I’ve just realized what the deal is with Miles Morales, and why he *works*, in a way that late-stage Peter Parker… doesn’t as much.
Miles is still a kid.
Spiderman’s story is about the guy who just gets handed a bunch of power, but no training, and is trying to figure out what that means and how to mostly be a good person with it. He’s scrambling around trying to fix things faster than he screws them up while in over his head. The Spiderverse Miles Morales sells that really well. The comic-book Peter Parker, who’s saved the world 12 or so times by now? Not so much… and as that story hollows out, they keep having to find crazier and crazier other stories to pull in to fill the void.
The MCU Peter Parker is still managing to do the same thing, but I feel like his time is limited. Eventually he’s going to grow up and/or it’s going to become implausible that he hasn’t.
I’ve heard from a number of different sources that comic book Miles has not gone over nearly as well as animated Miles. But I haven’t read the books with him, so I have to rely on second-hand info on that.
I think JMS (I think it was him) had the right idea when he made Peter a school teacher. Peter was getting too old to be doing erratic photo work for a newspaper, especially since he had a wife he needed to help support (though she also had her own successful career). Plus, Peter’s one of the smarter “normal” characters in the setting. Having him as a freelance photographer for a local newspaper was a waste of his talents.
Of course, Peter’s got a different job now. But the important thing is that he hasn’t gone back to freelance photography.
How smart Peter is is… varies. Like, some versions have low-tier superscience going on with the webslingers, and he’s had times where he’s shown as being smarter than, for example, Hank Pym (prevented from settling down to actually Do Science only by the moderately absurd number of murderous psychos he has chasing him personally). On the other hand, this is an environment where low-tier superscientists turn to petty crime on a pretty regular basis.
I’ve just realized what the deal is with Miles Morales, and why he *works*, in a way that late-stage Peter Parker… doesn’t as much.
Miles is still a kid.
Spiderman’s story is about the guy who just gets handed a bunch of power, but no training, and is trying to figure out what that means and how to mostly be a good person with it. He’s scrambling around trying to fix things faster than he screws them up while in over his head. The Spiderverse Miles Morales sells that really well. The comic-book Peter Parker, who’s saved the world 12 or so times by now? Not so much… and as that story hollows out, they keep having to find crazier and crazier other stories to pull in to fill the void.
The MCU Peter Parker is still managing to do the same thing, but I feel like his time is limited. Eventually he’s going to grow up and/or it’s going to become implausible that he hasn’t.
I’ve heard from a number of different sources that comic book Miles has not gone over nearly as well as animated Miles. But I haven’t read the books with him, so I have to rely on second-hand info on that.
I think JMS (I think it was him) had the right idea when he made Peter a school teacher. Peter was getting too old to be doing erratic photo work for a newspaper, especially since he had a wife he needed to help support (though she also had her own successful career). Plus, Peter’s one of the smarter “normal” characters in the setting. Having him as a freelance photographer for a local newspaper was a waste of his talents.
Of course, Peter’s got a different job now. But the important thing is that he hasn’t gone back to freelance photography.
How smart Peter is is… varies. Like, some versions have low-tier superscience going on with the webslingers, and he’s had times where he’s shown as being smarter than, for example, Hank Pym (prevented from settling down to actually Do Science only by the moderately absurd number of murderous psychos he has chasing him personally). On the other hand, this is an environment where low-tier superscientists turn to petty crime on a pretty regular basis.