Those include Blackcat, Solo, Paladin, Prowler, Molten Man, Morbius, Ghost Rider, Cloak and Dagger, Will o' the Wisp, Rocket Racer, Black Widow, and fan favorites like Venom, Wolverine, and the Punisher. Spider-Man doesn't like the fact that Silver Sable is in it for mercenary profit, but when necessary has been in her employ (as have many of his allies).
These uneasy allies serve a vital role in his career. As Catwoman, Huntress, or Talia do for Batman, these edgy types fill in the gaps of Spider-Man's psychological make-up, doing the dirty, but necessary work of expurgating villains. The criminals they have taken out of circulation amount to saving him loads of time, energy, and innocent casualties on his conscious.
Nevertheless, writers raised on Dr. Spock see fit to explain away such aggressive behavior with convenient excuses like unexorcised trauma (the Punisher), feral nature (Wolverine), or bounty hunter's code (Silver Sable). Wolverine is allowed and embraced because he belongs to the greater gestalt of the X-Men, who together form a balanced mosaic of personalities (and you never see Wolvie existentially questioning his profession). But when Marvel cannot even bring itself to condemn a primordial evil like Galactus before a tribunal, let alone pick sides with megalomaniacs like Magneto, its front line heroes are left morally crippled to respond. They could learn much from their gung-ho anti-heroes.
We have men of real politick like Magneto and Dr. Doom, whose governments work if not wisely then too well. Little orphan Peter Parker sometimes can't get enough money to support Aunt May, while Dr. Doom is able to make the trains run on time in Latveria and take over the power of the Beyonder. Magneto is guilty of genocide, yet capable of running Asteroid M, or Genosha, or even the world in the recent House of M series. Lex Luthor gained the Oval Office — how is that for status quo? Doesn't that set anyone's spider sense a-tingling? As much as we want Spider-Man to be the sympathetic underdog beset with enough problems to keep him relevant (that psychological baggage was, after all, his first distinguishing mark), the necessity of taking the hard line needs no excuses.
For the last century, it has been accepted that modern heroes are supposed to be passive, reactant, staid upholders of the sanctimonious democratic order; certainly no one wants super-powered crusaders self-righteous in their own ideology (any other than democracy, that is). One can't just pretend Spidey ought to stop shaving his side-burns and immediately start popping claws at people. Wolverine's character can absorb the exigencies of being tough on crime as part of a bigger community, but for Spider-Man such a move would come at the cost of his trademark aloofness and witty soliloquies. He's tried to join the Fantastic Four and Avengers before, only to find he's not a regular team player.
Restoring Realism to the Web-head
But all is not lost. Though his methods give too many concessions to villains, and evil itself is too pervasive for one man, Spider-Man can temporarily band together with others as he did for so many years in "Marvel Team-Up", to strategically take the fight to the bad guys. He is often on small Secret Defender-type teams and currently is written on in the New Avengers line-up with — who else? — Wolverine. Within this partnership, there would be opportunity to somewhat temper his cock-eyed optimism without losing his lovability.
How might a take at realist warfare work? In Mark Waid's seminal Authoritative Action story arc, after Reed rescues his daughter from Dr. Doom's sorcery, he takes it a step further in anticipating Doom by robbing him of his Latverian stronghold. The FF are successful in turning the populace against their overlord, despite the fact that it was Nick Fury and the U.N. (read: status quo) who issued the ultimatum to leave the country or face imprisonment for acts of international terrorism and treason against the United States. The crowning piece of Reed Richard's plan was to distract the rest of his family while he imprisoned himself with Doom in an inescapable Mobius dimension.
Though this took deception and manipulation on Mr. Fantastic's part to deal with his foe once for all, it also involved a pro-active team of heroes with a realistic outlook. There is no naivety, no hesitation about what must be done. The extent of the hero's sacrifice is borne home when Mr. Fantastic, intent on the Mobius dimension, bids farewell to his family, and again, after that plan back-fired, when Ben Grimm pays with his life to rid the world of the hellish machinations of Victor von Doom.
This is the final distinction between classical and modern heroes. We imagine heroes like a special police squad enforcing the law when it is broken and leaving the punishment to the courts, but what if villains were more than just incidents on a cop's beat? What if the scenario approaches that of an ongoing war? which is how Reed Richard's saw it in the end, that Doom would never stop coming no matter how many times they foiled his plans. In that case, superheroes are not cops at all, but soldiers in an army, which maintain and dispense justice with the same pull of the trigger. This is what simple-minded Superman could never grasp ("But you can't have a war with people dying," he exclaims5), even barring Wonder Woman from using lethal force against super-powered rioters when their faith in corrective prison walls proved futile.
For classical heroes, whether of the Greco-Roman or European Dark Ages, a warfare mentality was not hard to imagine. The idea that superheroes are no more than fascist ubermensch settling simple disputes with fists is shown false, for being engaged in open hostilities, "the last argument of kings," is their natural domain. They are not just individuals, but entire armies at war personified in a republican or monarchial model.
Then consider that the great defining moments in the lives of classical heroes came not with an uncanny origin story, but at the end. Nearly all of them went alone on suicide missions and gave the ultimate sacrifice to see evil destroyed in their time. King Arthur received a mortal wound to slay his son, Mordred. Like Sherlock Holmes at the fall at Reichenbach, Batman "died" in The Dark Knight Returns to stop Superman, albeit more circumspectly than his contemporaries. Superman fought Doomsday until their mutually assured destruction and he fell into Lois's arms a la Pietà; and he would have done the same with Darkseid in Justice League had Batman not interfered ("Twilight", episode 28). Billy Batson/Shazam, a god and a man both, sacrificed himself for the meta-humans in Kingdom Come. That is epic heroism of the first order. It is written in the vegetable gods of Frazer. Paradoxically, he who wishes to save his life (and the world) must first lose it. Whereas rescuing is a temporary job tied to the status quo, actually "saving the day" has a redemptive quality, and it only comes when the hero makes the ultimate sacrifice. Isn't that simply Spider-Man's tag line in different wording: "To whom much is given, much will be required"?
If Spider-Man is really dying to save the world, he will have to anticipate villains to the bitter end — which is easier said than done. He represents one of the most profitable pop cultural franchises of all time and tampering with his character is like rethreading a tapestry. There is the problem of comic book continuity in finding a villain for next month's issue if the current one gets his comeuppance in too timely a fashion, or Spider-Man himself "dies". For when it all comes down to it, that is what heroes do: they die. It is what made Neil Gaiman's The Sandman so resonant; he shattered serial expectations and killed the very incarnation of Story for the sake of the story.
In this nearly timeless serial medium, there will remain a tension between the values of epic heroism and what to do about next month's story. To some extent then, it is in the script that superheroes deal with symptoms and not the root cause. Can Spider-Man put an end to his trademark self-doubting and uphold the quality of life for his city? I used to have my doubts, but recently characters are having their races, genders, and even sexual orientation switched according to the political proclivities of the current writer. In India, Spider-Man is a Hindu guru. Surely, in America of all places, he could be allowed the chance to try this route of realism. And if it proves too contrary, at least he (and we) might have rest in the idea of ultimate justice beyond this world and try to seek better methods of restoring his enemies back to friendship.
For the hero, ancient or modern, depicted through whatever medium, in challenging our comfortable expectations and taking the fall for us, wears an archetypal mask. When we look at it, we are reminded of our own dire need for a transcendent, yet very real folk hero, who points to his mortal scar and says, "Look at this one I got saving the world." Perhaps there is more theology there than at first glance. It is a rescue not merely restoring the status quo, but to redeem back the world, to right the unrightable wrong, where death is swallowed up in victory, and even the villains can be perfected into heroes.
Footnotes
1 The Epic of Gilgamesh, 71. BACK
2 Bill Finger (w) and Bob Kane (p). "Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters," Batman #1. Vol. 1 of Batman Chronicles. 161. For the record, Superman and Wonder Woman have also bloodied their hands, as have Iron Man, Captain America, etc. In the recent House of M storyline, in fighting to restore their reality, even the most hesitant of the heroes (Spider-Man included) went for Magneto with the explicit intent of giving no quarter. BACK
3 The Epic of Gilgamesh, 83. BACK
4 David Michelinie (w) and Todd McFarlane and Erik Larson (p). "Twos Day," Amazing Spider-Man #324. Spider-Man: The Assassin Nation Plot. 11.BACK
5 Mark Waid (w) and Alex Ross (a). Kingdom Come, 147. BACK
