Status Quo: The existing state of affairs. How often do we hear in real life or in fiction the words “Maintaining the Status Quo”? In fiction we see this as the way to keep a series the way it is, whether it’s video games, comics, movies, cartoons, etc. I’ve seen this used in many comics and cartoons, especially episodic adventure cartoons, where no matter how wacky hi jinks the characters get into, they will find a solution that ends up maintaining the status quo, no matter how stupid it is. While nowadays we have shows that have more progressive storytelling we still get those that are episodic from time to time.
But maintaining the status quo is not always a good thing, and today I want to talk about the most famous superhero that is currently suffering the most from this: The Amazing Spider-Man.
Once upon a time, Peter Parker was a normal teenage boy who got bitten by a radioactive spider, got powers and became Spider-Man, and has gone on to have many adventures in the Marvel universe. As the comics progressed Peter grew up and graduated from college, and eventually got married to Mary Jane Watson. So with that and Peter having all his adventures, one would think Marvel would let their most famous superhero be happy right?
This is where Marvel suddenly went “We will make it our life’s goal to make Peter Parker’s life as miserable as possible!”
Listen, I don’t know what goes on in the heads of the people writing comics or execs at Marvel, but what I do know is that someone decided to “Maintain the Status Quo”, which apparently means to undo all the progress Peter has had for decades. I’m sure most people know what One More Day is by now, but if you don’t then basically the infamous story involves Peter and MJ selling their marriage to the devil, undoing decades of character progression to save Aunt May, who’s very old at this point, and was probably gonna die soon anyway.
You can see why this was a very stupid thing to do, and since then Marvel has done everything possible to not only revert Peter to a man-child, but will go out of their way to ruin Peter’s life and make sure he never gets with MJ. don’t even get me started with the bullshit with fucking Paul and that trainwreck of a self-insert.
So with all of this I just have to ask, why? Why Peter? And why make arguably the most popular comic book superhero of all time suffer so damn much? What’s the freaking point of it all?! The “Status Quo” argument is just a bullshit argument, and we know this because so many other popular characters have grown and not be held back by the status quo.
This whole thing makes less sense when we have other fictional characters progressing and living happy lives. Superman is happily married and has a kid, Batman has his Bat-Family that he’s made, Sailor Moon ends up getting married with a child soon to be born by the end of her manga, for God’s sake, not only is Goku married, he’s a grandfather now! Some of the most famous and iconic superheroes today can progress their lives, but Peter for some bullshit reason can’t?!
Someone at Marvel needs to do something soon, because everyone hates the shit Marvel is putting Peter through for no reason other than to just watch him suffer, especially when he’s treated better in everything that isn’t 616. Because I refuse to have some stupid self insert (Which I find funny because Sailor Moon is a self insert character and she turned out well) be another cog in the Ruin Peter’s Life Machine. Spider-Man is one of the most iconic superheroes in fiction and deserves to have his character and story progress, not be the eternal punching bag for Marvel.
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