Peter Parker: Angry Misanthrope!

[starwolf_oakley]

As discussed on the BATMAN: GHOSTS post, Peter Parker was a friendless outcast in high school and became an angry misanthrope in college. It really wasn't until Steve Ditko left and John Romita Sr took over the SPIDER-MAN art that Peter mellowed out



Some of Peter Parker as a bitter misanthrope makes sense. He stresses out over Aunt May, ignores people who try to get his attention, and they think he is "high hatting" them.

Sometimes it seems like Peter Parker hates himself and the world and everyone in it because... reasons? It isn't even Uncle Ben's death.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #38.







This issue had Spider-Man yelling at protesters. Stan Lee changed it to Spider-Man supporting the protesters.

Comments

[flash_fan]

Honestly Steve was a creative genius but a pretty strange dude with some weird hard on for objectivism. I do miss his influence on the Peter Parker though. Romita drew some of the best Spidey stories ever but I never liked how he buffed Peter up and gave him the movie star good looks. I

[alschroeder3]

Ditto. Or having beauty queens like Gwen and Mary Jane falling all over him. Betty Brant was pretty but not gorgeous, the same way Pete was just normal-looking, not movie-star handsome. Yeah, there's part of me that will always remember the Romita Mary Jane, the "Tiger--you've hit the jackpot!" but that's hormones. Part of me cringed, knowing that Ditko's Peter Parker would get along with Romita's Mary Jane like oil and water.

[starwolf_oakley]

How was it clear Mary Jane was good looking, not just "good looking because she's a young woman in a comic book good looking"? I was just curious.

[flash_fan]

Mary Jane basically has Ann-Margret's face and she dressed in a way that implied she was a 'sexy mod girl/beatnik chick'. A few different supporting characters point out how pretty she is. To the credit of both Ditko and Romita the Spidey characters didn't suffer from same-face the way a lot of modern character's do. You could tell pretty easily who was supposed to be conventially pretty, old, boyish etc