“Moving Up” – May 1988
In this exciting issue: Peter Parker gets drunk! Yup. I bring this up mostly because of the hubbub regarding Pete’s inebriation (at a wedding) in a recent issue of Amazing, which, apparently, drove some fans absolutely nuts and led to Marvel claiming in the book’s letters column that Peter wasn’t really drunk at all. He’d been drinking ginger ale the whole time thinking it was champagne and, so, was only psychosomatically drunk because, of course, Spidey would never get drunk. Similar storytelling gymnastics are also used in this issue of Web of Spider-Man. You see, Pete and MJ are throwing a party in their apartment on the eve of moving out. Peter hears Hobgoblin is back and goes off to fight him, but is a little tipsy. But don’t worry, webheads! The punch had been secretly spiked by the landlord’s husband, so Peter didn’t know he was drinking alcohol. After all, as we all know, Peter Parker only ever gets pretend or accidentally drunk and, for some reason, that’s okay. The whole to do over this was because of Spidey’s place as a role model for kids, so he shouldn’t drink. That’s fine. I get that. But what’s the better lesson for kids: “sometimes bad things happen when you drink so be responsible (as Uncle Ben would say)” or “Spidey NEVER DRINKS EVER, unless the writers think it’s funny and can whitewash it later?” We’re a long way from “Demon in a Bottle” here, folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment