And Now For Something Completely Different
So I just saw this on a message board and wow. I have to go to work right now but I will edit this later and give my thoughts.
Spider-Man will have a Robin
Alright, after thinking it over I'm still not sure this is a good idea. The whole teen sidekick concept is pretty outdated for me. I think back when Tim Drake took over being Robin, the writers did a fantastic job of explaining why Batman needs a Robin. The problem is that I think the teen sidekick idea only works with Batman. Marv Wolfman did a great job while writing Teen Titans of taking what was essentially a team of sidekicks and making them into real characters and legit heroes in their own right. Ever since then, the whole sidekick idea has been kind of dumb in my view. I mean it works for Batman but do we really need every hero to have a sidekick?
Notice that pretty much all the examples I gave in the paragraph above were DC. To my knowledge, Marvel doesn't really do the sidekick thing. I guess you could say War Machine is Iron Man's sidekick and I suppose you could make the argument that Kitty and then later Jubilee were sort of sidekicks for Wolverine. I think the Jubilee/Wolverine one is more valid than the Iron Man/War Machine one but I still don't really think either of them hold a lot of water. The biggest example of a real sidekick in Marvel that I can think of is Bucky and that was back in the 40's. You could also throw Rick Jones in there but that was in the 70's. Like I said, ever since the Wolfman days of Teen Titans, sidekicks seem kind of outdated to me. It seems like they're sort of a leftover from the Golden Age or Silver Age. Batman needs a Robin but do Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and Flash really need a Superboy, Wonder Girl, Speedy, and Kid Flash? I mean you haven't seen Cap trot out another Bucky to replace the "dead" one and I haven't seen Rick Jones hanging around Hulk too much lately but then again I don't read Hulk at all. My point is that the whole sidekick thing seems obsolete in the modern era. If anything, it's often used as a joke or a springboard for characters to come into their own (see Young Avengers as a prime example of that).
This brings us to Spider-Man. If memory serves, I thought the reason we broke up Peter's marriage is because of the fear that readers couldn't relate to him (and we could get into a whole other argument about why I think this is a fallacy). So then we got swinging single Peter again. Fair enough I suppose but if letting him be married causes readers to not relate to him and think he's not cool and too old then how is it going to look when he has a teenage kid around him all the time? I mean you know we're going to get scenes of this kid using whatever slang kids use these days and Peter isn't really going to have a choice but to go "Huh?" and, you know, seem like an old guy. Marvel wanted young, hip Peter. That's why they killed the marriage. This seems like a step in the complete opposite direction because now you will basically have a character who will constantly remind the audience that Peter is an adult and isn't really that young or that hip (even though it's okay to not be either of these things).
Could this work? I suppose because I think the origin story for this kid is kind of clever and it definitely plays into Peter's all-important sense of responsibility. Peter is also definitely the type of person who would want to mentor a younger hero, whether he was responsible for that hero's origins or not. I still don't think it fits though. A lot of people online are talking about how cliche it will be when the kid turns out to be the next big Spidey villain or something. My question in response to that is this: Would you rather he actually be Peter's sidekick? I agree, making him the new villain would be cliche but it honestly might be the best play. Spider-Man and Alpha doesn't really fit as well as Batman and Robin. Maybe we just need some time to grow accustomed to it but I still think it's a very puzzling move.
Spider-Man will have a Robin
Alright, after thinking it over I'm still not sure this is a good idea. The whole teen sidekick concept is pretty outdated for me. I think back when Tim Drake took over being Robin, the writers did a fantastic job of explaining why Batman needs a Robin. The problem is that I think the teen sidekick idea only works with Batman. Marv Wolfman did a great job while writing Teen Titans of taking what was essentially a team of sidekicks and making them into real characters and legit heroes in their own right. Ever since then, the whole sidekick idea has been kind of dumb in my view. I mean it works for Batman but do we really need every hero to have a sidekick?
Notice that pretty much all the examples I gave in the paragraph above were DC. To my knowledge, Marvel doesn't really do the sidekick thing. I guess you could say War Machine is Iron Man's sidekick and I suppose you could make the argument that Kitty and then later Jubilee were sort of sidekicks for Wolverine. I think the Jubilee/Wolverine one is more valid than the Iron Man/War Machine one but I still don't really think either of them hold a lot of water. The biggest example of a real sidekick in Marvel that I can think of is Bucky and that was back in the 40's. You could also throw Rick Jones in there but that was in the 70's. Like I said, ever since the Wolfman days of Teen Titans, sidekicks seem kind of outdated to me. It seems like they're sort of a leftover from the Golden Age or Silver Age. Batman needs a Robin but do Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and Flash really need a Superboy, Wonder Girl, Speedy, and Kid Flash? I mean you haven't seen Cap trot out another Bucky to replace the "dead" one and I haven't seen Rick Jones hanging around Hulk too much lately but then again I don't read Hulk at all. My point is that the whole sidekick thing seems obsolete in the modern era. If anything, it's often used as a joke or a springboard for characters to come into their own (see Young Avengers as a prime example of that).
This brings us to Spider-Man. If memory serves, I thought the reason we broke up Peter's marriage is because of the fear that readers couldn't relate to him (and we could get into a whole other argument about why I think this is a fallacy). So then we got swinging single Peter again. Fair enough I suppose but if letting him be married causes readers to not relate to him and think he's not cool and too old then how is it going to look when he has a teenage kid around him all the time? I mean you know we're going to get scenes of this kid using whatever slang kids use these days and Peter isn't really going to have a choice but to go "Huh?" and, you know, seem like an old guy. Marvel wanted young, hip Peter. That's why they killed the marriage. This seems like a step in the complete opposite direction because now you will basically have a character who will constantly remind the audience that Peter is an adult and isn't really that young or that hip (even though it's okay to not be either of these things).
Could this work? I suppose because I think the origin story for this kid is kind of clever and it definitely plays into Peter's all-important sense of responsibility. Peter is also definitely the type of person who would want to mentor a younger hero, whether he was responsible for that hero's origins or not. I still don't think it fits though. A lot of people online are talking about how cliche it will be when the kid turns out to be the next big Spidey villain or something. My question in response to that is this: Would you rather he actually be Peter's sidekick? I agree, making him the new villain would be cliche but it honestly might be the best play. Spider-Man and Alpha doesn't really fit as well as Batman and Robin. Maybe we just need some time to grow accustomed to it but I still think it's a very puzzling move.