Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
Nov. 27th, 2013 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficSo I went into the Felicia Hardy tag recently for research and you can imagine how dismayed I was to find multiple posts about a run-in between the Superior Spider-Man (Doc Ock in Peter's body) and Black Cat. Him not knowing who she is, he punches her in the face so hard she loses a tooth, causing her to swear vengeance. And I get it, they're doing it so when Peter gets his body back, he'll be in trouble with Felicia, drama drama drama. But it brings me to one of my problems with the post-OMD/BND Spider-Man canon, quite separate from the entire Spider-marriage issue.
If you were to ask the writers of Spider-Man what rating they would give to their work, I think they would say it's a hard PG-13... which really means an R, so long as you don't show a woman orgasming. And I see Spider-Man as a PG kinda character. Even more so than Batman, kids love Spider-Man. And up until BND, he really was pitched at this light and fluffy level, 90s aside. Even there, under the dire straits of McFarlene: Venom's one of Spidey's darker rogues and his big threat is to eat Spider-Man's brain; clearly, that's ridiculous. It's as fantastical as the Road Runner dropping a boulder on Wil E. Coyote. It's like the Daleks shooting someone with a death-ray; sure, it kills you, but it's not the same as taking a bullet in the head and your brains flying against the wall.
(And yes, I know Kraven buried Peter alive and such, but those were clearly 'Very Special Episodes', not the rule. Now, the status quo is that Ock is Spider-Man. You can't skip over the grime, it's the main course now.)
Because that Black Cat scene could've accomplished its aims with just Ock webbing Felicia up and turning her into the police; boom, she's out for revenge. And I'm sure people will argue that this would be less "visceral" or "intense" or whatever, but hey--why should Spider-Man be visceral or intense? It'd be more intense in Star Wars if Darth Vader raped Luke's ass instead of cutting off his hand, but I think most people would agree that one's something they would want to see in a Star Wars movie and the other isn't.
There's a level of Geoff Johns grimdark to Spider-Man BND. The Chameleon doesn't just impersonate people to commit crimes, he dips his victims in acid to get rid of their bodies and rapes their loved ones (yes, I know the Spider-books backed off on that, but you have to admit, it was their original intent). The supervillain swapping bodies with the hero is nothing new, it's a classic cartoony fix for Peter to find himself in, but as it's written, there's this sleazy emphasis on sex and rape. It's not just, you know, winking innuendos about how Doc Ock holding "Peter's" dick while urinating might be something he's always wanted to do. It's straight-up saying "look, Doc has Peter's memories of having sex with Mary Jane, AHUCKHYUCKHYUCK!" And that bothers me. It's not just a rejection of the spider-marriage; it's a rejection of the entire ethos of fun and warmth that goes with it.
If you were to ask the writers of Spider-Man what rating they would give to their work, I think they would say it's a hard PG-13... which really means an R, so long as you don't show a woman orgasming. And I see Spider-Man as a PG kinda character. Even more so than Batman, kids love Spider-Man. And up until BND, he really was pitched at this light and fluffy level, 90s aside. Even there, under the dire straits of McFarlene: Venom's one of Spidey's darker rogues and his big threat is to eat Spider-Man's brain; clearly, that's ridiculous. It's as fantastical as the Road Runner dropping a boulder on Wil E. Coyote. It's like the Daleks shooting someone with a death-ray; sure, it kills you, but it's not the same as taking a bullet in the head and your brains flying against the wall.
(And yes, I know Kraven buried Peter alive and such, but those were clearly 'Very Special Episodes', not the rule. Now, the status quo is that Ock is Spider-Man. You can't skip over the grime, it's the main course now.)
Because that Black Cat scene could've accomplished its aims with just Ock webbing Felicia up and turning her into the police; boom, she's out for revenge. And I'm sure people will argue that this would be less "visceral" or "intense" or whatever, but hey--why should Spider-Man be visceral or intense? It'd be more intense in Star Wars if Darth Vader raped Luke's ass instead of cutting off his hand, but I think most people would agree that one's something they would want to see in a Star Wars movie and the other isn't.
There's a level of Geoff Johns grimdark to Spider-Man BND. The Chameleon doesn't just impersonate people to commit crimes, he dips his victims in acid to get rid of their bodies and rapes their loved ones (yes, I know the Spider-books backed off on that, but you have to admit, it was their original intent). The supervillain swapping bodies with the hero is nothing new, it's a classic cartoony fix for Peter to find himself in, but as it's written, there's this sleazy emphasis on sex and rape. It's not just, you know, winking innuendos about how Doc Ock holding "Peter's" dick while urinating might be something he's always wanted to do. It's straight-up saying "look, Doc has Peter's memories of having sex with Mary Jane, AHUCKHYUCKHYUCK!" And that bothers me. It's not just a rejection of the spider-marriage; it's a rejection of the entire ethos of fun and warmth that goes with it.
