I’ve taken a bit of a longer hiatus than usual to return to the blog.
As a matter of fact, for the first time in a while, writing here feels more like something I have to do rather than something I want to do.
Writing was and always will be my favorite thing to do (outside of drinking beer with loved ones), but as we all know, life has a toll.
Some days just feel heavier than others, but the heavier the day, the stronger you have to be to carry it.
When you owe your life to so many people, you have to keep fighting for them. They’re the reason you need to keep fighting.
There are many protagonists in literature, film, television, video games, and so on, that capture what it’s like to fight for good. All of us need people without superpowers to fight for good in this world of ours.
But even with superpowers, sometimes the life that we fight for every day hits harder than any super villain could.
In my return to the blog, I wanted to do a small character study following one of media’s most iconic characters. In today’s world, we need him and people like him more than ever.
Today, I must talk about Spider-Man. Not necessarily about his web-swinging or his physical strength, but his emotional strength through his alter ego, Peter Parker.
When you pick up a Spider-Man comic, everybody, of course, wants to see Spidey in action.
How will his spectacular strength take down Venom? Can his superior intellect break through Mysterio’s illusions? Will his amazing antics and quips get a laugh?
The Spider-Man persona is the idealized hero. He has the physical strength, the intellect, and the quick wittedness that everybody wishes they could have. Everybody would take being Spider-Man over their current life, hands down.
Little do they know, being Spider-Man is their life now but with the added stresses of saving countless lives, pulling your punches on murderers, and dealing with multi-universal consequences at stake.
This is the side of Spider-Man that makes him the true hero.
The trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day dropped a few weeks ago and it quickly became the most-watched movie trailer in history in its first 24 hours.
As a sequel to 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, this film will pick up with a Peter Parker who’s dealing with the consequences of having Doctor Strange force everyone in his universe to forget who he is.
Spider-Man had to sacrifice everyone knowing Peter Parker in order to save the world. It was a massive toll, but Spider-Man had to pay that price.
In the off-screen time in between that film and Brand New Day, Spider-Man has remained a masked hero that is a hero for the little guys in New York:
But Peter Parker on the other hand, has been forced to make a new life for himself alone. He no longer has Tony Stark or Aunt May. His girlfriend MJ and his best friend Ned have forgotten about him. He’s living in a very small apartment with shared laundry space, and no living-wage career paying his bills. Peter Parker is poor, battered, and alone.
Bruised and broken with a single-unit washer/dryer to wash his suit and his key to the city left in a box on the ground, even Peter is dreaming of what it’d be like to be the Spider-Man that we all wish we could be.
People are really excited because this is the first time the MCU’s Spider-Man will be the Peter Parker that we’ve all grown to love: the Peter Parker that represents the little guys (and gals) he saves on a day-to-day basis as Spider-Man.
This Peter has been represented extremely well in modern history. Here are a few of my favorites:
Every version of Spider-Man deals with issues involving money, relationships, and morals. Each time we think it can’t get worse for Peter after losing battles in the streets as Spider-Man, he swings home to find an eviction notice under his door or opens a text from his love Mary Jane “needing to talk.”
A recent animation that’s been making the rounds online has been one of the most profoundly simple, yet, perfect adaptions of Spider-Man I’ve seen:
When we, in turn, have our worst days in real life, we’d love nothing more than to just swing away or just ignore everything. We’re tired. We’re hungry. We want to hide from the world. Our “Low Balance” Alerts or getting ghosted by the ones we love feel like knives to the heart.
Having the strength to win every battle or the intellect to create a scientific miracle would be an easy solve to our problems, right?
Wrong.
At the core of everything Spider-Man does comes these words: “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
Everybody knows these words and everybody knows they are what Uncle Ben (or sometimes Aunt May) say to a Peter Parker who believes that with his newfound strength, he is greater than the struggles of everyday life.
He’s stronger than the school bully, so he can get the girl. He’s smarter than any criminal, so he can effortlessly control crime. But is that the power that requires responsbility?
Yes, and no. Because Peter has the abilities necessary to stop super criminals, he does have a responsibility to use his powers to defeat them. However, if he has the power to wake up each day and fight no matter what’s happened to him, he has a responsibility to himself and to those that love him to try.
“I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble. And finally allows us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want most, even our dreams.”
These words are just as, if not, more powerful than “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility.”
These words echo what it means to be human. Even Spider-Man, with all of his strength and intellect, is still a human at the end of the day. It is this human part of Spider-Man that makes him like us.
The rent will come. You’ll lose a job you love. Heartbreak will happen. Loved ones will die. These are all reasons to just give up or to move in a different direction, maybe forget who you are or what got you to this point.
Giving up is an easy thing to do. It’s always the easiest thing to do whether you’re a superhero or not. It’s getting up and trying again no matter what that truly takes tremendous strength, which makes not giving up the right thing to do. Doing what’s right is always more important than doing what’s easy.
The first 30 seconds of the Brand New Day trailer encapsulate Spider-Man to a T. His former best friend and girlfriend who he still loves have forgotten about him and they’re the “happiest they’ve ever been.”
While it guts Peter, he still has to pull down the mask and go tackle whatever nefarious deeds New York’s criminals have concocted that day. And whether Spider-Man wins that fight or not, MJ has still forgotten him, Ned doesn’t know him, and he has to go back and barely make rent in his apartment.
That’s the hero in him. That’s why he’s strong.
Spider-Man is the perfect character because he is all of us. Anybody can be the one that pulls down that mask and faces super villains. Stan Lee even said that in creating the character, anyone could be Spider-Man. We all wish we could put on the mask to face our struggles because Peter Parker makes us believe we can.
Regardless of the struggle, regardless of how many hits you take, you have to get back up. There are people out there counting on you. I’m counting on you.
Even when it feels like the hardest thing in the world to do, choose to be the hero you have inside of you.
Whether it’s holding the door for someone, getting over an old grudge, staying on the phone with a loved one even if you don’t have anything to talk about, or facing the darkest, most difficult periods of your life, just keep trying to do better.
Because even though you may not get everything you want or need in your life, life is still worth fighting for and life is certainly better with you in it.
Be Greater. Be a Hero.
Because with great power, comes great responsibility.
~DS
The Danny Diaries 