Summary
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The new Spider-Man animated series falls into the same trap as the MCU, and Peter Parker falls head over heels for another billionaire.
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He's once again handed a fancy new suit of a rich CEO, looking for a mentor and even father figure.
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It makes him feel oddly like a sidekick, even though Spider-Man was created as a subversion of that very trope.
In the Tom Holland MCU movies, Spider-Man idolizes the snarky, egotistical Tony Stark, seeing him as more of a mentor than even Uncle Ben.
The is an arc in Homecoming where he ditches the very advanced, fancy new suit and proves he doesn't need it. But this is an arc that repeats itself over and over throughout his trilogy as his love for Stark refuses to diminish. It's so ingrained in his character that he feels like a sidekick.
“Iron Man Jr”: Spider-Man is not a sidekick
One of the most exciting revelations in all the Tom Holland movies is that he used a sewing machine. We're so tired of him being trapped under Stark's shadow – with his costume montage even against AC/DC – that mere cloth was as big a reveal as the return of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire.
Okay, maybe not, but people are still talking about that homemade suit today!
It's a common complaint leveled at the MCU. Spider-Man doesn't feel like Spider-Man, he feels like an Iron Man sidekick. That's true, and it goes against the core of not only Spider-Man's character, but Marvel's original philosophy.
Stan Lee hated sidekicks. He killed Bucky, AKA Marvel's Robin, in 1964, and the original Human Torch's partner Toro died just five years later. He was so passionate about his dislike of sidekicks that it even drove him to create Spider-Man and one of his closest friends, Johnny Storm: “I hated 'teenage sidekicks. I always thought that if I was a superhero, there's no way on God's earth I'm going to hang out with any teenager,” Lee once told MovieWeb.
Making Spider-Man a sidekick is to undermine the whole point of the character. But making him Iron Man has had huge implications beyond just the MCU.
Peter Parker shouldn't have everything handed to him on a platter
The idea of Peter Parker starting out in skimpy Underoos, because that's all he can afford, is fantastic. It shows his immaturity, the desperate desire to be a hero even though he's not ready yet, and it perfectly captures the reality of an ordinary person taking up the spandex – being a hero doesn't come cheap.
The original comic did it, the Sam Raimi movies did it, the Insomniac games did it, and Miles Morales kept the tradition going with Into The Spider-Verse and his Halloween costume. However, in the wake of the MCU, it is not followed by Peter designing a better suit as he comes to understand his responsibility, which serves to represent his growth. No, it's followed by a rich CEO handing him a fancy new suit on a silver platter.
In the new animated series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter Parker begins his crime-fighting career in a hastily assembled suit with all the fancy homemade technology – including reactive eyes – awkwardly strapped on. It looks a pulp like the original MCU costume. He even sounds like he's doing a Tom Holland impression. And then we meet the Osborns.
“With my help you will achieve greatness,” says Norman Osborn before we cut to Spider-Man in a brand new costume. Already we can see that this is a spin on the Stark story, a rich CEO who takes Spider-Man under his wing and mentors him into a hero, giving him everything he needs to do the job. I'm hopeful that the series will subvert the idea given that it's the more villainous Osborn, not Iron Man, as his mentor. But shoving him into the arms of a rich CEO will always feel out of place, for whatever reason.
Uncle Ben is his motivation. His words of wisdom, “With great power must also come great responsibility,” are all he needs—not an expensive suit or a golden parachute. Spider-Man adaptations keep pushing him to the sidelines, and I'm hoping we'll see more of him than we do in this trailer, but Osborn being his motivation so far, just like Stark was in the MCU, gives me some hope.
Peter Parker begins his law enforcement career as an orphan living in a house with a single aunt and struggling to pay the rent. This difficulty is at the center of his character, and we see him barely manage even in adulthood. There are times when he has to choose between rent and materials for his web shooters, and his decisions always show how truly selfless he is. Spider-Man puts the needs of others before himself, as Uncle Ben is always pushing him to be better even from the grave. That he jumped into bed with a rich CEO goes against that whole myth.
Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker handled it perfectly. Upon meeting Norman Osborn, he is polite – it is a “great honor to meet you sir”, he is even enthusiastic about Osborn's research in nanotechnology. However, when he is offered a job at Oscorp later in the film, he declines. Not a suit, not fancy technology, just a job. Parker would rather make his own way like his Uncle Ben and earn his lot in life, standing on his own two (or eight) legs – it's a perfect encapsulation of his character and defiance of the sidekick trope.
Insomniac similarly has a penniless Peter join an upstart venture with Otto Octavius to design prosthetics, a noble goal that didn't pay well but would have a huge impact.
It's already a trope
The new series has all the superficial visuals and ideas of the original series: the flat blocky colors, big round glasses and corny jokes, but it already feels like a misunderstanding of the character on such a fundamental level.
There is no bite. Never a pushover, Peter stood his ground even without powers and argued back to Flash Thompson with bitter teenage angst. The passive nerd is a more modern invention, and it's this passivity that constantly pushes him into the arms of the likes of Stark and Osborn and undermines the working hero beneath the red and blue.
Sticking with Iron Man ultimately turns out to be a mistake in the comics for Peter, as his secret identity is revealed as part of Stark's plot. In the end, he joins Captain America's side. We rarely see him so friendly with CEOs.
It's become so common after the MCU that we see it in the comics now. The more recent Zeb Wells run has Peter befriending a “redeemed” Osborn, and Tony Stark gives him a suit in the new Ultimate Spider-Man run, though he's already replaced it as a subversion of the idea. He even spits on Octavius for designing a more Iron Man-like suit. In less than a decade, it's gone from a subversion of Spider-Man's mainstream roots to a trope in its own right.
Peter Parker treating these CEOs like infallible heroes takes away so much of the charm of Spider-Man. A character who, in any other world or era, would be a sidekick, but instead goes it alone, showing that anyone can be a hero.
The powerful message is only made all the more relatable through the lens of a working person struggling to get by. So when we see him given everything by a rich billionaire, who becomes a wide-eyed teenager desperate for approval, that message is completely undermined. It's just not Spider-Man anymore.
