BW Media Spotlight

Making Peter Parker into Charlie Brown meets Archie Andrews, the ever unlucky girl chaser, was bad enough. Now it seems the adaptation trend we’ve said was also desired by the comic writers is proving more and more true.

We’ll be looking at two different articles from Bounding Into Comics contributor Spencer Baculi that you may want to check out for context. First we have his response to an April 1st article that’s less interested in April Fools Day than I am. The actual article, also linked to for context, comes from AIPT Comics, whatever that stand for. It features new Amazing Spider-Man writer Joe Kelly, the same guy who thought giving Space Ghost a grimdark makeover that included his unborn child being ripped from his dead wife’s body by the hero’s former mentor and his psycho subordinates, was a great way to update a 1960s Saturday morning cartoon for kids that also aired in syndication in the 1970s and was back on air in the 1980s before getting a late night talk show parody that probably defines how people think of Space Ghost. Tim Burton and Len Wein you’re not, Joe!

The other article to be looked at is Spider-Editor Tom Brevoort at it again, again arguing with fans who want the Spider-Marriage restored on his Substack. Together they show the pattern we’ve seen with adaptations is where they might want to take the comic. Absolutely positively? Maybe not, but it does show that “regression” is the word for the day at the Spider-Man offices. Every Spider-Man adaptation tries to start Peter at high school even if it isn’t his origin story, and they love doing those as well. (Control the origin, control the character.) Ultimate Spider-Man started him as an adult with a family, which is not the same as watching Peter balance his two lives as we see the kids grow up. and all the joys of early fatherhood. (May I never hear the term “girl dad” again, unless someone finally shows the same excitement from being a “boy dad” because dad was a boy once. Nothing against girls at all. I wouldn’t mind one of each, though at my age that seems more and more unlikely.) It seems the writers who insist they never want Peter to be old (except when running a science company started when Dr. Octopus stole his body) are doing everything they can to shove him back into a teenager. These two articles certainly point to rather strong evidence I’m right.

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