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Looking for help in writing a Spiderman paper
noir_blood
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In the beginning of one of my college classes we were asked to pick an "artifact" that we would study and write three papers about for our final grade. As a comic book I chose Spiderman. The first two papers, dealing with the narrative of Spiderman and the Media ecology I been able to write with no problem. It's the middle paper, the one that deals with genre that is giving me a hard time.
Obviously Spidey falls in the superhero genre, but that seems at the same time to broad and to sparse to write a five page paper. My current thought is to write of how the creation of Spiderman kickstarted a lot of tropes that are stil used in the genre today,( teen heroes, secret identity, etc) but I don't know if that's actually correct, seeing as Batman and Superman were created before him and both had that.
I guess I should clarify and say I'm not looking for anyone to write my paper for me. I'm just hoping that if I have some people pitching in with their ideas of genre and Spiderman it'll inspire my own paper.
Obviously Spidey falls in the superhero genre, but that seems at the same time to broad and to sparse to write a five page paper. My current thought is to write of how the creation of Spiderman kickstarted a lot of tropes that are stil used in the genre today,( teen heroes, secret identity, etc) but I don't know if that's actually correct, seeing as Batman and Superman were created before him and both had that.
I guess I should clarify and say I'm not looking for anyone to write my paper for me. I'm just hoping that if I have some people pitching in with their ideas of genre and Spiderman it'll inspire my own paper.
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Now that's out of the way, Batman and Superman were around before Spider-Man, but I don't think that teen issues were written so prevalently before Spider-Man came in. We hardly ever see Teenage Bruce Wayne written about and Superman by no means had a normal chilldhood/teenage time.
I think you've got something good there as a start. It does kinda set Spider-Man aside from the rest of the pack, especially the way Ultimate Spider-Man is being written.
I guess you could write about how different Peter's story is, when compared to superheroes of the time. He has problems that adult superheroes don't, and he only has himself to rely upon. None of the supporting cast know that he's Spider-man, so it's up to him to combine his family, school, work, and fighting crime all into a manageable life for himself.
He wasn't gorgeous, he wasn't buff, he didn't always get the girl (at least not at first) and he was constantly having to juggle his home life.
These were all things that actually put Marvel off Spidey, when it was pitched, if I remember right.
So yeah, he's responsible for the "accessible" super-hero.
Anally.
There are numerous examples of the Parker Luck, as it's been called, and there are few heroes that seem to find such hardships. Things like his secret identity and girlfriends getting thrown off bridges or his costume becoming Venom and so on all end up being a result of his being Spider-Man.
Another defining characteristic of Spidey, in my eyes, is that where Superman and Batman comics are about Superman and Batman, Spider-Man has, when it's been at its best, been about Peter Parker and his supporting cast. Most older stories didnt have 6 part Spider-Man crossovers that feature maybe a couple generic JJ cameos and the odd MJ appearance. They were like 70% Peter Parker, Gwen, MJ, Flash, etc and the hardships that his life as Spider-Man put on those relationships followed up by 30% of Spider-Man messing it up even more with the odd villain.
Peter is basically a characature of the reader. He has bills, girlfriend problems, worries about his family and doubts and insecurities. Batman is the goddamn Batman. Superman is an infallible god. Peter Parker was a loveable loser that you could relate to. Yes, he had super powers, but they usually caused more misery for him than good. Yes, they helped people ten times over, but on a personal level, they're more a curse and people can relate to his misfortune.
Spider-Man is the prime example in terms of difference between DC and Marvel and many characters have been modelled or took cues from his success. The current Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, is one such case. It's not identical, as there's no tragic origin, but in terms of story focus, it is primarily about Jaime and his friends and family first and super heroing second. I'd also wager that the whole death of a major character stems from Gwen Stacy's death, which was almost unheard of at the time and is now the most popular gimmick a book can have.
I'm not positive, but the villain learnign the hero's identity, outside Silver Age resets every other issue with Lex Luthor, was also fairly unheard of. Green Goblin and, later, dozens of other villains have learned Peter's identity over the years to cause varying degrees of hardships. People like Venom, Harry Osborn, MJ and so on. Batman had Alfred helping him, but Joker, Penquin, etc have never learned it. Same with just about every other DC hero voer the years or most any other Marvel hero, with maybe the exception of Daredevil and Kingpin.
Again, not sure on how original it is, but another popular cliche to stem from Spidey is the mystery villain. I'm sure others have done it before, but most were done-in-one mysteries that either were ridiculous or seen coming a mile away in Golden / Silver Age stuff. The original Green Goblin was unknown for a great deal of time before it was revealed to be Norman Osborn. Later, Hobgoblin was an amazing mystery in the same vein that lasted several years and wasn't truely solved until just recently when Roger Stern returned to tell the true secret identity. It's a common theme with many Spidey villains and every 5-10 years, you see a writer traught this plot out with some new villian hoping to spark that same magic. See Menace in Brand New Day for an example.
Finally, back to the tragic origins, Peter seems to be responsible for ag reat deal of villains or archenemies he creates. Harry Osborn, his best friend, became unhinged due to drugs, the death of his father by Spider-Man and the discovery of Peter's identity. He went on to become the new Green Goblin and plagued Peter. Venom is another classic example. Peter spurned his alien costume and it latched onto Eddie Brock, a man who falsely reported on the Sin-Eater and blamed Spidey for disproving his story, thus creating one of his greatest villains (well, at least until he was overused and commercialized).
Even things like the death of Captain Stacy during a Doc Ock fight caused rifts with Gwen and her hatred of Spider-Man after that or the death of Jean DeWolfe in the Sin-Eater arc. All can be traced back to Peter in some way. He didn't technically try to do these things, but he was, in his mind, responsible and the theme is a major one in the Spidey mythos.
I kind of went off at random and unfocused, but I hope some of this helps. Again, I'm not positive if Spidey created every single one of these types of cliches or what have you,b ut he sure popularized many of them and they are all a part of what makes Spider-Man great in my eyes.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Spidey was the first comic book to feature the death of a main character "on screen" so to speak. Doing so opened up the avenue for death in comics, which in turn opened up the idea of ressurection. One could argue that this event in Spider-Man actually brought comics up to the level of classic tales of the epic variety, greek and roman myth where death and ressurection was featured prominantly.
In fact, that's the tact I would take... Spider-Man helped comics evolve beyond the "superhero" genre and become something more epic... Spider-Man, Batman, Superman... these are our Hercules, Zeus, and Achillies...
but I could just be talking out of my ass... but then, it sounds like what the assignment would warrent. Yay liberal arts!
I don't know if it was Spider-Man that brought the realm of the mythical full force into comics. One could argue, more strongly, that it was Fawcett's Captain Marvel that did that (drawing the blatant parallels with their character and mythic heroes), and then of course there was Jack Kirby's Thor, who was dealing with mythic parallels long before a young blonde woman had her neck broken.
What The Death of Gwen Stacy is notable for, I think, is the start of the Bronze Age of comics. While it was DC Comics characters that created the Golden, Silver. and Modern Ages, the Bronze Age is notable in that it was a Marvel storyline that did it. The Death of Gwen Stacy is more than the death of a character, it represented the maturing of a medium and the evolution of stories that one could tell with that medium. Arguably the trend was started with the O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow but this darker view of superheroes, supervillains, and their role in the world was unquestionably put forth most prominently in The Death of Gwen Stacy.
I would counter that if you see resurrection as the direct parallel then it is not Gwen Stacy's death that should concern you, but that of Captain America. I refer not to the recent event but the original end of Captain America's series at the end of WW2. The resurrection of this character in The Avengers paved the road for later comeback stories such as The Death and Return of Superman and of course the Phoenix Saga.
Well, to start, Captain America never died. He was frozen.
Second, I think you are being slightly literal with the inclusion of Thor as the start of tying comics to myth; I am speaking more about the underlying things that make them myth... death and resurrection being the most relevant.