Spider-Man is having something of a comeback as Marvel’s flagship superhero. Movies, video games, a…preschool kids show, and a whole lot of other people with spider-powers lately. Wait, doesn’t that last one diminish Peter as Spider-Man? If everyone has the same but greater powers than Peter Parker, what does that make him? As Julia Carpenter, the current Madame Web, once stated: “…my champion has learned the first lesson of Spider-Island: Even though he shoulders great responsibility, while he’s here all of his great powers are absolutely meaningless.” At that point practically everybody had spider-powers in New York as part of a plot to ruin Spider-Man. To also paraphrase Syndrome from The Incredibles, when everyone’s spider, nobody is. Okay, that sounded better in my head. The point is you delude what makes Peter special by spreading his powers around. Superman’s powers are a dime a dozen in both the DC and Marvel universes as well as superhero fiction in general. If anything, Superman is basically the basis for most superpowered heroes throughout fiction. It’s how he uses those powers and his personality that separates him but there’s also a lot of characters tied to him. I could do one of these articles on him. Hmmmm.

Right now, and I will totally admit I’m taking a lot from the Marvel Database (despite Fandom wikis being a total pain in the webspinner to use these days–WHAT THE @$#@%#% IS PLAYING AUDIO WHEN THE POP UP VIDEOS ARE MUTED!!!!!!! and why is it all whispering like the site is possessed!) since I can’t follow them all, there are six active spider heroes in 616 alone. That’s still less than the Batman Family’s current roster but at least they all have unique skills and identities. While the Flash has three people sharing the name (hmmmm) we have two Spider-Men, one Spider-Woman, a former Spider-Girl, a clone, and a spider-partridge in a pear tree. We won’t even get into the multiverse because they don’t count…although one of those current Spider-Men are from another universe. It’s confusing, annoying, and unnecessary. However, if I can find a use for every active member of the Bat Family (and one whose dead and shouldn’t be) finding a use for the active Spiders shouldn’t be too hard.

Admittedly these are a bit more on the fly (I’m sure there’s an unintended pun in there somewhere) than the Bat Family but I think this could work. I’ll go over Peter Parker last. We have five others to get through and a lot of what I’m going to suggest may actually be already in effect or close enough that my ideas won’t be that earth-shattering. That’s fine. I’m not here to join the EPIC storytelling obsession. I just want to take what we have and make some good use out of it that won’t dilute Peter Parker as Spider-Man…provided we’re done with 616 spider heroes. The only ones I’m not bothering with is whatever Ben is going by this month, whoever is Venom this week, and the “Uncanny Spider-Man”. Let Kurt go back to being Nightcrawler without having to go back to the X-Men if he’s really that sick of them. Otherwise, he’s just helping turn the Spider-Man brand into a team name like the X-Men and our boy Pete deserves better. As for Ben Reilly, I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead, good or evil from one storyline to the next so I’m not even going to try to work him in. They really ruined a great character and I so could have used him as a wandering hero. As for the rest…

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