Spider-Man Is An Irresponsible Person
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“With great power comes great responsibility.”
It’s one of the most famous sayings in all of superhero comics. Probably one of the most sayings in all of fiction.
It is the mantra by which Spider-Man lives and dies. Originally written by a final panel narration in Amazing Fantasy #15, it has since been attributed to Peter Parker’s late Uncle Ben.
On ethical systems and superheroes, this would be a form of deontology, which broadly states that there is an inherent moral duty people with power possess to help those around them. A superhero can do amazing things beyond the capabilities of ordinary people, and thus a superhero has a responsibility to use those powers when needed.
If you have the power to save someone’s life, you have the responsibility to save someone’s life.
And if you disagree with me, you don’t get to be a Spider-Man fan.
Spider-Man comics, cartoons, and films have held “responsibility” as its central theme ever since 1962. Peter Parker puts on the webs every day and fights and suffers and endures because he has a responsibility to do so, no matter what happens. Being responsible has always been his top priority.
And yet, he falls flat of acting responsibly by almost every conceivable measure.
For someone who lives and dies by “responsibility”, Spider-Man is a pretty irresponsible person.
Skewed priorities are irresponsible
Spider-Man has skewed priorities. And with skewed priorities comes a skewed sense of responsibility.
He spends most of his time swinging around Manhattan, looking for crimes to stop and muggers to take down. To be fair, he does go after bigger fish as well. He’s intercepted plenty of shipments of drugs and weapons by larger criminal organizations that would have done far more widespread harm than a simple purse snatcher here and there. I remember Joe “Robbie” Robertson even scolding Peter for bringing in so many pictures of “Spider-Man beating up thugs in a warehouse”.
And, of course, Spidey has his supervillains to fight. Someone needs to bring down Doctor Octopus, Electro, and Scorpion.
But remember that under that mask is a man. A man named Peter Parker. And as Spider-Man has responsibilities to the people of New York City, Peter Parker also has responsibilities. To himself, his family, his colleagues, and yes, to the broader citizenry. I’ll get to that last part in a moment.
As Spider-Man, Peter feels his powers give him the ability–and thus the responsibility–to protect people from threats that no one else can, other than the dozens and dozens of superheroes that operate in the same area. Let’s ignore that little plot hole. Spider-Man has a responsibility to help people by protecting them from criminals.
But Spider-Man is Peter Parker, and where has Spider-Man left Peter Parker? Because of his double life, Peter frequently misses dates and appointments, isn’t there for his friends or family when they need him, self-sabotages his professional life, and constantly lives on a financial precipice. He’s often haggard and stressed, and others worry about him. He’s not reliable, he’s not trustworthy, and he gives excuses for his bad behavior that would justifiably leave people wanting to break off contact with him for good.
We the readers know the truth, but Aunt May didn’t. J. Jonah Jameson didn’t. Harry Osborn didn’t. Gwen Stacy didn’t.
I remember a scene during Amazing Spider-Man #254? 255? I forget the exact issue. It was when Peter got the black suit after Secret Wars. Anyhoo, Peter had decided to drop out of grad school, which totally destroyed Aunt May and led her to not speak to him. She was with a man named Nathan Lubensky at the time, who arranged for them to meet at a restaurant and hash out their issues. Thanks to Spider-Man, Peter arrived late, well after May had left the venue in tears. Nathan stayed behind to give Peter the sort of dressing down J. Jonah Jameson fantasizes about giving to Spider-Man, totally going off on him.
Over the years, I never forgot that scene. Peter needed it. And I think those of us who bought into his view of responsibility needed it too.
We don’t go through life as an island. No man is an island. We live in an interconnected world where we’re responsible for ourselves and each other.
He spent real-world decades married to Mary Jane Watson. How were they planning to raise that baby that was announced during the Clone Saga if he was out all the time being Spider-Man? What would happen if he learned that the Rhino was rampaging nearby and he was watching the baby? No, Peter, you can leave a baby webbed up on a fire escape and come back to it later.
NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT EITHER!
In fulfilling his duties as Spider-Man, he neglected his duties as Peter Parker.
And you might say that his duties as Spider-Man supersede those of his personal life. Maintaining a relationship and a job is not as important as stopping Carnage from turning Central Park into a mass grave, right?
Sure, but ultimately, if great power comes with great responsibility, then one would have the responsibility to use their greatest gift to do the greatest amount of good for others.
And Peter Parker’s great gift isn’t his strength, agility, wall crawling, or Spider-Sense.
Peter Parker’s greatest gift....and his greatest responsibility
A question that occasionally pops into my mind is can superheroes achieve “big picture” change, or must they always be reactive police-like forces stopping threats but never improving the status quo?
It really is the age-old question of “Who would be more effective at ending Gotham City crime? Batman, or Bruce Wayne?”. Batman beats up criminals, but Bruce Wayne’s money can ensure that the socioeconomic conditions that lead to crime are stamped out.
This is sort of the same thing. Like Batman, Spider-Man is another superhero that, in his civilian alter ego, can achieve big picture changes.
Because Peter Parker’s greatest gift is his mind.
Peter is a genius. He’s ranked #10 on this list of the 20 smartest characters in the Marvel Universe]. He had a natural gift and love for science even before being bitten by the radioactive spider. And when he does create his own costume, the first thing he does immediately is design a revolutionary new type of adhesive fluid and deployment mechanisms for them, and very early on also creates and produces tiny portable tracking devices that are affixed to a radio frequency only he could detect through his Spider-Sense. When he first tangled with Doctor Octopus in Amazing Spider-Man #3, he snuck into a chemical lab and whipped up a chemical bonding agent to fuse Ock’s arms together completely on the fly and without even having the formula written down.
The guy’s one of the smartest people in a world full of super geniuses.
With the time he spends as Spider-Man, he could have hastened his academic studies and worked in science. Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark spent time creating scientific breakthroughs that benefited mankind. Meanwhile, Peter was wearing a mask and beating up thugs in alleyways.
In fairness, he did work at Horizon Labs for some time, but that was for a couple years leading up to Amazing Spider-Man #700. As is the case with comics, things always revert to the mean and he is back to snapping photos of himself for the Daily Bugle.
My point is, he could have done so much more for the world than beating up thugs in alleyways and fighting cackling madmen in silly costumes. With his mind and the resources he could have had access to if he applied himself to getting work in a laboratory setting, he could have made great strides in medicine, energy, or public safety. He could have been curing diseases, including some of the afflictions his villains had.
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, three Peter Parkers work together to save their villains from the debilitating effects of their own powers. They free Otto Octavious’ mind from his tentacle arms. They turn the Lizard back into Doctor Curt Connors.
Imagine if Peter, in the comics, went further.
Imagine if he figured out how to get Mac Gargan out of the Scorpion suit.
Imagine if he could work to cure the blood disease that led Doctor Michael Morbius to conduct experiments that turned him into a living vampire.
Imagine if he could have saved Harry Osborn from dying in Spectacular Spider-Man #200?
Imagine if, with Professor Miles Warren’s cloning technology, he stopped swinging around and dedicated his time to working on something that could regrow damaged tissue, recreate organs, or clone animal meat so that factory farms aren’t needed.
Listen, if I were getting beat up in an alley, I would want someone to help me. But it’s undeniable that something like the production of cultured meat could do more good for more people over more time than any amount of criminal-beating. According to this article, “if produced using renewable energy, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 92% and land use by up to 90% compared to conventional beef”. Now imagine Peter leading the charge on that.
Imagine a world where our food supply is safer, more cost effective, doesn’t require industrialized animal cruelty, and isn’t a primary contributor to climate change. That would do far more good for the world than arresting muggers. That would ensure a future for an entire generation! And if he were to work in a laboratory as part of a team dedicated to this breakthrough, I genuinely believe Peter would be able to pull it off.
To be clear on all this, I don’t think Peter being Spider-Man is bad. He’s saved countless lives, and someone needs to punch out the Green Goblin. And like I said, if I were cornered in a dark alley, I’d be very happy if someone with superstrength swooped in and took care of my assailant for me.
What I’m saying is that, if Peter has a responsibility to use his talents to make the world the best and safest place he can, then he’s not living up to his responsibility because he’s not maximizing the amount of good he can do. Even disregarding all the other stuff before about how he’s sabotaging every part of his own life that isn’t his superhero alter-ego, the time he devotes to beating up one criminal at a time could be better spent tackling some wider foundational issue. Imagine if all law enforcement had web fluid launchers instead of tasers.
But Peter’s a smart guy. So why doesn’t he realize that his view of responsibility is warped? Why doesn’t he realize that not only is he relatively ineffectual as Spider-Man as he could be as Peter Parker, but he’s actually shirking his responsibilities as Peter Parker?
Trauma and your view of the world
Trauma causes a lot of complicated reactions. According to the National Institute of Health, one of the reactions to traumatic events is the sense of a foreshortened future. To quote the article:
“Trauma can affect one’s beliefs about the future via loss of hope, limited expectations about life, fear that life will end abruptly or early, or anticipation that normal life events won’t occur (e.g., access to education, ability to have a significant and committed relationship, good opportunities for work).”
Does this sound familiar? Perhaps if you squint hard enough, because this applies to Peter Parker. Because Spider-Man was not born out of a sense of responsibility, but of trauma.
You all know Spidey’s origin at this point. For the two of you reading this from an alien civilization tens of thousands of years in the future and learning about human culture, Peter Parker was a bullied teenager raised by his loving Aunt May and Uncle Ben. At a science exhibit, he was bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him enhanced strength, speed, and agility, the ability to stick to walls, and a sixth sense that warns him of danger. Creating a costume and a pair of wrist-mounted web shooters, he became Spider-Man, a costumed entertainer that decided that no one else mattered but him and his family, so much so that he couldn’t be bothered to stop a burglar that ran past him. He returned home only to find his uncle was murdered during a break-in, and when he confronted the murderer, was shocked to find it was the same man he let run past him. Thus, he learned that with great power comes great responsibility.
But let’s focus in on that a bit.
Uncle Ben didn’t die from cancer, or sickness caused by lack of access to quality healthcare. He didn’t die on the streets due to homelessness, or malnutrition from food insecurity. He didn’t die from tainted water in lead pipes, or a workplace accident that could have been prevented by stricter safety laws, or in a weather event credibly linked to climate change. He died from a home invasion.
And while it’s true that crime rates can be reduced through social development, Peter wasn’t overcome with guilt for not managing to push through after-school programs and community revitalization at age 15.
He was overcome with guilt for not literally stopping the crime before it happened by using his superstrength and unbreakable webbing to stop a petty thief.
Peter let one petty crime go unanswered and it cost him one of the most important people in his life.
Any crime that he doesn’t stop can take someone’s husband or wife, their son or daughter, their mother or father.
And with his spider powers, he can stop all those crimes.
Sure, he may be able to maximize the good he does by spending his nights in a laboratory, finding a cure for leukemia and preventing however many deaths per year.
But for every night he spends there, someone is being assaulted or killed in an alley, and weapons and drugs run by big time criminal leaders like the Kingpin or Silvermane are causing deaths in large numbers.
So rather than using his mind to fix the larger problems, Peter wears a costume and swings around New York, stopping every crime that he can.
Because there are other smart people in the world. But only he has the proportional strength, speed, and agility of a spider. And while the other smart guys are tinkering away in their labs or out in space fighting cosmic threats like Thanos or Galactus, someone needs to look out for the common man on the street.
And who better than a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?
If Peter’s line of thinking seems a bit illogical to you, that’s because it is.
It’s a response to trauma. And trauma responses aren’t logical.
No mental issues are logical. If logic was the prevailing factor, there would be no mental illness. Which sounds nice, but that’s not the way it works.
Peter has warped priorities because the last time he focused on himself and let one criminal get away with a mere burglary, he lost his Uncle Ben. In his mind, he doesn’t get to do that again. He can’t let that happen again.
So understand that Peter Parker’s flaws are not that of his character. Meaning, he is not lazy or hypocritical to have responsibility be the centerpiece of his mantra and worldview and yet to shirk or fail every responsibility he has. It’s trauma, and trauma can cause all sorts of responses and mental health issues that are downright self-destructive.
If anything, it makes Peter Parker more someone to be looked up to, and makes him more of a human being.
But regardless, the result is the same.
Peter Parker–Spider-Man–is an irresponsible person.
But maybe that’s why we all find him so relatable.
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