Marvel Comics Continues To Ignore Fans, Confirms Next ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Run Will Again Focus On “Peter As A Young Person”
In continuing to double down on the publisher’s at-this-stage-unhealthy obsession with the idea that the wall-crawler must never, ever be allowed to grow-up, Marvel Comics writer Joe Kelly has confirmed that rather than looking to the future and allowing the hero to undergo any significant character development, his upcoming Amazing Spider-Man run will instead focus on exploring Peter Parker’s early teenage years.
Kelly, who readers may recognize as the Deadpool Vol. 3 writer who redefined the Merc With A Mouth from ‘legitimately insane psychopath’ to ‘humorous 4th wall breaker’, provided this insight into his soon-to-start run on the wall-crawler’s core book during a recent pre-release interview given to AIPT Comics‘ David Brooke.
Speaking to the narrative direction of his run, Kelly explained to his host that rather than focusing on retreading Spider-Man’s well-known origin story or attempting to actually allow him to thrive in the here-and-now, his follow-up to his Eight Deaths of Spider-Man arc would instead focus on a lesser-trodden period of the hero’s life: His pre-superhero years.
“I’m sort of fascinated with Peter as a young person, like pre-high school,” the writer told his host. “Because we haven’t really spent any time with him at that time period, and I feel like we get a lot of our hard wiring at that age.”
“You hit that age where you’re like 13, 14, and you start processing things differently,” he continued. “He lost his parents when he was younger, but what does that really mean to him as an adolescent? Does he act out? Is he more reserved? We always see him as the nerdy kid, but was he angry? Because when I go back and read those early books, Peter was mad a lot.”
While Kelly may hold some level of genuine interest in exploring Peter’s pre-Spider-Man life – as admittedly, this period hasn’t seen a lot of attention – the choice to have Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 go thematically ‘back in time’ represents yet another attempt by Marvel Comics to push their aforementioned belief that “Spider-Man is about youth”.
“What made Amazing Spider-Man the flagship of the Marvel line was the soap opera aspect of Peter’s life, the fact that he was a young character, a character who could screw up, a character that life seemed to occasionally dump on in humorous ways, and yet would keep on striving to do right by everybody,” explained then Spider-Editor and current Marvel Comics Executive Editor Tom Brevoort of the publisher’s ‘Post-One More Day‘ rules for the character, as seen in the back of the storyline’s collected editions. “An everyman, a schlemiel. Grounded in the real world. Grounded in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn.
“Spider-Man doesn’t grow-up,” he continued. “He doesn’t get a 9-to-5 job (and couldn’t hold it if he did get one). The idea that J. Michael Straczynski set up, with him teaching in his old school, had its merits, but they never really got fleshed out and explored enough – and making Peter a teacher.”
But sadly, despite the fact that Peter’s ‘High School Era’ and ‘College Years’ lasted for a collective total of sixteen-years and barely make-up a little over a fourth of the wall-crawler’s 63-year publication history – Following his debut in 1962, the hero graduated from Midtown High three-years later in 1965’s Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #28 and received his undergraduate degree from Empire State University ten-years later in 1978’s Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #185 – practically everyone with any say in his handling, from the current Spider-office to Brevoort still, have made it abundantly clear that the ‘Spider-Man = Youth’ hill is the one that they will proudly die on.
To this end, Kelly closed out his time with Brooke by noting that while nothing is yet set in stone, he is currently hoping that his run with the web-slinger will last “a couple years”.
“That’s certainly the plan,” he added. “If people are happy, then, you know, I’ll keep chugging along.”
“It’s not even a longevity thing to me,” Kelly concluded. “It’s a potency effect. Did this story hit you? Cool. And hopefully, you get a bunch of those in a row. And that makes a run.”
The first issue of Kelly’s run on the relaunched Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7, with art by John Romita Jr. and Pepe Larraz, is currently on track to swan dive onto shelves on April 9th.
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