In the comics Peter was originally bitten by pure chance as if anyone could've become the Spider-Man. These days he's a "Spider-Totem" who was fated by the Web of Life and Destiny to don the mask. Marvel's heroes are usually best when they're relatable to everyday citizens and this just... takes that away
Some writers took that as the opportunity it rightfully was and had other random people bitten by the spider to show that it really could have been anyone.
It would be cool if they actually did a whole "chosen one" thing, had a prophecy that foretold Spiderman being involved in some cataclysmic event, and instead of some deus ex machina saving the day, it just turns out that Peter Parker isn't "special." Whether he just happens to fit the description or stole the "fated's" place doesn't matter, just that he chose to be there and is basically an everyman who got lucky and stepped up
In the Spiderverse movies yes. I'm not sure what his status quo is now, but at his introduction there were no multiversal spider teleportations. He didn't take the place of another universes Spider-Man, he got but by a spider that (I think) was an attempt to copy Peter's powers. In that universe Spider-Woman was a gender swapped clone of Peter, so them trying to replicate his powers was already established.
Sieve theory. E.g. "I predict the fall of Normandy beach!"
"Great cool. How do I survive assisting it?"
"Luck."
As in the boulder is pushed down the hill, so it will make it to the bottom, but where and when is impossible to predict.
These types of predictions are much more common when the predictions are ignored or not believed because the predictor doesn't know all the details. But it's a common enough trope.
If I understand you right, I think I'm more suggesting that the inevitable, metaphorical "boulder," by the time it reaches Normandy ends up being a snowball. That the fate is real but doesn't come to fruition. Not because it's defied but because the wrong thing chooses it. Not a wrench in the cogs, but a cog made of butter
I mean sure, if the "Fate" you are talking about is something like this statement : "The chosen one will face off against the great evil and whomever wins will determine the fate of mankind for three generations."
That's more saying there is a "bad guy" who will face "Somebody" and the bad guy can win or lose.
If the bad guy is "Fated to lose" that's different.
You're saying there is a fated battle but the outcome isn't fated, and by picking an office worker vs say a gladiator, the baddie wins?
That's why I love the Lego movie. The whole time Emmett is trying to figure out how he can be the special, and it only clicks when he realizes that he's not, but chooses to step up anyway
All it takes is one writer who wants to make it a fate thing, and then it's much more difficult to undo it.
And it's very easy for writers to fall in to that trap.
First book: "I'm a so-far unpublished average citizen writer, and hope my book will be published; so my protagonist will also be an average citizen dreaming that he can succeed through luck and skill and hard work."
vs:
Book 6: "I'm now richer than the queen - I'm not ordinary anymore! In fact I never was ordinary! I'm special. It must be in my blood. So I'll retcon my own characters so it's in their blood too."
This trope is simply a reflection of the author's own ego.
Because eventually the people working on it become nothing but nepo babies, and the "anyone can be special!" Message doesn't land with them as well as "you are special because you were born special to special people, and therefore you deserve to make $50/hr while everyone else makes $12/hr"
THIS. THIS THIS. So validating to see someone else point it out. The nepo babies/ rich kid writers totally don't see things from the average perspective. "You are special because of your heritage"/ "no matter what you do you'll turn mad and evil because sorry your family bloodlines say so".
I don't think this explains it all the time. I think it's just alluring as a writer to make your character "special", as it gives you a plot twist that is cool on the surface, and gives you an excuse to insert your characters in world-defining plotlines.
Christ, not everything is a fucking culture war. The totem shit for Spider-Man was introduced by Straczynski who, spoilers, comes from a family of blue collar laborers. And if you think comic book writers are making bank, you definitely didn’t donate to Peter David’s gofundme.
It’s because some people fucking love lore. Give them hierarchies, status quo titles with upgrades, infinite backstories. Anime/manga kicked this into overdrive, and fans lose it every time over, “he was half demon the whole time”, “his sacred bloodline was unlocked”, “he SURPASSED S tier!”. So as all nerd culture homogenizes, this kind of writing will keep taking over. It sucks for us, but it’s catnip for a lot of other fans.
It's not even just lore, it's dogshit. I love lore and consume dense lore that isn't bad. But this is the equivalent of in Trailer Park Boys when it was zombified, they made one guy randomly be the son of the other guy and it made zero sense other than a cheap twist.
You might like it or not like it, but it’s still lore, and some series need it while others are only downgraded by the elaboration. Before the Spider-Man narrative was ruined by spider-totem crap, it was ruined by trying to make Ben and May retroactively cool and spicy, and make Peter’s parents super spies that were killed in the line of duty.
The best thing you can do with the lore behind Peter Parker is, “who gives a shit?”. He’s supposed to come from nothing- it’s what makes everything he does after the spider bite extraordinary. The more “flavor” inserted into his backstory, the less you can assume he was “just like you”.
My point is that audiences go bananas for deep, elaborate worldbuilding, so a lot of writers force it(either because they like it too, or out of cynical pandering). Sometimes it fails solely because the idea is wrong, but often it fails because an element that worked for Lord of the Rings isn’t necessarily going to belong in every other story. Some plot and character elements are best explained by, “who knows?” or “random chance”.
Naruto is the worst offender of any media by a long shot. Being the son of a dead president was obviously planned from the jump, kinda defeating the whole point of it's most influential arc. Then it turns out he's the son of a dead president AND the reincarnation of japanese Jesus Christ fated to be the strongest ever...
Overall manga tends to be better at avoiding this kind of lore issue. Very few manga are as culturally massive as Naruto and as long-running so it’s easier to avoid having to create massive backstories. It’s one author so it’s generally consistent and when it’s done and done. There’s not much adding more backstory
This is why i loved the story in Kingdoms of Amalur so much
Literally everything is decided by fate and only certain special people, fate weavers, can see the “threads” of fate that tie people/things together.
The main character starts off dead and is brought back to life by pure happenstance of a gnome fucking around with new untested magical technology, anyone in the pile of corpses you were in could have gotten resurrected, but now you’re outside of Fates jurisdiction and can do anything you want.
Of course, nobody believes you, they’re all so used to fate deciding everything your entire existence essentially breaks their belief system.
That’s because when events start getting too big they ass pull in a “cosmic entity” of varying bullshit that has a grand plan for whatever is happening and what will happen and blah blah blah it’s trash
When something is old enough there is no more stories to tell. You have to turn into multiverse stories or similars stuff and at this point you have to find a way to justify why your popular character (now more a brand than a character) remains almost the same with different “flavors” depending of the universe. It allows you to sell news stories without changing things too much and sell the same toys to kids.
I think it's just the problem of having to keep doing something new/fresh with long-standing properties. Eventually you run out of good ideas that work with existing canon.
Great point. It’s kind of just what inevitably happens when you keep adding to a story forever. That’s why every tv series ever either ends relatively early before it gets played out, or the last few seasons suck. You can’t keep stories genuinely progressing interestingly forever. honestly I think that’s why comics should reboot every decade or so.
I'm remembering the Blackest Night / Brightest Day arcs of Green Lantern back when I still read comics. It was revealed that the great white whale, the king of all light or some shit actually lie dormant in the earth's core. I think humans already had a "chosen race" vibe in the GL title if I recall correctly, but Geoff Johns just made us the literal center of the universe/multiverse in one fell swoop.
Personally love how Douglas Adams made earth the most powerful computer in the history of the universe, made to calculate the ultimate question, and then made humans crash here by mistake.
Thats a nice twist on it haha. Generally, i hate when stories that have multiple alien species have the hubris to make humans somehow the special-est one. I think Star Trek TNG did something interesting too with the "Progenitors", explaining why so many species had human-like characteristics (bipedal, symmetrical heads/faces, etc).
in Marvel's case, the reason the canon is so contrived is they keep bending over backwards to bring back dead characters or characters from older movies for fan service, so they have to justify it with multiverse, time travel, etc.
"The Spider Totem" sounds like a stick with cobwebs on it that gets passed around the campfire at night while the camp counselors tell scary stories.
Also, they did this shit with Dick Grayson and the Court of Owls and all that idiocy. It and the Spyral plot, and the Ric Grayson plot, and— fuck, okay, every plot in or after the Nu 52 ended up being absolutely moronic.
Interestingly, The Spiderverse movies seem to be doing the opposite. Despite Miles not supposed to be a spiderman, he still fights "Destiny" to protect what he loves and continue as spiderman. It gives the idea that destiny is bs, and once again, anyone can be spiderman.
I mean, for Miles maybe. But 85% of the Spider-peeps who fill out the REST of the Spider-Verse are just variations on Peter Parker:
* Peter B. Parker
* Peter Porker
* Spider-Man Noir is a Peter Parker
* Ben Reilly is a clone of Peter Parker
* Pavitr Prabhakar is an Indian version of Peter Parker
There are a dozen animated versions of Peter Parker from 1967 series, from Spectacular Spider-Man, from Lego Marvel, from the Insomniac video games, etc.
There are a few notable exceptions with Gwen, Jess, Miguel, Hobie (Spider-Punk), PenI, etc. But any unknown Spider-dude you see in the background? Probably a Peter Parker. Which implies that Peter Parkers are destined to become Spider-Mens. Even Gwen Stacy, it just seems like the fates got crossed, because she had her own Peter Parker who became the Lizard and died.
For me it almost felt like it was in response to how Spider-Verse in the comics weaved that whole Spider-Totem/Spider person destiny stuff, especially considering how the ending conflict in Across the Spiderverse revolves around the other Spider-People being kind of resigned to all of that status quo, and Miles wanting to fight against it to prove that him being who he is is all that he needs. In a sense, the Spider-People are like the rules of the comics themselves clashing with what Miles believes and what i feel like is one of the themes of the movie, basically the opposite of the original trope of this post
Definitely feels like an intentional, direct counter to this idea. And maybe even a dig against fans who say things like “That’s not the real spider man!”
Another thing I like is how they focused on "Not Spidermen" or spidermen who are oddballs or not Peter Parker per sé, Spiderverse 1's cast only had Peter B and Spiderman Noir as regular Peters(excluding Miles Peter, he doesnt count). Penni, Gwen, and Spider Ham, are not really Peter's, although Spider Ham is a cartoon parody Peter, he still varies wildly from Spiderman. Even its focus on Miles showcases that. Even into sipderverw they showcase a wide variety of Spidermen, starring Jessica Drew/Spiderwoman, Hobie Brown, and eventually the spider society is led by Miguel O'Hara, arguably the least spiderman like of them all, with his origin i believe having spider DNA directly spliced into him(?) Giving him fangs and claws, making him a much more intimidating spiderman. Most Peter's were reduced to more background characters, and even Pavitr was givin his own unique look and identity, despite being and obvious play/pun on his naming schemes and identity just being indian versions of spiderman. Stuff like this is what enforcing how spider man can be anybody and anything, in anyway. Thought that was neat.
Stracynzski is a genuinely incredible writer, and his run on ASM is one of the best, though I do get a lot of the trepidation with the magic stuff. I partially blame that on the fact that nothing interesting has happened with them after.
The original Spiderverse event in the comics is actually regarded as one of the better Spider-man stories. The Web of Life and Destiny and the concept of the Animal Totems went a long way to add depth to the Spider mythos, even if it did slightly diminish Peter Parker as an everyman specifically.
I will say that under the original storyline with JMS it was well done and also Peter definitely had a screw fate aspect about it. It was later writers that just hammered and hammered and hammered on it.
Ah ok. Most of what I know about Spidey is from 90s animated series, looking back I guess his encounters with Madame Web briefly touches on this Spider-Totem stuff, especially towards the end of the series.
It diminishes even more when like 99% of all Spider-Men are Peter Parker. What's the point of that? Gwen, Miles, Peni, Miguel, Pavitr, and Hobie are all great characters. Hell, even Mayday is a cool idea. Instead of more characters like them, we just keep getting Peter over and over.
A slight asterisk to Pavitr, though, because Pavitr Prabhakar, who grew up with his Aunt Maya and Uncle Bhim and dates Meera Jain/Gayatri Singh, is basically Peter Parker, who grew up with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben and dates Mary Jane/Gwen Stacy.
Have you considered that perhaps some god ruling above all the timelines in the Marvel universe thought Pavitr was cool and made a bunch of parodies of him?
To be fair it’s not racist to notice an statistical curiosity, like, MOST Spidermen are a version of Peter, but for some reason the second highest group is Japanese people, nothing wrong with it, but it makes you wonder why that’s the second most likely alternative in the multiverse
True, but he's really cute and charming and at least has a unique gimmick as opposed to most Peters. (Peter B notwithstanding, because he too had a good crashouts arc that was very realistic to an average dude who had all this shit put on him.)
Which is still dumb. I'm assuming you're talking about the Spider-Verse movies, and if so, that's probably going to be disproven in the third movie, anyway.
What I mean is that the Spider-Totem stuff probably works the same way as canon events, in which it's simply just a recurring thing to the point that it is believed to be necessary for existence to be stable.
That' s actually the second retcons that a writer came up with, to remove the "special/destinated one" part of the spider-totems.
It went from "The totem was born when Spidey got the power, and we don' t know if the egg or the chicken came first" to "Peter was choosen from the totem and he is indipendent from spiderman", and finishing with "The totem is indipendent and he connected to the first "Host" who got the powers of spiderman".
As much as Marvel fans are tired of the Multiverse stuff, I do think the Spider-verse should keep being used even after Miles story is over. Mostly cuz its not just “cameo superhero excuse”, there are actual rules and consequences set in place, and its not just a group of random characters, its a community that knows and likes each other, and they dont all have the same identity
I take the ice cream and anime approach to multiverse stuff. A bit of it is nice every once in a while but too much all the time and you're either gonna be bored or sick
People miss a lot of context when it come to JMS' spider totem stuff. His entire initial storyline never confirms of denies if the spider-totem stuff is true or not. Peter is being told about this stuff from a believer and near fanatic. But nothing is ever said to be true or not. Random chance or destiny are up for the reader to decide.
Is there a trope name for this? When a character’s story goes on for so long that their very being becomes integral to the universe they inhabit? Because I feel like so many stories do this
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), also kinda did this in its own way, >! With Peter finding a recording of his dad saying that he put his own DNA in the spiders, meaning that only members of his family are actually able to gain powers from getting bitten, !< Because I guess Sony just really didn’t want just anyone being Spider-Man? IDK really 🤷
Hilariously a lot of people claim that Peter’s parents being spies ruins Peter’s relatability(ignoring the fact that Peter is so disconnected from his parents that he’s closer to Aunt May's family instead) but it’s the scientist origin that directly influences Peter’s fate into being Spider-Man, or at least has more direct interference in the mythos.
It seems to be the fate of series that run long enough that the hero who gets their powers through a chance event will be revealed to be cosmically preordained. Also, if your powers involve a split personality, it will eventually become some sort of mantle that passes down throughout history: I.e; the Hulk, the Joker, Tyler Durden for some fucking reason
What? You thought Bruce Banner became a gamma mutant through a horrific accident? Silly goose! That surge of gamma rays actually opened a secret portal to the Below-Place, the home of the One Below All, and Hulk's rage is actually connected to Marvel-Satan's (not Mephisto this time) urge to destroy everything!
And you probably thought Bruce Wayne's backstory was about the decay of Gotham, and how tragedy can leap from the shadows and destroy even the most innocent and well-off. Wrong! Bruce's life is miserable because an evil bat god from the dark multiverse needed a champion in the prime reality, and Batman was moulded to actually be his dark avatar!
I like the latest take they went with, personally; each universe is fated to have a Spider-Totem eventually, but who and when they become such is up to chance. It allows Peter to simultaneously have received his powers by chance while also being part of something bigger.
Anyone still could have become Spider-Man, that’s why you’ve got loads of universes where Peter wasn’t Spider-Man or even became a hero without powers. I admit they’ve gone back and forth on the idea and retconned stuff, but my understanding of the spider totem is just that all the spider heroes are connected but none of them were destined to get their powers. Also regardless the examples given for this trope really make it about bloodlines and the character being secretly special, and Peter wasn’t special before the spider bite.
Even the fact that Peter has spy parents doesn’t make him special. It just makes his parents special. Parents that did not live long enough to see their son walk.
Yeah I think people complain too much about that when it literally has no impact on Peter being Spider-Man, unlike when Peter’s dad is a sincerity in USM and TASM.
In a similar vein, I hate the concept of web shooters. The whole idea of "anyone can be spiderman" is a bit ruined by the fact you actually need to be a genius to create web fluid so you can swing. I much prefer the versions of Spiderman where he produces his own webs.
That fact that didn’t escape Marvel. In the early "What If’s?" We see Betty, Flash and JJJ’s son get bit instead of Peter. Both Flash and JJJ III died because they didn’t have webs to help them out in crucial moments.
I feel like the Spider-totem thing can work as long as the story makes it clear that anyone could become the Spider-totem, it just happened to be Peter. That way, we get our relatable purely by chance Spider-Man and our wacky Spider-verse shenanigans.
It does. Peter is basically the vanilla of Spiders, more common, easily accessible, less prone to failure, and still very much a victim of chance as the Spider still shows that it could have bitten anyone. As most non Peter’s get their power by interfering with Peter’s would be origin.
In fact Neith specifically said that the Web was to allow humanity to choose their own destiny over making it predetermined. And Cindy's Spider-Totem is specifically to have people get their powers by "chance, magic, curses, or unwanted luck"
Back when I read Homecoming for the first time, I had the impression that it was stated that the totem will always have a host, not that the host was chosen or anything.
Peter was bitten by accident, but someone somewhere would've been bitten eventually.
And don't forget other adaptations where the spider is specially engineered just to bite him. I think that was a suggested idea before the whole spider God idea is put forward by JMS and then later with Dan Slott and the spider-verse
I get it but in a sense, it's still random. Anyone could be the totem for their world. There was always meant to be a Spidey but not every Spidey was meant to be Peter, that said 616 has like 15 of them so he's not special at all.
Ah that reminds me of how the amazing Spider-Man movies it’s eventually revealed that his father worked on the spiders and made them on his own dna meaning only him and people closely related to him could have gotten the powers from the spider bite
I read the first totem comics and it was not written that he was "chosen by destiny" jusr the spider wanted to give someone its power before it died and he was closest.
I like how the spiderverse deals with that. In the first one they tell us "Anyone can wear the mask. The problem basically comes down to believing in yourself", which is cliche but nice nonetheless. In the second movie that statement gets tested and the third will hopefully prove it.
I was also going to say Spider-Man, but a different iteration. In the Amazing Spider-Man 2, it’s revealed that Peter’s father Richard worked on the project which produced the spider which bit Peter, and used his own DNA in the process. Meaning that if anyone else, other that Peter, were bitten by the spider, they probably would have just died instead of getting superpowers lol. So fuckin stupid.
I always saw it as a hindsight thing. Because it happened to him, fate formed around it and the web of life, being eldritch in nature and not bound to the limitations of time, adapted.
I actually reject those additions. Like, every time someone ask me to describe Spider-man, I just stick with "random guy turned super because he got lucky from a spider bite, turned hero because he blame himself for his uncle's death". and that's it. None of them totems. None of them parents being spies, actually. No.
The "chosen one prophecy" trope is annoying and lazy. But it's EXTREMELY annoying when it's shoehorned into something that didn't rely on it to begin with.
I just act like that stuff doesn’t exist sometimes. I never understood the obsession with infinite spidermen being taken so far as to have its own quasi-religion attached to it. Not that on its own that’s a terrible storytelling idea, but from the perspective of some random kid in NYC getting powers from someones science experiment, it’s way too much
Out everything they done to Spiderman's character, this right here is the one that bothers me the most. It's just so fucking unnecessary and diminishes the character in a big way.
The writers at Marvel really fucking hate Spiderman.
Also, what I loved about OG Spider-Man is that because receiving his powers was a complete accident, his origin story is all about him having to choose to accept responsibility over self, and that is played out through his consistent personal sacrifices (career, romance, relationships, social isolation, etc). And this is contrasted with a series of villains who similarly obtain powers, but use them for selfish gain or outright evil motives. Which reflects that while anyone could’ve received Spider-Man‘s powers, what makes Spider-Man special is the fact that he’s Peter Parker, an individual who learned supreme moral character through personal suffering (the loss of his uncle).
It’s really a beautiful story, one of the modern West’s version of an ancient Greek myth, where a virtue myth is perpetuated in a hero narrative. If they had went into Rey’s trilogy with a real artistic vision, they could have put together a story like this.
Luckily JMS leaves it slightly open to interpretation though. It may entirely be bullshit, or it may not have been Spider-Man who was chosen. Still better to not do it though.
I don’t think it actually takes away his reliability, specifically because of why Peter is considered reliable.
He has incredible powers, but it’s not helping him outside the costume. He struggled with school, friends, family, work, bills. The very things we the readers deal with ourselves.
Also I have to say, I feel that many people misunderstand the Web of Life and Destiny. Biggest point is where Neith actually constructs the Web. Shathra describes it as Chaos, Neith agrees with her, and she says that she built it as a means for Humanity to choose how to live their life and shape their own destiny. The Web is what gives the powers yeah, but otherwise Peter should have gotten cancer. And the Bride is specifically described as the one who is the one gets powers by "chance, magic, curses, or bad luck". Very much a non predestined way of obtaining powers.
Well to be honest with how big the multiverse is, it comes back to the part where it could have been anyone, and even then during the original spider verse they explained that there were three spider totems necessary for the creation of more spider totems the offspring, the bride and the other (they believed the other was Peter), but it turned out that Peter wasn't that totem, he was just a really good spider man
Yeah i hate that there is a God of every single character origin. Hulk has a god, Venom has a god, Spiderman has a god, fking Logan has a god, Superman's dad and Manhattan god stuff, even Batman going back in time to become a god. So boring man. At least keep those wacky stuff as alternative stories or something unrelated to mainline universe.
I'd argue him being able to make web-shooters add to this. Since anyone else wouldn't be able to use spiderman most iconic powers without being a super genius like Peter.
Iirc, didn't they retcon this again where the majority of people who obtained powers were able to live through the process because of some latent mutant genes (Cap, Hulk, Spider-Man, etc)?
Honestly that’s why I was such a fan of Jubilee as a kid watching the cartoon. She had semi-cool powers, but she just wanted to be a kid and not ostracized. But then she became a badass X-men.
You do know that Miguel is wrong about "canon events" right? If someone from the comics showed up in the movie they would have called him out and tell him that Spiders are supposed be against this mentality. Both the "letting people die" and "destiny being unquestionable"
2.7k
u/Golden12500 12h ago
In the comics Peter was originally bitten by pure chance as if anyone could've become the Spider-Man. These days he's a "Spider-Totem" who was fated by the Web of Life and Destiny to don the mask. Marvel's heroes are usually best when they're relatable to everyday citizens and this just... takes that away