goddd i just want spider-man’s identity to be his own worst but new york city’s best kept secret. like i want him unthinkingly taking off his mask and like 20 people see, but if you ask them if they did? no they didn’t.
the rule is unwritten, but very enforced. like, there are online communities dedicated to erasing any trace of the spread of his identity. a tourist takes a photo of him and posts it online? it’s gone in minutes, and people send DMs to the poster anywhere from “hey, i’m sure you were just excited, but….” to “ill kill u if i evr c you, fuckin bitch”.
any information on spider-man is only spread via word of mouth, and only spoken in hushed, awed voices. after several years of spider-man, everyone knows someone who encountered him:
“he saved my cousin. caught a falling billboard from underneath with his bare hands…”
“wow… i’ve never seen him myself, but he talked to my coworker’s daughter for an hour after he stopped a guy from getting a little too handsy. apparently, his smile is ‘dreamy’.”
these secrets are freely given if you’re kind, trustworthy, and show respect for the little guy. but the moment you demand information on him… “i don’t know what you’re talking about, buddy. he’s just an urban legend the news likes to blame the city’s problems on so we don’t unionize or worse”
so as many times as spider-man ends up with out a mask, or accidentally introduces himself with a name that starts with 'p’ and rhymes with 'meter’… on the record, they don’t know a thing. because he does his best to help as many people as he can, so it’s only fair if they help him a little in return.
Every time I see a beautiful post about how Spidey collectively brings out the best I have to imagine the inverse of Venom just idiot disastering his way to the same result. His identity is so openly known that no one cares. Villains roll into to town prepared to “ruin his life” and just stop inside his apartment, looking around in horror, before turning to leave “I can’t do anything worse to this guy than life already did.”
“Venom saved everyone on the bus when it nearly went off a bridge, but he hung around for an hour caging spare change. He’s just going to buy tater tots.”
“My store was almost robbed but that weirdo ate the robber and now once a month he steals all the barbecue pork rinds.”
Someone comes into try and take Venom into jail but gets nowhere not because everyone is protecting him but because everyone just doesn’t want to know where he is. “Eddie? Ugh, I don’t know. I try to avoid him at every possible moment. Why don’t you fire up the tater tot signal that oughta bring them.”
It occurs to me that Maximum Carnage could’ve been a much better story if Spidey had been a parent and if the story had made family it’s central theme.
Consider that the story already contains 3 distinct and broken/dysfunctional family units.
The Osborns: Harry’s madness and consequent death traumatized his wife and child.
Venom and Carnage: As Mike Costa, Donny Cates and others have pointed out, Brock and his symbiote are functionally a romantic relationship, through that lens Carnage is their child and there is a mutual disdain between them. Appropriately given Brock’s moniker, they are a toxic family dynamic.
Team Carnage: Carnage and Shriek form a twisted couple and act as ‘parents’ to Doppelganger, Carrion and arguably Demogoblin (I guess you could call him an ‘uncle’). Collectively they form a warped parody of the traditional American nuclear family (and likely an attempt to evoke the Manson Family).
Of course Carnage and Shriek can be abusive to one another and Carnage eventually kills Doppelganger.Of course another element in this story was Peter’s parents. Whilst they were later revealed as imposters as originally written in Maximum Carnage they were the bona fide articles.
By making Peter a father and tweaking the role his parents play Spidey becomes a potential reflection of the above three families.
If you emphasized the distance and differing ideologies between his parents and himself he becomes a reflection of Carnage and his relationship with Venom and Brock.
He is already something of a reflection of Normie because like him he lost a father at a young age, whether you are talking about Richard or Ben.
If you made him a father then in being Spidey he runs the risk of subjecting MJ and their child to pain and loss just as Harry did to Liz and Normie. A different kind of pain and loss sure, but pain and loss all the same.
And by being a father the Parker family, whilst far from perfect, stands in opposition to Team Carnage’s perverse parody of the ‘all-American nuclear family’. The tension then coming from Peter’s act of being Spidey to fight Carnage risks tearing his family apart. But the story would obviously demonstrate their family as strong enough to weather the storm.
I’m not saying this would fix all the problems with the story automatically. But I see the seeds of what could’ve been if you removed unnecessary stuff, added in this one element and placed the focus in a different place.
![[evil laughter]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/dbefabf835325e5721d9834aaccd9228/aa91561d492703d7-d9/s30x30u_c1/7af7e5e1d8471fccfcdd5342d2ba4247fb88c3a3.png){kind=small}
