The Avengers Need Spider-Man – But Spider-Man Doesn’t Need The Avengers

The Avengers are Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the Marvel Universe, and their ranks are usually comprised of major Marvel characters. In the past few decades, this has included the likes of Spider-Man, perhaps the company’s biggest character since his debut in the Silver Age of Comics. While this seems like an obvious development, the two properties aren’t as great of a fit as some fans might think.

Spider-Man has been independent of – and far more popular than – the Avengers for most of his history. On the other hand, the Avengers only truly earned their supposed prominence in the early 2000s, ironically around the time that Spidey and Wolverine joined the team. There’s also the fact that the friendly neighborhood hero connects with readers in ways that most of the Avengers don’t, cementing the idea that he’s the hero who best represents the Marvel Universe.

Spider-Man Is Meant to Be a Lone Wolf In Many Ways

Debut: Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

When he debuted in 1963, Spider-Man was definitely something different in the world of comic book superheroes. Despite his name, he wasn’t an adult but a high school student named Peter Parker. This meant that he dealt with high school problems, such as needing pocket change and his trouble with girls, while also having to contend with the health of his sickly old aunt. Though a young teenager, he wasn’t a sidekick to an adult hero and lacked a mentor guiding him on his journeys. This made him quite different from DC Comics’ Robin, the Boy Wonder, and Marvel sidekicks such as Bucky Barnes or Hulk’s ally, Rick Jones. Spidey wasn’t even a part of a team, separating him from the likes of the Human Torch on the Fantastic Four.

His growing popularity in the Bronze Age and the Modern Age of Comics allowed Spider-Man to have multiple monthly comic books. These included the main title, The Amazing Spider-Man, as well as Spectacular Spider-Man, “adjectiveless” Spider-Man, and spinoffs for characters such as the Scarlet Spider and even former villains such as Venom. Due to the ubiquitous nature of the “Spider-Verse” concept, he’s interacted more and more with similar heroes.

However, many fans consider it a fact that Spider-Man works best as a solo hero who’s more than capable of having constant stories told about him. This meant that his usual solo show still had enough narrative juice and interest among readers to support multiple titles. That’s not been the case with the other members of the Avengers, who have long been in the shadow of Spider-Man and other, more “X”-traordinary heroes.

The Avengers Have Rarely Been On Spider-Man’s Level of Popularity

The Avengers are largely made up of heroes who represent their own individual properties and franchises, as is the case with Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk. Other members haven’t been as successful or consistent in having solo titles and mythologies, namely Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Wasp, and others. This is in sharp contrast to Spider-Man, who’s long since had multiple titles for himself and his supporting cast/spinoff characters.

While the Avengers are referred to as “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” they became something of a second-string team by the 1980s. This was the era in which Chris Claremont’s run on The Uncanny X-Men truly hit its stride, with the merry Marvel mutants soon having several titles. These included adjectiveless X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, The New Mutants and a solo book for Wolverine. These titles succeeded due to their focus on more than just great action, with the characters’ personal drama and the themes of persecution elevating the content to must-read material. The same was true with Spider-Man, whose personal issues made him relatable and interesting.

Comparatively, the Avengers lacked any human interest stakes, and this was showcased most in the 1980s and 1990s. While runs on The Mighty Thor by Walt Simonson and arguably even Captain America by Mark Gruenwald were popular, they’re rarely mentioned in the same breath as the praise given to the Chris Claremont X-Men books or even the issues of Spider-Man by creators such as David Michelinie, Peter David or Roger Stern. Peter David’s The Incredible Hulk and Frank Miller’s Daredevil are about the only books treated as being on this level. Thus, the fact that the Avengers team and books involved characters who weren’t especially popular did little for the property.

Spider-Man Helped The Avengers’ Popularity

This was showcased most in the 1990s, with the Avengers family of books (along with Fantastic Four) selling so poorly that they were licensed to creators at Image Comics to reboot in the controversial Heroes Reborn initiative. Given that characters such as the more obscure Ghost Rider and the gritty Punisher were consistently outselling them, it was definitely a bad look for the heroes. Even the well-received “Heroes Return” relaunches for books such as Iron Man and The Avengers had to compete for any fresh air compared to even more middling content from the X-Men and Spider-Man brands.

It wasn’t until the 2000s that the Avengers really hit their stride, though including Spider-Man helped. Along with the gritty and dark modern reimagining of the team in The Ultimates (which was the complete opposite of Busiek’s comparatively “corny” pseudo-retro relaunch in the main universe), the Avengers latest got a new lineup through a run written by Brian Michael Bendis. This did away with some Avengers stalwarts and instead added street-level hero Luke Cage and popular Marvel mascots Spider-Man and Wolverine. Unsurprisingly, this was the run that put the Avengers on the map, setting them up for the long-term success that’s since resulted in several hit live-action movies.

As shown in the movies, however, this first required making audiences care about the individual heroes, which has always been easier with Spider-Man than the mainstay Avengers in the comics. Even in the films, Spidey alone is neck and neck with the Avengers, with Spider-Man: No Way Home (a movie featuring three Spider-Men) making nearly $2 billion USD without a Chinese release. This was more than the first two Avengers movies and almost as much as the third, with those three films also having Chinese releases to bolster their box office. This movie’s success hasn’t rubbed off on the comics, which is a medium where even poorly received Spider-Man books tend to sell at least decently. This speaks to a key selling point that the wall-crawler has over his other Marvel heroes.

Spider-Man Represents the Marvel Ethos Better than The Avengers

Though it’s an erroneous assumption, some comic book fans find Marvel characters more relatable than their DC Comics counterparts. It’s especially interesting given that many of the biggest Marvel heroes have no real day job or strong alter egos compared to DC heroes. Superman is a journalist, Barry Allen is a forensics cop, Hal Jordan is a pilot, Bruce Wayne is an industrialist and Hawkman is an archaeologist, with Oliver Queen waxing and waning between a rich entrepreneur and a liberal voice of the streets. On the other hand, Bruce Banner is always on the run, while Thor, Captain America and Hawkeye have no such mundane roles. In the times when Marvel had given Steve Rogers and Donald Blake (the former human alter ego of Thor) day jobs and similar narrative elements, it felt more generic than organic.

On the other hand, Peter Parker is an integral part of the Spider-Man formula, with Peter Parker’s issues with money and his relationships being just as important, if not more so, than bouts against the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, The Lizard, Mysterio and other villains. Said foes are usually as grounded as he is, with their ranks typically involving crooks and corrupt business owners who gain powers and abilities through either experiments or hi-tech gadgets. Spider-Man doesn’t work when facing cosmic gobbledygook or similarly esoteric concepts, which was a big reason (among others) that Judas Traveller was one of the many ill-fitting elements in the infamous “Clone Saga” storyline. Spider-Man stories have a much bigger appeal by keeping the stakes and scope down to Earth.

Spider-Man Is More Relatable Than The Avengers

This is a big reason why Spidey is so much more popular than even the sum total of the Avengers, as he deals with things on a more relatable level. That’s also the case with the individual heroes: Thor is a cosmic god, Captain America is essentially a soldier/spy who spends as much time in older comics giving platitudinous speeches as he does fighting villains, and Iron Man is a rich playboy. Needless to say, it’s easy to see why, many times down on his luck, Daredevil or the constantly persecuted/hunted Hulk and the X-Men are the only Marvel characters that have been as consistently popular. “His version” of New York also feels alive and vibrant (especially in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies), meaning that Spider-Man could easily exist in a world without the Avengers.

On the other hand, the Avengers deal with bigger threats as a team and on their own, which could be why they’ve lacked this appeal. Likewise, adding characters such as Spider-Man and Luke Cage to Bendis’ take on the Avengers lineup did a lot to make them more relatable and handle somewhat more “street-level” issues. The team needed these characters for both more mainstream appeal and to stay grounded, in a sense. The Avengers might otherwise be so focused on fighting Kang the Conqueror, the Masters of Evil, or other “great” threats that they lose sight of who they’re trying to protect.

Given that his feet are always firmly planted on the ground – even when he’s swinging above the skyline – Spider-Man is the kind of hero who can help keep that perspective. Thus, he’s the kind of member the Avengers always need around, even if he doesn’t necessarily need them.