this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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As a kid I always wondered why spiderman had to struggle for rent. I get that is part of his charm, but can't the city of NY give him a stipend? Can't Tony start pay him a salary? Damn Tony just give him one of your penthouses. Reminder that when Tony died he could have changed Peter and May's entire life if he had just left a crumb for them in his will.
In the comics, he wasn't paired with Tony Stark. He was famously unreliable, always disappearing to fight crime.
And he couldn't make rent in 1970's NY.
That right there. If 70s rent control can’t even allow for a super hero, then fuck it… close the books.
Tbf, a guy who's that unreliable would have a ton of difficulty holding any job at all due to unexcused absence. He'd probably be working below minimum wage or getting fired every other week.
Although things have obviously changed a lot. I'm reading mercy Thompson right now, where a character complains about barely being able to afford living alone after giving away 60% of their check. Iirc they're supposedly a waitress.
Yeah it’s easy to forget that in the 70s a single income was expected to provide for 4-6 people. Maybe not comfortably, but not homeless.
I figured that's why he's canonically a news photographer. It's the only job he could hold because of his unreliability, and he can literally set up the shots himself. Also $60 per shot makes a lot more sense if it's the '70s.
From a narrative standpoint, Spider-Man's entire thing is thematically tied to the idea that "no good deed goes unpunished." Peter Parker's academic, professional, and social life all pay a price to enable his crime fighting. Spider-Man 2 does a good job of portraying that. After he stops the train that was about to crash in his fight with Doc Ock, he gets lifted up, arms outstretched, looking like a crucified Jesus. He suffers for the sake of others. It's honestly a nice contrast to people like Tony Stark for whom being a billionaire playboy superhero has historically (if not in the Marvel movies) been depicted as coming with a fairly comfortable life. Well, at least ignoring the part of his backstory where he went homeless because of his alcoholism. But that was in the eighties, I think.
Iirc they originally wanted the iron man movies to show the damages done by his behavior and his alcoholism more like the comics but they ended up getting rushed to make a sequel to cash in on the popularity of the first movie instead
I'm sure that RDJ's own alcoholism may have played a role there as well. Don't want to trigger a relapse.
Yeah, I also read his wife was concerned about the idea at the time. Which is completely fair, but I personally think that it's part of why RDJ worked so well as Iron Man, he could relate to the character.
I think Peter does end up working for Stark in some of the comics. Then he goes on to form Parker Industries later on.
Which is odd too. I can't picture Peter as a captain of industry. He's brilliant but lazy remember? He's not a leader. He's that kid that forgets to turn off the oven, or runs off to chase a criminal instead of going to class. That kind of lifestyle doesn't Jive with Spidey
The new Holland trilogy is for sure gonna be deadbeat Peter since nobody remembers him now. But yeah in the 80s and 90s comic he's in space doing missions with Avengers, then in NY struggling with rent. Made no sense to me. Even worse when he couldn't afford rent but he had a damn Spider car!