In comics and on the big screen, your friendly neighborhood web slinger has had a rocky few years. Is the character as relevant as he once was? And can ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ restore his standing?
Do you remember when you first met Spider-Man? Maybe it was in an animated series. Or maybe you saw Tobey Maguire in that iconic red-and-blue suit. Or maybe while you were flipping through the pages of a Todd McFarlane–drawn comic. However you first came across your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, the Marvel superhero has been such a persistent part of our pop culture since his arrival in 1962 that he’s practically Americana.
Dan Slott, the long-running writer of Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel’s flagship title for the character, remembers when he first met Spidey — face-to-face.
"One day when I was biking home from school in suburban California, I went by this 7-Eleven," Slott said. "They had a big poster in the glass saying, ‘Spider-Man is coming to your town to sign comics!’"
At the time, Slott wasn’t much of a comics collector. But as a fan of the 1967 animated series and its ubiquitous theme song ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man / does whatever a spider can"), he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Slott begged his dad for an allowance so he could buy comics for Spider-Man to sign. By the time he came across the man in the Spider-Man suit, the experience had changed him.
"Those were my first comics, the ones Spider-Man signed," Slott said. "That messed me up for life."
Spider-Man has long been one of the most popular characters in fiction, let alone comic books, and unlike some of his confederates, he’s a hit across demographics. Whether comic book lifers or children dressing up as him for Halloween, there’s something indelible about Spider-Man.
"In a general, people-on-the-street kind of way, I would argue that Spider-Man is probably the most popular superhero on the planet," said Forbes’s Scott Mendelson.
It’s a lasting popularity, too. While other superheroes come and go, Spider-Man endures. In a genre mostly known for change, Spider-Man always seems to be present and popular.
At least, he did.
For all of the character’s success and the passion he engenders, Spider-Man’s 55th year finds him in unfamiliar territory. With Spider-Man: Homecoming kicking off Spidey’s third film franchise in 15 years and with the comics at a five-year sales low point, the character is facing a foe he’s never met before: an uncertain future. Does your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man have what it takes to regain his place in the hierarchy of superheroes during this era of reboots and cinematic universes?
WhatWhat made Spider-Man so popular in the first place? With so many interpretations of the character across comics, film, TV, video games, and beyond, everyone has a different perspective on what makes him such a lasting figure. It begins with the man under the mask.
"Peter Parker is the first thing I think of," Sean Howe, the author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, said. "More than most superheroes, his alter ego is the appeal because his alter ego is always present. Even when he’s in costume.
"Even in costume he’s neurotic."
While there have been other Spider-Men (and women), Parker became the archetype upon which much of the Marvel Universe was built. Wisecracking but sincere, imperiled but powerful, extraordinary but relatable. While Spider-Man wasn’t the first superhero at the publisher — the Fantastic Four were the first to arrive at the newly titled "Marvel Comics" (originally Timely Publications) — in the words of Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, "He [was] the guy that broke the mold of the superhero."
While the masked men and women of DC Comics were iconic gods who represented the best of humanity, Spider-Man helped establish an essential differentiator for Marvel’s line. He was a hero who was defined by his weaknesses as much as by his strengths, and his humble beginnings and often-ordinary problems formed the foundation of what distinguished Marvel’s slate of heroes from their rivals at DC: They were relatable.
Spider-Man’s life isn’t just battling supervillains; he has had significant others, money problems, a terrible boss. As Slott said: "He’s the hero you know."
"If anything was going to zap you and turn you into a superhero, you were going to be Spider-Man," Slott said. "You’re going to screw up in all the ways you normally would screw up, but now you’re going to do it with superpowers and it’s going to give you super problems."
WhileWhile they likely didn’t know it at the time, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko fundamentally changed the nature of the genre forever when they created the character, making a superhero whose personal life wasn’t just used as a transitional point to action scenes, but as a core element of his identity. It led to story beats that superhero comics hadn’t dealt with before, and legions of fans connected with the character because of it.
Beyond that, the character was young, and that tied readers to Spider-Man further. While not everyone is an alien given powers by our yellow sun or a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, we’ve all been young and prolific at ruining our own lives. That’s an essential reason for the character playing well in any era: His origin is always contemporary. While most of his peers are tied to specific conflicts or times in American history, Peter Parker was a teenager who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And who hasn’t been there before?
Unlike his fellow heroes, Spider-Man’s costume covers him completely. The look of the costume is an important part of his appeal — ask any comic artist for a short list of the greatest superhero costumes ever, and Spider-Man’s classic design will be on it. But it’s what it doesn’t show that matters.
"When you see that character the first time dressed head-to-toe in red and blue, without a trace of skin, he could be anybody," Alonso said. "He could be you."
While characters like Thor or Captain America have costumes that reveal at least part of their identity, Spider-Man is anonymous. He could come from any ethnicity or background, an essential element to the character becoming such a sensation.
Of course, the reason people adore the character isn’t just because they can see themselves in him. It’s also because he represents the best version of us. We would aspire to be him if we had superpowers. No story better encapsulates that idea than Amazing Spider-Man No. 33. At the end of issue No. 32, the character had been trapped under literally tons of machinery — famously captured in the — by his nemesis Doctor Octopus, and he must escape to save his Aunt May.
Spider-Man, pushed to his very limit, contemplates failure. But instead of giving up, he lifts the impossible weight off his back and drops a line that captures the aspirational qualities of the character: "Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy! It’s when the going’s tough — when there seems to be no chance — that’s when it counts!"
Spidey never gives up, living life by a mantra passed on to him by his deceased Uncle Ben. "With great power comes great responsibility," the saying goes, and it’s almost as famous as the character himself. Brian Michael Bendis, the current writer of Spider-Man, says the line is so pervasive and powerful, "You could actually build a pretty substantial religion around [it]."
He’s not just some sort of aspirational Boy Scout, though. Peter Parker is also a huge nerd — a socially awkward genius, really — who becomes a cool, web-slinging, trash-talking superhero. His quipping while fighting villains is a trademark — "Peter should be constantly busting balls," Bendis said — that helped differentiate him from other Marvel heroes, and also made him even more of a sensation with readers who wished they could stand up to bullies with as much swagger as their hero.
And that’s who Spider-Man is. He’s your guy. He’s you, if you had been bitten by a radioactive spider. But when you’re a character with such defined core characteristics — especially ones built on relatability and familiarity — a lot can go wrong with the smallest of adjustments. And lately, Spider-Man’s lost his mojo.
InIn 2014, a new volume of Amazing Spider-Man launched, averaging orders of nearly 130,000 copies over its 18 issues, per Comichron estimates. So far in 2017, the series is averaging just under 73,000 copies ordered, with May’s issue No. 27 barely eclipsing 51,000. It’s the fewest orders the title has seen since 2012, and only the sixth year in its existence that Amazing has averaged below six figures.
It’s a stunning development. As Brian Hibbs, the owner of San Francisco’s Comix Experience comic shop, said, "It’s not a rational world we live in that Spider-Man is not selling over 100,000 copies every single issue."
There are many reasons for this. USA Today’s Brian Truitt, for one, pins this downturn on a hot-button issue Marvel faces these days.
"Their biggest problem is they reboot the book every six months," Truitt said.
Rebooting, in this case, could also be called renumbering. It’s a tactic comic publishers — particularly Marvel — have employed increasingly often in recent years. And the simple explanation is starting a long-running series anew with a No. 1 issue. A new volume means a new jumping-on point for readers, making it easier to pick up for a larger audience, meaning more hypothetical interest, meaning higher orders from comic shops. It’s a good idea, in theory.
But when it happens multiple times in a decade, many posit that reboots are equally effective as jumping-off points. And for a series that had only two volumes in its first 50 years and has had two new ones in just the past three, Amazing Spider-Man readers are getting plenty of opportunities to jump off.
Another issue potentially impacting the title is brand dilution. Once upon a time, if you wanted to read Spider-Man, there was pretty much just Peter Parker. These days, it’s quite different. Marvel’s lousy with Spider people, as Parker is prominently joined by:
Miles Morales: a black, Latino teenage Spider-Man
Spider-Gwen: a version of Parker’s deceased love interest Gwen Stacy who is a Spider-Woman from another universe
Spider-Woman: a Spider-Woman from Parker’s universe
Silk: a hero bitten by the same radioactive spider as Parker
Scarlet Spider: a Peter Parker clone
Spider-Man 2099: the Spider-Man of the future
Renew Your Vows Peter Parker: an alternate universe version of the character
All of these characters currently have their own comics or have had one within the past year. The idea behind this is to give readers more of a thing they already like. They like Spider-Man plenty. But what if there were seven or more Spider people? That’s even better, right? That may not be entirely true. According to Hibbs, so many iterations of the character existing at one time is having a net negative effect on the popularity of the core book. He believes Marvel isn’t creating a larger audience with this tactic; instead, it’s fragmenting the one it already has.
This is being realized at both of his stores. Amazing Spider-Man was once his satellite store’s top-selling title — these days, it’s barely in its top 20. And in his main store, he barely moves double digits of Amazing per issue, a far cry from its peak. Readers are splintering and picking up the title that fits them best, with only Amazing registering as a top seller.
The current status of the character was mentioned as a potential factor, as well. "Most people like the Peter Parker they have," according to Howe, and things can get heated when the character’s battle-tested formula is thrown off.
Slott experienced that firsthand, having killed Peter Parker in 2012’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 700 and placed nemesis Doctor Octopus’s consciousness in his body, making the new version of the character the Superior Spider-Man for a little over a year and a half. Fan response was so vitriolic initially that Slott received death threats.
These days, Parker is back in full swing, but he’s in a position that’s even more untenable than death for some readers: CEO of his own company, Parker Industries.
The issue with that for fans is twofold. One, Peter Parker is always seen as youthful and growing up, and there’s nothing more grown up than running your own company. Two, his perpetual stumbles define him, and being the CEO of a prominent company runs contrary to how people view Spider-Man. According to Hibbs, readers "don’t like Peter Parker not being a loser."
While the Peter Parker, CEO, story line hasn’t fit well with the vision some have for the character, it’s by no means the greatest issue facing Amazing Spider-Man and its dwindling readership numbers. Strangely, that problem has nothing to do with the book itself, but has to do with Marvel’s line as a whole.
"I pin [Amazing Spider-Man’s sales dip] on the general Marvel malaise that has been going on for the last three years," Hibbs said.
Amazing itself has been relatively stable compared with the rest of the line, maintaining its place as Marvel’s top-selling non-event comic, non–Star Wars title. Largely, the book has followed standard attrition. But Marvel’s line itself has dropped precipitously, with the average Marvel title in April 2017’s Top 300 comics selling nearly 11,000 fewer copies compared with the same period three years earlier, per estimates.
Much digital ink has been spilled digging into the why behind the performance of Marvel’s line. Depending on who you ask, it could be that the comics are too expensive, there are too many titles at one time, the comics’ quality has flagged, there are too many events, the reboots have eroded interest in the comic format, or any number of other theoretical reasons. Whatever the cause, it has managed to impact even stalwart titles like Amazing, with shops I spoke to mostly describing the comic as a solid, if not spectacular performer when it once was one of the top titles in the whole industry.
TheThe good news: There’s hope for tomorrow.
The line-wide sales downturn has triggered action by the publisher, as this fall, it’s rolling out a new initiative: Marvel Legacy. This endeavor is built on resolving many readers’ greatest troubles with the publisher’s current position. The hope is to bring the comic line back in sync with what readers love about Marvel — the quote "the world outside your window" has been a key point, showing a renewed emphasis on relatability as a core tenet — while also moving away from the reboot trend.
Instead of focusing on new no. 1 issues, Marvel will return the line to its original legacy numbering — with Amazing coming in at No. 789 — the departure from which served as a microcosm for many readers’ issues with the publisher. After all, how could you trust the future of a publisher that seemingly rejected its own past?
With a reemphasis on what worked before while moving away from the line-wide reboots, Marvel hopes it’ll resolve two of the largest issues the Spider-Man line — and the rest of its comics — faces in one fell swoop. Whether or not it will is uncertain, especially after the early reveals about Legacy didn’t exactly build excitement in the fan