Spider-Man: Life Story

Some people think that Spider-Man works best as a teen hero and that letting him grow up in the Marvel Universe was a mistake.  Writer Chip Zdarsky may or may not be one of them, but he’s the only writer who thought to ask, “What if Spider-Man grew up along with us over the years?”  That’s the high concept behind “Life Story” as it tracks the growth of Peter Parker from a teen in the mid-60’s while checking in with him every decade thereafter all the way up to the 2010’s.  It’s a different kind of “Spider-Man” story and one that I was hoping to like as it would be my first encounter with Zdarsky as a writer rather than an artist.

The final product, however, definitely leaves something to be desired.  Zdarsky has a lot of ideas about how Peter’s life should go and a few of them are really good.  Most of them are either just misguided or outright bad. They ultimately come together to give us a story which spotlights the misery of being Spider-Man rather than the joy.

This is even more disappointing than I’m making it sound because things get started off on the right foot in ‘66.  While the Vietnam War is in full swing, Peter is swinging around Manhattan himself as he uses his powers to foil crimes and try to get to class on time.  Even if he feels that the responsibility of using these new powers for good is running him ragged, he’s got friends like Harry Osborne and Gwen Stacy to fall back on.  Heck, even Flash Thompson has some good things to say about how Spider-Man influenced his decision to join up with the Army. It’s at his going-away party that Peter has a fateful encounter with Harry’s dad, Norman, who has been following the young man’s career for quite some time.

What makes this issue, and most of the one that follows it work is that you don’t get the sense that Zdarsky is trying to adapt/cram a specific “Spider-Man” story into it.  No, he’s trying to bring the feel of the era and the character at this specific age to life. Peter’s climactic fight with the Green Goblin didn’t go anything like this, but the spirit of it remains true here as he has to outwit and outfight this opponent while finding a way to minimize the dramatic fallout from Norman’s other life.  Captain America even gets a good cameo to put some welcome perspective on the whole “power and responsibility” business.

Then, at the end of the issue, we get a couple pages to see that Cap has gone off the reservation to fight for the Vietnamese people in the war.  I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad idea in and of itself. It’s easy to imagine the character fighting against the U.S. when he believes they’re an unjustified aggressor.  The problem is that this is a really big and consequential idea to just toss off at the beginning of a high-concept “Spider-Man” miniseries.

It also proves to be symptomatic of the story’s flaws going forward from here as Zdarsky keeps bringing in more superheroes and ideas that feel extraneous to the story.  While the second issue has some good moments between Peter and Reed Richards, there are also further nods to more superheroes getting involved in Vietnam. While the gritty feel of the late 70’s and darker Spider-storylines come through just fine, the one storyline that the writer decides to pay direct service to is the infamous “Clone Saga.”  I don’t think that was anyone’s favorite storyline even before they decided to revisit it to a much-maligned extent in the 90’s and it doesn’t work here either. Mainly because it just exists to deliver an ending that mostly serves up a lot of pain for our protagonist.

The pain train which starts rolling there only picks up speed in subsequent issues as we get highlights like Peter missing the birth of his children because he was stuck fighting “Secret Wars.”  Witnessing how the symbiote suit ultimately ruins his marriage to Mary Jane. Watching Aunt May succumb to Alzheimers. Suffering through “Civil War” while Morlun (ugh) hunts his children. And then saying his goodbyes while he… goes into space on a suicide mission to end Doctor Doom’s totalitarian regime.

In case that last scenario wasn’t clear enough, things go well and truly off the rails by the end of this miniseries.  Mind you, even though the final issue features Miles Morales, it also nods to “The Superior Spider-Man” in a way that’ll likely make his fans roll their eyes.  At the very least.

There’s so much name-checking and lip service being paid to the storylines of the past that the narrative starts to feel less like the story of Peter’s life than a collection of Spidey’s greatest hits.  Capturing the feel of each era effectively takes second place to rehashing “Civil War?” Really?! If I were being really generous, then I’d say that Zdarsky was trying to make some kind of meta point about how Spidey’s life eventually came to be dominated by event storytelling.  Yet his story winds up succumbing to the worst attention-grabbing impulses of those stories in the end.

I’ll admit that there are still some moments which hit their mark in the volume’s latter half:  Peter’s final confrontation with Norman, for one. The final act of the symbiote suite, for another.  “Life Story” also gets arguably better art than it deserves thanks to one of this era’s defining Spider-artists:  Mark Bagley. Maybe it’s because of all those years he spent working with Bendis on “Ultimate Spider-Man,” but Bagley’s style has the kind of look I associate with the character.  Detailed and energetic, with characters who look innately athletic and are able to sell whatever story is being sold on the page. As he’s also able to capture the look of each issue’s era, it’s clear that they couldn’t have found a better artist for this story.

If only “Life Story” was worthy of Bagley’s talents.  What could’ve been an emotional look at how a superhero grapples with the changing times and the infirmities of age misses that mark almost completely.  In its place is a story that wants to remind you of the biggest (but not necessarily the best) stories of Spider-Man’s career while wallowing in the suffering that he’s experienced as a result of his powers.  I don’t think “Life Story” is the worst comic I’ve read all year. It’s just the most disappointing.