Sixty years ago, Spider-Man was born. And this year’s film Spider-Man: No Way Home reinforced the reputation of the teenage web-slinger as one of the most successful comic book characters of all time and one of Marvel’s most popular heroes. No Way Home is a multi-million dollar blockbuster, an essential boost to an entertainment industry scrambling to recover from its Covid woes.
The appeal of Spider-Man is exactly what Stan Lee and Steve Ditko intended when they created the character in 1962. Lee believed in relatable characters, regular people who had to decide to be heroes. Peter Parker was the perfect example. He was, and is, the everyman, the teen who leaps into action when necessary but otherwise navigates pimples, homework, high school, and, yes, girls.
Specifically, Mary Jane. Peter Parker is smitten with MJ. In the comics she is a popular red-headed girl who always seems just out of reach for the nerdy Parker. What teenage boy can’t relate to that?
It’s not hard to see why Spider-Man has been so popular for so long, especially among pre-pubescent boys. So, you might be surprised to know that the Peter Parker/Spider-Man who swung back into action in No Way Home could have been quite different than he had been before.
He could have been bisexual. And MJ could have been a guy.
Andrew Garfield’s bad idea
When Sony acquired the rights to Spider-Man in 2017, they immediately began plans to reboot the franchise and a multi-verse Spider-Man storyline quickly came into play.
But before they cast the roles, they had to address a statement Andrew Garfield made in a 2013 interview. Garfield, who had played Spider-Man in two previous films, suggested that a multi-verse film “explore” Peter Parker’s “bisexuality.”
Later, Garfield remembered his comment. “There was an interview I gave where I said, ‘Why can’t Peter explore his bisexuality in his next film? Why can’t MJ be a guy?”
Sony and Marvel answered his question by replacing him with Tom Holland.
The growing trend
But Garfield’s perspective follows a trend in pop culture.
For two decades momentum has been building for storylines in TV and film to feature gay characters, so it’s no surprise when such characters ride the wave of wokeness into Marvel and DC entertainment. The WB’s Batwoman is a lesbian, and there is talk of Deadpool’s next installment confirming that he is pansexual.
Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson when she debuted in Thor:Ragnarok, is the first openly gay or bisexual character that Marvel brought to its cinematic universe.
But here’s the thing. Valkyrie is bisexual in the comic book source material. Peter Parker is not gay or bisexual in the original source. And MJ is a girl. Always has been. So, is this trend now engulfing all characters? How can anyone really think of ignoring the original source material?
In our postmodern climate, staying true to the source doesn’t matter anymore. A text has no permanent, objective value to the postmodernist.
So, a person’s personal agenda can be read into the text, regardless of what the original writer actually meant. Who cares what Stan Lee wanted? Let’s just change the character to meet our agenda.
But what we lose in that meltdown is not only the best the characters have to offer but also the best humanity has to offer.
We have forgotten why heroes matter
See, an eight-year-old is not reading Marvel comics and wondering if the heroes will explore their sexuality. No, they are wondering if they can be heroes, too. And they want to know what it takes to be a hero.
When productions begin to reshape a character to fit the postmodern agenda, or the interests of an identity group, they have forgotten why heroes matter in the first place.
Everyone needs heroes. We don’t need them to push identity agendas or prove how woke the studios are. We need heroes who stand for humanity, for our common values, and who can show us what it means to care about the whole human race, not just our corner of it.
If heroes are heroes, it’s because they are driven by a universal agenda, not the agenda of a special interest group. They show that all people can aspire to be heroes. And why so few actually do.
And it’s no accident that the heroes we admire embody biblical values. God wired us that way.
Here’s what I mean:
- Heroes teach us responsibility.
No one personifies this better than Spider-Man. From the inception of the Spider-Man narrative, a single statement has defined his life.
It comes from a quotation that’s attributed to great leaders and heroes stretching back through generations, but Lee popularized it through the narrator in the original 1962 Spider-Man. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
And it’s inherently biblical. Life is a stewardship, and when you are blessed with great opportunities, those opportunities become responsibilities to be upheld for the greater good (Luke 12:48). God will hold us accountable for that stewardship.
- Heroes teach us to fight for what is right.
Heroes fight for what is considered universally right, not just what one group wants.
Of course, the problem with postmodernism is that what is considered “right” has collapsed into a narrative of agendas and preferences and opinions. With no absolutes, what is right is just whatever you want it to be.
But that’s where the hero steps in and reminds us that some things are always right, and some things are always wrong. As Peter Parker told Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War, “When you can do the things that I can, and you don’t–and then the bad things happen—they happen because of you.”
The Bible is a bit more succinct, “It is sin to know the good and yet not do it” (James 4:17).
- Heroes teach us that sacrifice is a virtue.
In fact, ironically, when superheroes are turned into campaigners for woke activism, they fail all people, including those in the LGBTQ community. What makes a hero is selfless sacrifice for all humanity, reminding us that everyone matters
No Way Home concludes with a clear, gut-wrenching statement that self-sacrifice is what being a hero is all about.
For the world to survive, Peter sacrifices his relationships and his personal future to the necessity of heroism. He sits on the sidelines alone, a spectator watching the joy and successes of his friends who no longer even know who he is.
He has done what every hero knows they might one day be called upon to do. He has sacrificed himself for the greater good.
That’s what it means to be a hero. And that’s what we are losing.
If trends continue, and campaigns for woke agendas and social justice and identity politics overwhelm the human inclination to sacrifice for one another, to be responsible citizens, and to fight for what is good and right, we may wake up one day and realize we have wandered so far away from what it means to be heroic that we find, sadly, there truly is no way home.
Maybe we already have.
No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13