Peter Parker
is a man ho! Some people might call that statement outrageous, but if you look
at his track record you can see two very important things. One, he has no clue
when it comes to women. Secondly and the most important, he has done untold
damage to the sex lives of geeks for over 35 years. Hey don't give me that
shocked look. I know from which I speak. I was once one of those geeks. Sure,
when you read a comic and see him juggling hot blondes and redheads like
nobody's business, you can't help but think that this guy has it going on.
Forget about the whole superpowers thing. Who wants the proportionate strength
of a spider, be able to stick to walls, and shoot webs out of your wrists?
Let's not even go into what that stuff really looks like. What we need to do is
see if old Pete's palms are hairy like a spider's. That's what we need to be
doing. Seriously!
But, I digress
into the realm of a Kevin Smith movie. I'm here to talk about Peter's love
life. Let's go back to the very
beginning. Peter Parker was a nerd. That's the only way to describe it. Nothing
wrong with that. All of my friends started off in the throws of nerdom. Then,
bam! He get's super powers and everything changes. If we can trust Tobey
McGuire, he also gets six pack abs. I believe those were CGIed, in case you
were wondering. That's when the problems with this story really begin.
Instead of Unc
Ben telling Peter with great power comes great responsibility, he should have
told him that he needed to keep it in his pants. So where does all this man
hoing start. If we trace it back to his high school days, we have to say it
began with Liz Allen, his high school crush. Sure, it really didn't lead
anywhere, but she was just a practice run for him. An aside, Liz would go on to
marry Harry Osborn, Peter's best friend and just would justso happen to go on
to become the second Green Goblin. From there he would have flirty run-ins with
Betty Bryant, J. Jonah Jameson's secretary at the Daily Bugle. Being a bit
older than our teenage photographer, Betty didn't succumb to his spidery ways but
she did dip in the well a couple of times. Once she came to her senses, she
married Ned Leeds, who goes on to become Hobgoblin. That's two ladies in the Parker harem. Anyone
find it strange that one taste of spider-love makes them go running into the
arms of super villains? I'm not saying he's a menace, but J. Jonah might be on
the right track.
They were just
a couple minor setbacks on his rollercoaster of love. One fateful day, his life
would be irrevocably changed. Face it, tigers. He hit the jackpot. Well, as
close as he could come in the form of Mary Jane Watson. I'm a bit partial to
redheads as a result of this one. She presented the perfect foil to Peter. Ms.
Watson saw through the façade. For one thing, she was smart enough to realize
he was Spider-man, while everyone else wondered where Peter got off to every
time Spidey showed up. Come on, people. Buy a clue. She was also able to resist
the Parker charm for close to 200 issues of continuity. If she had gone on to
give in to his nerdish advances way back around issue 42 the rest of this
rambling missive might not have clogged up your mental passages.
Another result
of Mary Jane playing hard to get was Gwen Stacy. If anyone knows anything about
comics you know what happens. If you don't, stay tuned for more exciting
revelations! Gwen might be considered Peter's first true love. The love of his
life. But, really aren't all first loves the love of your life? For awhile, the
women of New York
were safe from this shameless lothario. Love swept him up in its embrace and
with all the tenderness of a Greek tragedy ran him over like a freight train
with only one casualty. The one thing Peter had always feared came true. One of
his arch villains took the life of someone he cared for. Issues 121-122 of The
Amazing Spider-man, the Green Goblin, after remembering Spider-man's secret
identity goes after Gwen to prove to Peter that no one is untouchable. Faced
with the choice of saving Gwen or a bunch of kids, he tries to do both. Unlike
the movie, the comic Spidey wasn't up to the challenge.
How does he
deal with his loss? For twenty issues or so, he locks his heart away. For non
comic readers twenty issues or so equals three weeks in real time. Real time?
I'm a comic geek, so real time applies. Then he was off chasing anything with a
ponytail and silk underwear. College gave him the perfect opportunity to search
out his next victims. Deb Whitman, another go with the married Betty, a couple
run-ins with MJ, and I refuse to go into the new continuum started because of
Marvel feeling the need to rewrite his past.
Okay, this is
the point we reach Peter's second love, unless you count MJ, who hung around
through all this. Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, appears first as a villain then
as a love interest who keeps him on his toes for a nice long time. There's a
lot of does she, will she, but the break up finally happens because sweet
little Peter Parker can't take the fact that she loves Spidey more than him.
Well, duh! Who wouldn't? This of course results in another chorus of poor
unfortunates skipping through his web of love.
Finally, Peter
convinces Mary Jane that he is her one true love. She already knew this of
course but her common sense had saved her up until this point. In Annual 21,
the deed was done, and Mr. and Mrs. Peter Parker were born. If this had been a
novel of the romance variety, we could have inserted a tidy happily ever after
in at this point, but comics like soap operas seldom give you what you want.
Instead we ended up with almost twenty years of angst, super villain attacks
and a costume becoming a super villain, not to mention clones out the ying
yang. It's enough to make ya stop reading comics, which I did. Well, not comics
but Spider-man, so I avoided the whole clone thing, even though it keeps
popping back up. Whether I want it to or not.
Now, I
promised not to mention the continuum thing but let's touch on it briefly. Aunt
May is dying because Peter revealed his secret identity to the world. To save
her life Mary Jane trades her and Pete's love to the devil for a do over. Now,
none of the above stuff ever happened, and he's free to sleaze his way through
the Marvel Universe all over again. Shesh. And, you think romance novels have
got the market cornered on angst and tragic happily ever afters.
What's the
point of all this? Besides Peter Parker is a man whore? Partly. Mainly, it's
that comics and romance novels have a lot in common. Both throw a hero and
heroine into impossible situations that naturally bring them closer together in
such a way that the reader can't help but stick around to the bitter end. With
comics, it just takes a little longer. Now, I have to go. The new Spider-man
just came in, and Morbius, the living vampire, the Lizard and Peter Parker have
all planned dates with Carly, the hot CSI detective. I can't wait to see how
Pete is going to wow her by taking her to Burger King before swinging away
without paying.
Join me next
week, as I examine more comic connections to romance with a little story I like
to call, So, how do they fit all that in that little spandex? It'll be at my shared blog The Writer Limits
so make sure to stay tuned to that same Bat channel.
Posts
