What Sony should do about Peter Parker.

Chances are, even if you avoid comics like the Westbero Baptist Church avoids critical thinking; you're most likely familiar with Spider-Man and his origin story. Geeky kid, radioactive spider, Uncle Ben, with great power come great responsibility, you know the rest. Not only has this origins story been replicated and referenced in media for the past 60 years, but we've had multiple incarnations in Film and television. From the Sam Raimi films, the somewhat disappointing reboot, the now beloved 90s cartoon, the criminally underrated "Spectacular Spider-Man" series, to the current "Ultimate Spider-Man" series. In each of these versions of the web-slinger, audiences have been treated to this same routine for as long as we can remember. Its come to the point where the origin story seems like unnecessary fodder that studios have to crank out before the real story begins.

*aHEM*

That being said, when Sony announced that they would be rebooting Spiderman again, this time making the competent decision of actually collaborating with Marvel like they should have the first time they pulled this routine, many fans were wary to see this origin story played out for us yet again. At this point, it seems like anyone who has some investment with the character is sick to death of Peter Parker, myself included to some degree. Considering we have had two great actors take up the same role and origin story. 

Ehh... Mostly Great.

Regardless, This constant retread of Peter Parker's origin story is becoming more and more a burden to the franchise, because no matter how you make the film or potray Peter Parker, its always going to be compared to the previous incarnations of the character. This problem is compounded even more when you consider that the original and the Amazing Spider-Man films were released withing 10 years of each other. Which begs the question, "If were going to make a new Spider-Man, how do we distance ourselves from the Campy Raimi films and the serious reboot?" My answer is simply take a break from Peter Parker. Look, as great and iconic of a character Peter is, the constant revisiting of the character and his origin story has become exhausting to fans, and even more bothersome to the average non comic book fan.

So if Sony shouldn't use Peter Parker as Spider-Man, where can they go for a new incarnation fo our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? The answer: the Multiverse. For the longest time, comic writers have been open to creating alternate versions of beloved characters, simply by using the idea of comic multiverses in order to tell different stories without messing up any of the established canon to a characters timeline. This has given us a lot of amazing stories and inventive scenarios, with Superman: Red Son, X-men: Days of Future Past, and Kingdom Come being some of the best things done to their respective characters.

Seriously, check these out if you can.

Spider-Man has been no exception to this, and out of these comics, fans have been treated to many beloved incarnations of the web head.

Starting out, There's Miles Morales, who is the current incarnation of Spider-Man in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, in which Miles was a half African-American and half Puerto Rican living in Brooklyn when an escaped Oscorp experiment bites him an gives him all of the powers of Spider-Man. Being reluctant to the idea of crime fighting, Miles didn't want anything to do with these powers until Peter Parker was killed and Miles decides to take up the mantle himself.

With the new reboot, Miles was a much wanted choice among fans, because not only it would be great to have some leading roles for African-Americans, but also there was already someone practically on standby for this role; Donald Glover.

Glover has had fans clamoring for him to be Spider-Man for years, including a large online campaign for Glover to audition for the Amazing Spider-Man. Not only that, It has been stated by Brian Micheal Bendis, one of the creators of Miles Morales, that the overwhelming support for Glover helped reinforce the idea that the world wanted a black Spider-Man. Glover would even go on to voice the animated incarnation of the character in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. The only problem is that Glover now says that hes a little old to be playing the character now and that Marvel doesn't seem to be interested in putting this character to film.

Another alternative to Peter Parker is one of the more recent alternate versions of the character, Gwen Stacy's Spider-Woman (aka Spider-Gwen).

Created during the events of Edge of the Spider-Verse, Spider-Gwen is from an alternate universe where Gwen Stacy was bitten by the Spider and got the powers, and became the Web-Slinger. However, similar to Gwen Stacy dying in the main Marvel Universe, Peter Parker dies and Gwen has to deal with the guilt of losing the Man she loved.

Not only do fans love seeing some depth being added to a characters whose most important trait is that that she died, they also enjoy seeing a women being placed into the role of spider man without exploiting the fact that shes a girl. 

Just... How and Why?

What I could see occurring is a Non-Canonical film of the character starring Emma Stone as Gwen, and Andrew Garfield as the Peter Parker. This could not only be a good way for the average movie goer to be introduced to this alternate universe idea more easily since were still fresh off the last reboot of the series, while giving Stone and Garfield (easily the best parts of the reboot) a proper sendoff. Not to mention this will give Sony a big advantage of making the first major superhero film to have a woman lead.

Seriously, How amazing would this be?

That being said, I'm going to be the first to say that as great as these films could be, Sony is not going to go for any ideas that don't involve Peter Parker, considering they already have Tom Holland casted as the new Peter Parker, who is set to appear in Captain America: Civil War next year (as if DC didn't have enough to worry about with that film).

And look, I'm sure the kids going to do a good job, but the problem is, if were going to see Peter Parker for the third time, its going to take a lot more than the standard formula of the previous films to get audiences invested in the character again. Its going to require Sony to do something radically different to the character in order to make Spider-Man fresh in the public's eyes. Which is why it would have been ideal to have them take a break from Peter Parker, no matter how Holland is going to play him, unless he is blessed by the gods and does everything perfectly, fans are going to be constantly comparing him to the the previous incarnations, and the films are going to suffer as a result.

While there isn't going to be a perfect solution to this, the best that Sony can do is to keep the origin story talk as light as possible, that way audiences can jump right in since pretty much everybody knows his origin by now, and we can get to the real story right away so we don't have to see Uncle Ben shot a third time.

Sorry. Too Soon?

And hopefully in the future, Hollywood will be able to embrace the more outlandish elements of comics and make use of alternate universes and different characters. because lets face it, the more we distance ourselves from this

the better.