These stories weave through our lives like, well, webs around criminals or flies. We relate to them in different ways on different days. This summer, all eight Spider-Man movies were rereleased to cinemas.
Sunday, June 16th, 2024. We go see 2002’s Spider-Man. Having been on a few field trips with a high school class I student taught, I relate to Peter’s teacher more than I do to Peter. These kids should be more upfront with each other. And less noisy during the Oscorp employee’s presentation, yeesh.
On Thursday I practiced my final presentation, and after the movie we walked through the graduation show. I did this two years ago, and I am, in a way, transported right back there, but I already have the credits for the art bit, so I don’t have to this go around. I don’t miss it — the ideal form for my work is a website or a book, not a wall. I find myself wondering if Stan or Steve would be able to relate.1Stan, no, Steve, probably, but you try getting it out of them from behind their personalities.
It rains the whole way to the cinema, and then the whole way back.
Tuesday, June 18th, 2024. 2004’s Spider-Man 2. We go see 2004’s Spider-Man 2. On Thursday I’m giving my final presentation, so I relate to Otto, who knows he has something, but may or may not come across like Charlie from Always Sunny going the full Pepe Silvia. I relate to Harry, who feels like he’s going insane knowing what is to him a truth.
I realise everyone in these movies has the same arc; where the story is Man vs Monster, the emotional core for everyone is Man vs Self — they all have to be different versions of themselves to reconcile their inner turmoil and become their true selves. If the final presentation is the Monster to slay, was the course as a whole the Self?
Sunday, June 23rd, 2024. We took a break because I had to give my final presentation, successfully wrapping up a 2-year bachelor’s degree in art education with good grades, but we’re back, and go see 2007’s Spider-Man 3.
This morning I threw out my back again. I relate to Pete’s back issues from the last one, and to his being surrounded by way too many villains trying to kill him at once. I relate to Dr Conners never having to be the Lizard. In the Dark Pete segment, where he dances through the streets of New York, I relate to the folks it does kinda work for, actually. I wish I could be timeless like these people.
It’s getting sunnier again. It’ll be 26°C out when I get my diploma. I should get some… hand fans.
Sunday, June 30th, 2024. On Thursday I graduated with good grades. There was a speech. My legal name is late in the alphabet but they went in random order and I got to go first, which was: Nice. On Saturday, after #TARDISclub, we drove to my parents’ house for dinner in my brother’s new, first car.
And then on Sunday, we saw 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
In my Letterboxd reviews, I defend these movies — I think, removed from the immediacy of, oh, this is what Spider-Man movies are now, they’re good! They’re fun! They mostly work! We’ve been too harsh on them! But sitting down to write this the day after, I realise I don’t relate to them like I did the Raimi ones. Maybe it’s that they’re young people with young problems, and the people who I might relate to more get to sit these one out on the sidelines. Or maybe it’s what the first one explicitly says is the film’s main theme — the question “Who am I?”
Because where that’s something Pete struggles with… I’ve always known exactly who I am.
And that, unfortunately is where this entry has to end. We saw the MCU Spider-Man movies on Thursday, July 11th, Sunday, July 14th, and Wednesday, July 17th, 2024, but I just don’t connect to them in the same way. They diverge from my life a little, but they’re also not really… about anything.
Those movies are about Spider-Man being in the MCU now and, try as I might, I’m not in the MCU, am I.
Have any of you read the new Ultimate Spider-Man? He has a wife and kids and a job. I don’t have any of those things but I relate to him far more than I do the Pete of the MCU.
Time to move on. Such is life.
Earths encountered
- Earth-One and its various off-shoots, where the ’92 X-Men live.
- Earth-Two, where the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man lives.
- Earth-Three, where the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man lives.
- Earth-Four, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the Tom Holland Spider-Man lives.
The oldest draft of this post is dated May 16, 2024. It was written one section at a time between June 17 and June 30, and then got a postscript on September 24, 2024.