Iron Spider-Man

Ever since I was a kid, my two favorite Marvel characters have been Spider-Man and Iron Man. For most of the time Spider-Man and Iron Man have lived in very different worlds. Spider-Man/Peter Parker is a loner outcast hero who’s always broke. Iron Man/Tony Stark is a founding member of the Avengers with tremendous influence and one of the richest people in the world. Occasionally their paths would cross (seeing as how Spider-Man has teamed up with just about everyone at least one time, often in the appropriately named “Marvel Team-Up”) but overall there was very little interaction between the two characters. Then that New Avengers business started up and suddenly Spider-Man was thrown into Iron Man’s world. The characters hit it off and became quick friends. I really liked this part of the story. Part of why I liked it was that it combined the stories of two of my favorite characters. Another part of it was it made finding Iron Man stories possible during the ridiculously delayed Iron Man series relaunch-for-the-sake-of-a-relaunch. But I mostly like it because it “felt” right for the characters. I don’t know how much planning went into the Peter Parker and Tony Stark friendship, but it did not stink of editorial interference. That’s either a compliment to the creative teams or the editorial staff (maybe even both). I guess things were working out too well for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and a monkey wrench had to be thrown in there.

The Marvel Civil War will be over in a couple of weeks, so those of us outside the company don’t know how it will end, but it looks unlikely that Peter and Tony will remain pals. In many ways that’s a shame. It’s a shame for many reasons, not the least of which is the loss of Spidey’s new duds. I like the Iron Spider-Man suit. I respect the iconic status of the classic Spider-Man suit, but it is not impervious to improvement. I should admit that I loved the black symbiote suit when it first appeared as well. (And the fact that it looks like Spider-Man is going to be spending some time “back-in-black” gives me hope that the Iron Spider-Man suit might be revisited in 20 short years or so.) Although I have to admit having only three mechanical “legs” sticking out of the back of the suit was a bad idea. I recall reading that Marvel EiC Joe Quesada designed the costume like that because he liked the way it looked or something (I’m still trying to find the original article, and until I provide a link you should consider my memory suspect). The problem is, the lack of a fourth leg is distracting. We expect bilateral symmetry in humans and spiders, and we expect eight legs on arachnids. The lack of a fourth leg makes the whole Doc Ock-ish leg thing seem just plain wrong. But I digress.

Regardless of Spider-Man’s fashion choices, I’m afraid I’m going to miss the Spidey/Shellhead camaraderie. I know that things need to change to keep the stories fresh and all that, but I wish we could have gotten at least another year or so of the Spider-Man Iron Man show.