In the comics, his battles against these foes play out much differently, as his enemies are usually corrupt or embittered when he meets them, either as scientists or subjects of scientific inquiry gone awry. In those cases, it is Peter who is fighting for a brighter future for all of us and rooting out those selfish elements in the scientific community who would serve only their own ends. Even then, one would be straining to make that point, given how little time Peter spends focusing on his work. He's kind of a poster child for failing to get your head in the game and making the hard choices; the ones that cost you your free time and personal autonomy. Time and time again, Peter is reminded that he needs those if he is to continue to do good work as Spider-Man. The hard choices thrust upon him prevent him from committing to the decisions he would need to make if he is to succeed as a scientist. Peter tends to regret other things far more however, and never seems to prioritize his chosen field of study above any of the other considerations in his life. Are his misdirected attentions just one of the perils of youth and a life lived on the edge? Perhaps. But it's difficult to view the Silver or the Bronze Age Spidey as a serious-minded student by any measure. 

I can see where they're coming from with some of these treatise premises, but they're hardly the arguments that strike at the core of the character and what he's all about. 

Those first 50 issues show a considerable amount of growth and maturing of the character, and it could be argued that everything which comes after is treading water, with Peter’s occasional temptations to quit being Spider-Man becoming a recurring cycle. 

I do think there’s some validity to this idea. Lee and Ditko (and, to a lesser degree, Lee and Romita) really showed a lot of the ups and downs in Peter’s journey to manhood, and no other Spider-Man run since has been quite as impactful or influential. Lots of variations on established stories and themes, but the actual Hero’s Journey of Spider-Man is pretty neatly encapsulated within those first 50 issues. 

Of course, much of what subsequently occurred came down to Spider-Man becoming an ongoing concern, and Stan therefore putting the brakes on. Treading water, rather than growth and change. But, it could be argued that the most important growth had already occurred. Peter went from scrawny, bespectacled high schooler to confident, handsome college boy within those first four years. He grew up, which is a logical endpoint for the character, Marvel’s monthly publishing needs aside.

Chris is of course completely on board with the younger fellow's take on things, but over the course of the episode comes to see how his work is dissecting "Casey" to the point that it does in fact become irrelevant because of the inversions and imbalances he's forcing upon it. The poem is not about U.S. foreign policy, and he's doing the work and his own efforts a disservice in twisting it to fit those ends. 

The whole thing culminates in a dream sequence in which he is on the front lines of a war alongside a number of authors, all fighting to preserve the concept that their work has inherent meaning and does not exist to be strip-mined for convenience's sake in making modern arguments or conforming to current fashion. He's shocked when his buddy William Shakespeare is shot down in front of him, gasping, ""Tis a far, far better thing I do..." and says, "Shakes... that's Dickens!" Looking out at the enemy gunning down the most famous, well-spoken men in history, he sees himself on the other side... He's the one raining down havoc upon them.

The argument is an ongoing one, and academia is removed from reality by design some would say simply so that it can go places it otherwise would not if it were more keyed into such prosaic concerns as respect for the work of others  and common courtesy. Myself, I prefer to err on the side of observations being in keeping with intent, but there are many out there who feel the time for such considerations is long past. 

Myself, I prefer to err on the side of observations being in keeping with intent, but there are many out there who feel the time for such considerations is long past. 

++++++++

Yeah, no kidding. Respect is becoming a thing of the past in today’s remix/rehash/exploit pop-entertainment landscape. Cut the face off of the corpse of a beloved property, and glue it to the face of something else entirely so as to provide brand-recognition and a facade of legitimacy. 

While feelings of fan ownership can certainly reach absurd extremes, in a lot of cases, the old guard is often rightly responding to what is a complete betrayal of everything a property once stood for. 

I can pretty much guarantee that if I picked up any modern-day Spider-Man book, I’d find the characters, the themes, and the world both unrecognizable and off-putting. Not even a pretense of being the same characters and world created by Lee and Ditko, but taking place NOW. Whereas prior creators largely still managed to color inside the lines.

I don't believe that. And it is an extreme example. I'm just saying people can see what they want to see.

Someone (around a decade ago) talked about TNG's Data representing repressed sexualities of all kinds. I really don't see that.

If there are subtexts and social commentary, great. I would much prefer to hear it from the author's mouth, though.

I did learn something during the book: apparently, an issue of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN saw Spider-Man displeased that Hollywood was making a Spider-Man movie.

In a world populated by superheroes, would a studio really make a superhero movie? In a world where you could glimpse Spider-Man daily, and witness his battles, what joy would there be in seeing a Spider-Man movie?

Thinking about it from an in-universe perspective, it seems unlikely that Spider-Man, a guy so often distrusted by both the police and the media, would be the subject of a major motion picture. More likely, he’d be the subject of true-crime TV specials and SyFy Channel documentaries. Also remember that he started out as a media star, and would therefore be the Marvel equivalent of a fallen celebrity-possibly-turned-criminal. The disgraced subject of supermarket tabloid magazines.

I also seem to recall that, some years back, Marvel published a series of comics as if they were the “real” comics published about our heroes, in-universe.

Two films come to mind that make me think this way.

The Jackie Robinson Story was made in 1950 (Robinson played MLB from 1947 to 1956).