#in terms of drama and also in terms of saddling jonah with an interesting potential character arc grappling w/

[softgrungeprophet]

I hope you don't mind me adding onto this w/ another instance of Peter being (indirectly?) responsible for someone's death by mentioning Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 again, since I read it recently-ish—

"He's dead! --and before I could get anything in writing!"

Peter is so singlemindedly focused on clearing his parents' names that he just straight up does not give a shit that he got this dude (admittedly a Bad Guy™) grievously wounded. All he cares about is getting him to talk before he dies—

i'm sure you could say, well, he didn't purposefully set out to get anyone killed, which, sure, and that's the same w/ norman, where the narrative can't have him kill this guy but he can be indirectly responsible for the villain being hoisted with his own petard (literally) but like.

Peter knew exactly what he was doing, he knew they were in the car, he knew the missile was following him too quickly to dodge, and chose to use the villains' car as cover. Extenuating circumstances left him with not much choice in the matter, of course, and maybe his plan was that they'd disable the missile once they saw it coming (even though he already noted it was too fast to web, and he has superhuman reflexes), but it's obvious that he feels basically zero remorse afterward, regardless of the choice he had in the matter.

The only thing he's (possibly sarcastically) upset about is the fact that he didn't get the confession in writing.

i just think that's interesting, in a comic from 1968, written by stan the man himself.

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Peter’s mean streak gets downplayed a lot in fandom, which is something that doesn’t quite make sense to me, especially when you look at his origin in Amazing Fantasy #15. Don’t get me wrong; I think Peter is a deeply kind character. But I think kind and nice get conflated incorrectly, and when you think about the humor in Spider-Man, there’s one joke that gets overlooked: friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is a sarcastic phrase. He can be very nice, when he loves someone, when someone is a victim, when he thinks someone needs or deserves it. But he’s not always nice, and therein lies a crucial piece of characterization. Ultimately, he’s not friendly, and neither is the neighborhood. If it was a friendly neighborhood, it wouldn’t need him. 

(Spectacular Spider-Man #140) The idea that Peter isn’t intimidating is a modern invention, and frankly pretty ridiculous. Peter is intimidating; it’s part of why he’s mistrusted in so many circles. (I would go so far as to say you cannot have a man who can punch through concrete or crush a skull with his bare hands and suggest he’s not capable of being intimidating; to do so is irresponsible. What you can do is tell responsible stories using that character, and show that he cares and you can show what keeps him good and heroic. But you can’t pretend that a character who is capable of inflicting that much physical damage and harm with his bare hands could never be intimidating.)

I have a longer, more philosophical post about Peter and murder in my drafts that I keep meaning to finish, but I’m going to go ahead and address it here anyway: I don’t think the question should be “should Peter kill?” or even “would Peter kill?”, but rather “has Peter killed?” because the answer, in 616, is yes. For the sake of the argument, I’m not going to say he’s murdered anyone, because murder requires premeditation, although he has threatened murder before and in the moment sincerely meant it. But let’s say he’s the direct physical cause for at least one death, and I would argue two – maybe three, if we’re going to look hard at what the narrative demanded versus what’s actually on the page. 

Let’s look at the simplest, cleanest cut case first: in Spider-Man vs Wolverine, Peter is on assignment for the Bugle in Germany with Ned Leeds, the abusive husband of his first love Betty Brant and, unbeknownst to him, the villain Hobgoblin. When Ned is murdered, Peter finds himself getting involved in Wolverine’s affairs involving a spy friend of his named Charlemagne. Charlemagne’s reached the end of her rope; she’s going to be killed. She wants Wolverine to do it first. It’s a mercy killing, and Wolverine agrees. Unfortunately for all parties, Spider-Man interrupts, misreading – and objecting to – the situation. He and Wolverine start to fight. It’s a brutal match; Peter’s stronger and faster, but Logan’s extremely durable:

“I’m hitting him hard enough to wreck cars.” An interesting thing about Peter vs Wolverine matches, I have to say, is that Peter seems to view Logan’s healing factor as a loophole for his own unbridled brutality. “An ordinary man would be wonder-Jello by now” and yet, he keeps hitting him. (He also tosses Wolverine out of the Avengers Tower window – through the unbreakable glass – in Amazing Spider-Man #522 after Logan insults Mary Jane. It’s just an interesting thing, to think about a character with super strength and a deep but secret yen for violence confronted by a man who both can heal from anything and pushes his buttons.) Charlemagne sees an opportunity and takes it, sneaking up on Peter from behind while he’s in a wild rage.

He doesn’t intend to kill her, but he’s still ultimately the instrument of her death, and it’s a death that was only enabled because he was so lost in his rage and in the fight with Wolverine that he automatically lashed out. 

Then there’s Amazing Spider-Man #200, where Peter is confronted by the man who killed Uncle Ben – who he also currently believes killed Aunt May:

Despite the above panels, this one’s actually less clear cut. Ultimately, as Peter-as-Spider-Man chases the burglar around in the dark, the burglar has a fright induced heart attack – so despite the choking here what happens is that Peter literally scares him to death. I think it’s up to personal interpretation whether or not that counts as “killing” someone, but it does fit into a bigger narrative pattern with Spider-Man, where it’s not like Peter beats someone to death, but his physical presence does enable the circumstances of their death, which is what also happens with Norman Osborn in Amazing Spider-Man #122, immediately following Gwen’s death:

Does Peter kill Norman? No, Norman kills Norman, technically, but it’s interesting to think about: the book realizes that, narratively, Norman needs to die for the crime of killing Gwen. Peter can’t kill him and I mean that on a storytelling and not a character level; he’s The Superhero and Superheroes Don’t Kill. (It was a different time. They’d already shattered audience expectations by killing off Gwen.) But Norman still has to die. So you end up with Amazing Spider-Man #122, a book where Peter swears up, down, and sideways that he’s going to kill Norman, where he abandons Harry in order to seek out Norman for revenge, and where, at the moment he decides he can’t actually kill Norman, his physical actions (ducking the glider meant for him) lead directly to Norman’s death. So he doesn’t kill Norman. But it is interesting to think about on a meta level.

In Back In Black (Amazing Spider-Man #539–543), after Aunt May is shot following the events of Civil War, Peter goes on the hunt for her would-be assassin. He finally corners the gunman in a violent confrontation:

This is an interesting scene again with the view that the narrative won’t really let Peter kill, even if the character himself wants to. The gunman is shot by another assailant before he can give up the name of who ordered the hit, and Peter needs the name. So no matter how determined Peter was to kill him in this scene – and he doubles down a page or so later, confirming to himself that he was prepared to kill him for shooting May – the book itself won’t let him. Storytelling! It’s neat like that. It’s essentially the inverse of “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” The inclination for killing is in Peter’s character; the writer just has to keep leading him away from the actual act of murder. It’s also a big part of why the responsibility is so important: it’s what he uses to keep himself back from the brink, whether that responsibility is to himself and his own integrity or if he views it as part of his responsibility to his family:

“You see, I’ve always tried to avoid killing anyone partly for my own principles, and partly because I was always afraid how it would affect my family if I killed someone.” (Amazing Spider-Man #542 – if you’re into Peter’s darker side, Back In Black on the whole is a standout.)

One more note about Peter and killing: there’s been an implication once or twice over the years that if Peter did start willingly killing, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

In Spider-Man: Friends and Enemies #2, Peter fantasizes a world where he went down the wrong path and had the wrong guidance. He imagines his much younger self snapping and murdering someone – and enjoying it. Similarly, during the Grim Hunt storyline (Amazing Spider-Man #634-637), following the murders of Mattie Franklin, the third Spider-Woman, and Kaine, Peter’s clone, Peter sets out with the intent to kill Sasha Kravinoff, Kraven the Hunter’s wife. He’s stopped by Anya Corazon:

A vision of a future if Peter did kill Kraven also reveals that he would continue killing:

Which is a pretty interesting twist on a character who is commonly associated as having a strict “no killing” rule.