Spider-Man Grows Up

Giving Spider-Man a new look in and around Secret Wars was a sensational move. His costume had barely changed since its introduction. And why would it? Steve Ditko’s design was already unique and eye-catching on the cover of the character’s first appearance. But a costume change would be big news: after two decades, Spider-Man would have a new outfit.

At first, the question of Spider-Man’s costume was quite literally superficial. The black costume was cool and convenient, but it wasn’t reflective of any serious internal change on Peter Parker’s part. Far from it: his costume was damaged on Battleworld, and a machine provided him with a new one that happened to be black. This was not Storm of the X-Men cutting her luxurious hair into a mohawk and dressing in tight leather; no one seemed particularly worried that he might be on his way to becoming Dark Spider-Man. Only when the costume literally seemed to have a life of its own was Peter obliged to fight and defeat a glorified unitard. 

Yet the black costume ended up playing a significant role in Spider-Man’s Eighties renaissance.  The issue where he defeats the costume is also the one that follows up on a huge cliffhanger: ex-girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, who had only recently returned to the Spider-Man titles,  reveals that she has always known Peter was Spider-Man.  Over the next few years, the ongoing development of Spider-Man’s image (the costume, Venom, the non-symbiote version of the costume after that, and Todd McFarlane’s stunning reinterpretation of the Spider-Man’s classic uniform) was paralleled by major steps forwards in Peter Parker’s character.  In the hands of up-and-coming writer Peter David, he confronts the senseless death of a longtime ally.  In the main title, he rekindles his romance with Mary Jane, whose backstory and connection to Spider-Man are nicely fleshed out in a graphic novel called Parallel Lives. He marries Mary Jane, only to suffer intense trauma almost immediately after the wedding (complete with a near-death experience that forces him to dig his way out of his own grave). [1]  And, finally, as he and Mary Jane build a life together, his spurned symbiote suit finds a new host named Eddie Brock. Together, they become Venom. 

Spider-Man’s marriage would later become a bone of contention at Marvel; under the Jemas/Quesada regime that brought new life to the company in the early 2000s, the consensus was that it made him too old and limited the avenues for storytelling.  Did readers really want to see Spider-Man as a husband and, heaven forbid, a father?  In typical superhero comics fashion, Marvel would eventually get to have it all ways at once:  a pregnancy storyline in the 1990s ended in what Mary Jane was told was a miscarriage, but actually a kidnapping. This plotline was (thankfully) left undeveloped, but an ongoing alternate universe comic called Spider-Girl told the story of their teenage daughter and her harried, middle-aged Spider-parents. The marriage itself would be undone in 2007 in a much maligned story about Peter making a deal with the devil to save his Aunt May’s life; now the marriage never happened. 

Good thing no one has ever had second thoughts about a wedding

The wedding was a large-scale media event that took place simultaneously in the Spider-Man comic and the Spider-Man newspaper strip (which had its own continuity), as well as in a live performance in front of thousands of Mets fans in Shea Stadium, officiated by none other than Stan Lee himself. But Peter’s rekindled relationship with Mary Jane was also a chance to expand the book’s emotional core. Their courtship and marriage worked by deepening the character of Mary Jane, who was introduced by Stan Lee and John Romita in the 1960s as a carefree party girl (complete with cringey “hip” dialogue).  In Amazing Spider-Man 259, Tom De Falco, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein reintroduce the reader to Mary Jane, and give Peter the first real glimpse of her inner life:

Mary Jane: Relax, Peter! … I'm not the space cadet I appear to be…

It’s funny. We’ve known each other for a long time…

…but we don’t really know each other.

We’re supposed to be friends, but we never really open up to each other. We don’t share…

We’re a great pair, aren’t we?

Peter: I guess I never looked at it that way. 

Mary Jane: Friendship carries some pretty big responsibilities, but we’ve just been coasting along.

Mary Jane is talking about herself and Peter, but she could just as well be talking about their characterization at the hands of their writers over the previous two decades. Most of the issue is devoted to their conversation, with Mary Jane revealing a previously-undisclosed family history of abuse and dysfunction that led her to create her carefree party girl persona. But it also advances an ongoing plotline about the mysterious Hobgoblin, as well as the event featured on the issue’s cover: the return of Spider-Man’s original costume. It is unlikely that all this came together as part of careful thematic planning; DeFalco had only taken over the book from Roger Stern seven months earlier (with issue 252), and the question of the Hobgoblin’s true identity was a mess subsequently made even more complicated by James Owsley’s ascension to Spider-Man editor. [2]  Yet it works beautifully as an introduction to the themes that would dominate the Spider-Man books for the rest of the decade: inner lives behind (real and figurative) masks and the psychological toll of balancing multiple identities. 

The Hobgoblin was the latest iteration of the Goblin as Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis. The first two versions, both called The Green Goblin, were effective as an assault on both of Spider-Man’s identities.  The original Green Goblin was Norman Osborn, a rich industrialist who was also the father of Peter’s best friend, Harry. This Green Goblin discovers Spider-Man’s secret identity, but conveniently develops amnesia.  His amnesia was more than just a plot device, however: it also highlighted the tenuous balance between ordinary life and a masked persona, a balance that involves tethering on the edge of insanity. Norman’s two subsequent return engagements as the Green Goblin were threats to the very foundation of the Spider-Man mythos, since he could reveal Peter’s secret identity at any time.   Peter was also hampered by concern for the man who was Harry’s father (even as Harry was succumbing to drug addiction during the Goblin’s first return).  Norman’s murder of Gwen Stacey was a turning point for Marvel, if not the entire industry:  before then, heroes’ girlfriends were perennial damsels in distress who never suffered real harm. [3]  After Norman dies, his son Harry becomes the next Green Goblin, inaugurating a new phase of secret-identity related torment for Peter (he, too, forgets the truth about Peter between bouts of psychosis).  

With the Hobgoblin, the instability of dual identities multiplies.  Not only is the man behind the mask an ongoing mystery, but he also ends up, once again, impinging on Peter’s private life (Ned Leeds, one of the men who was the Hobgoblin, was Peter’s friend). Moreover, the Hobgoblin plotline unfolds at roughly the same time that Peter is repeatedly changing heroic outfits  (and even fighting with one of his former costumes).  To the extent that there is anything coherent about a franchise spread out over multiple books, multiple creative teams, and multiple editors, Spider-Man in the 1980s, it is the parallel drama of Spider-Man’s appearance (regular costume, symbiote, other black costume, McFarlane’s version), villains who affect and reflect Peter’s private life (Hobgoblin, Kraven, Venom), the exploration of Peter’s and MJ’s inner lives, and the twists and turns of their careers (Peter goes from photographer to graduate student, while MJ becomes a glamorous supermodel).  Nearly all of this is united by the preoccupation between surface appearance and interiority. 

Mary Jane’s revelations about her difficult life and her knowledge of Peter’s secret identity perform a reset of the characters, if not the franchise itself: Peter returns to his old costume, he and Mary Jane embark on a new relationship as best friends (before eventually becoming lovers again), and the Spider-Man books will now engage in repeated explorations of Spider-Man’s identity, sometimes refracted through his supporting cast and enemies.  

When Peter was put in the odd position of fighting his own (black) costume, he was also wrestling with the question of continuity and change. The costume’s return as Venom (in Amazing Spider-Man 298) was part of an overall visual revamp: not only has the black costume never looked more menacing (as Venom, it has huge fangs and an improbably long tongue), but McFarland’s reinterpretation of Peter’s classic costume doubles down on its defining elements while giving it a more modern feel (the ropey webbing).  Mary Jane gets an even more radical makeover: gone is her 60s-style perfectly straight, shoulder-length hair. Now she has a a huge head of luxurious Eighties hair and a curvacious body that is always on display.  The glamour is at odds with her previous depiction, while her body type is less that of a model (her new career) than a men's magazine pin-up.  It's a good thing that both she and Peter have maintained their friendships from high school, because nether of them would be recognizable at a reunion.

The Eighties represented a simultaneous deepening and fragmentation of Spider-Man.  The deepening resulted from the greater exploration of Peter's and Mary Jane's characters, while the fragmentation presaged the uncontrolled growth of Spider-Man as a franchise. First, there was the unexpected popularity of Venom (himself a variation on Spider-Man), then the proliferation of Spider-Man titles in the 1990s, not to mention actual clones of Spider-Man dominating the narrative for several years in the middle of the decade.

Next: New Faces, Old Masks

Notes 

[1] This is a reference to "Kraven's Last Hunt/Fearful Symmetry," which is discussed in the chapter on J. M. DeMatteis.

[2] Stern had planned to reveal that the Hobgoblin was either Roderick Kingsley and his twin brother Daniel (taking turns); DeFalco wanted him to be the Kingpin’s son, Richard Fisk, and told Owsley that the Hobgoblin was Ned Leeds. When. Owsley (who is now better known as Christopher Priest) killed off Leeds in another comic, he told writer Peter David to reveal that the Hobgoblin was another villain called the Foreigner. Eventually, Leeds was retconned to have been the Hobgoblin all along, with Jason Macendale (Jack O’Lantern) taking up the identity after Leeds’ death. Subsequent retcons would complicate things even further. 

[3] In the aftermath of Gwen’s death, the murder of a hero’s love interest became such a cliche that it got its own slang term, “fridging,” from the gruesome death of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner’s Girlfriend in a refrigerator in 1994.