacted almost the entire universe. The Web Head makes a huge impact on the Marvel world, and losing him dealt a huge blow. When Pete died in the Ultimate universe, what seems like the entirety of New York City showed up to his funeral. The number of people who he’s changed the lives of is insurmountable, and a death like this in the MCU would rival that of only Iron Man at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
That worked in the comics because he had earned it. Happening here would be Spider-Man playing off decades of different iterations, not because Peter’s made that big an impact in the MCU, because honestly he hasn’t. He spent most of Endgame not existing. He played a part in Civil War, though I couldn’t tell you how important he was because as a comic fan I avoid anything with “Marvel” and “Civil War” together. If they did a biographical comic about Gettysburg I wouldn’t read it on principle. Peter dying in the movies would feel like a gimmick. He also sees a chance to bring in the storyline of teen heroes being outlawed in the comics because we can’t have fun stories with teen heroes. I don’t want that, either.
What made the “Death of Spider-Man” story so impactful was the fact that his death was a heroic sacrifice. As he passed, he got to tell Aunt May that, “Uncle Ben. I couldn’t save him… No matter what I did. But I saved you,” which struck tears into eyes across the world. In the MCU, Peter has two people in his life that he couldn’t save, so giving him the chance to save, say, MJ, and having a moment of redemption, would be extremely moving. It only makes sense for a character like Spider-Man to go down in a blaze of glory and as a hero, sacrificing himself for the greater good—dying exactly how he lived.
Replacing Peter with Miles doesn’t make everything better. Just ask Thor.
I wish more heroes got heroic sacrifice endings in comics, so yay for that. Peter also went down a hero in the Spiderverse animated movies, trying to stop Kingpin from breaking reality to take an alternate universe version of his family. That doesn’t mean he NEEDS to die. Could you make a good story out of it? It’s been done a few different ways in comics over the decades. Sure. It wouldn’t make it right in this continuity. Until you get to reason #3. Then I think it all comes together:
Everyone is looking forward to seeing Miles Morales make his way into live-action after his trilogy tenure in the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse franchise. The character is incredibly beloved, and it’s already been announced that there is a Miles Morales live-action project in development. Tom Holland himself even said on the Rich Roll podcast that he’d like to do what Downey Jr. did for him and usher in a new Miles to the MCU, saying, “I’d love to one day do that. If I were lucky enough to somehow bring Miles Morales into my Spider-Man universe and into the MCU, I’d love to do for a young kid what Downey did for me.”
Yep, he actually wants to bring in Miles Morales. Does Peter have to die to bring in Miles? No. He mentions the games later, which has Peter retiring because Insomniac wants to switch over to Miles. Spidey & His Amazing Friends and at least one of the previous Disney XD Spider-Man cartoons has Peter and Miles working together as part of each show’s superhero teams. Killing Peter means he wants to replace Peter, but as comic fans show, while Miles is well liked, he isn’t considered Spider-Man, hence the “#MilesMoralesIsMilesMorales” tag on social media. Spidey even gave him the “nickname” Spin for the preschool audience to not be confused about two characters going by Spider-Man while Peter gets “Spidey”. Ghost Spider is the only one with her own name, though you could make the case she shouldn’t be there. Another long discussion. I still want Miles to be “Shadow Spinner” and fulfill the high school hero field Peter grew out of but writers keep trying to shove him back into outside of the main comic universe. Make him his own character instead of an also-ran. Nope, need that Name to be considered successful. Branding is all that matters.
One of the sweetest and most heartwarming moments in the “Death of Spider-Man” story is actually after he dies, when the comic depicts him in a white void reuniting with Uncle Ben, who tells him, “You did good, kid”. Imagining a moment exactly like this with both Tony Stark and Aunt May would leave no dry eye in the room. It might just be a mere scene in a whole film, but it could be the perfect end cap to Peter’s story arc in the MCU.
Haven’t read it, so I’ll take your word for it.
After being dragged down by death and despair ever since Avengers: Endgame, Peter has been changed forever. Audiences haven’t seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day yet, but there’s no question that May’s passing thoroughly changed him, too. Getting to see them again and find some closure would mark the perfect last time to see him in the MCU for audiences. A finale that has people crying, but feeling full in their hearts, is the perfect recipe for a great conclusion with great closure. Not to mention, Peter Parker just genuinely deserves it.
Why this insistence on “closure”? You only close things when you want a story to stop. So you want Peter’s story to end, like Luke Skywalker and other old characters who have to be replaced with the “new model”. Good characters never die. They just replace the actors that do because fans want more of that character’s life story. Of course, replacing Peter is the real goal here.
Having a Spider-Man who finally has a full-circle ending that is completely closed and meant to be the finale would be a huge breath of fresh air and would honestly probably leave viewers feeling satisfied with Peter Parker’s story. So many people look back on the last two live-action franchises wishing they could have been more cohesive, which includes a satisfying ending. Imagining a world where fans could look at Holland’s tenure and think, “Wow, what a great saga, I love how it ended,” feels like dreaming, but it’s fully possible if Marvel Studios is willing to go big. It would be a bold choice, yes, but the positives outweigh the negatives tenfold. It’s hard to think about the beloved MCU Spider-Man dying, but it’s better to have a complete arc than to drag him out and leave the character feeling overused.
No, we look back at Rami’s third film and say “why couldn’t Marvel not interfere by forcing Venom in, why did Rami have to make Sandman into Uncle Ben’s murderer when that’s not what happened in any other iteration, and why was a teen genius with interests in chemistry and engineering creating wrist mounted silly string webbing a hill he wouldn’t die on” (that last one might just be me). I didn’t see Matt Webb’s movies (I kind of want to) so I don’t know how “Amazing” (pun intended) they were. What I do know is that there’s a reason those movies didn’t do well, and a living Peter Parker wasn’t it. If anything, fans wanted more Rami movies even after Spider-Man 3 became a source of mockery only surpassed by Sony’s own attempts at Spidey movies like Morbius and Madame Web. They were thrilled to see Toby Maguire take up the suit again, and even Andrew Garfield was welcomed back when they teamed with Tom Holland.
The Monkees did a reunion show to promote their final return album, Justus, which was an attempt to parody reunion shows. It’s not that great, but they made a point to say that other shows continued on after the series was canceled. Characters had lives. Maybe they retired. Maybe they kept on doing what they did. A few of them did die at the end. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk couldn’t have been more accurate unless they called that TV movie The Very Dull And Boring Death Of The Incredible Hulk And David Banner In A Very Lame Way. (Maybe that’s the Japanese title?) We want to think that these stories could go on, just like we want our friends’ lives to go on after high school even if we never see them again. Good writers made us interested in these characters’ lives. We don’t want them to die even if their story is over for us. Their stories continue on in-universe. That allows us spin-offs like Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and Doctor Who getting another lease on life until they all got poisoned.
You don’t have to kill Optimus Prime to make other characters prominent. The games are just sending Peter and MJ away, which Marvel tried in the comics with that Clone Saga nonsense until management f@#%$ that one up. Peter doesn’t need to die. Recast him. Retire him. We don’t want closure. We want good stories with characters we love, and new characters to also love that also work better for the ones who didn’t like the original characters. Everybody gets a Spider-Man, which is allegedly the goal they want even if they’re going about it the wrong way. MCU Peter doesn’t need to die. It just needs to be Spider-Man. He’s Marvel’s flagship for a reason, and here’s a reason not to kill him: Marvel Studios bent over backwards to get that flagship character into their Marvel movie universe, making their own Mephisto deal with Sony to do it. Why would they want to kill him after all that hard work? Marvel adaptations love to swipe things from the Ultimate universe, but in this case it’s better to stick with the original.
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