Heh. I don't think this molestation story picked up on other writers, because it doesn't fit the Spiderman character. He's not a brooding character, sitting and thinking abut a heavy past, but more carefree let's-go-and-do it. Life isn't complicated for him, and he doesn't have dark sides to his personality.
A molestation story would fit great for Cylops though :) Or Batman! Would explain all his weird sexual issues and his fixation with having sidekicks around he can protect.
Heh. I don't think this molestation story picked up on other writers, because it doesn't fit the Spiderman character. He's not a brooding character, sitting and thinking abut a heavy past, but more carefree let's-go-and-do it. Life isn't complicated for him, and he doesn't have dark sides to his personality.
A molestation story would fit great for Cylops though :) Or Batman! Would explain all his weird sexual issues and his fixation with having sidekicks around he can protect.
agreed
For some weird reason I can also imagine Magneto having a molestation background.
And nice post btw!
Quicksilver is a jerk anyway.
Whoa! How cool!
There's something to be said about the sacred nature of a superhero's origin story. Of all the things Hollywood has vowed to screw up through never-ending reboots and sequels and remakes, you can bet your lunch money that the hero's origin story is going to stay the same. Batman's always a rich kid who watched his parents die, Superman's an alien from Krypton and Wolverine's ... angry. In a world plagued with continuity problems, it's nice to have that kind of constant.
Except, when you dig into the comics, you often find downright terrifying stories from the hero's past that actually explain a lot, yet will never get included in a Hollywood blockbuster. For instance ...
#5. Spider-Man Was Molested as a Kid
The Origin Story We Know:
As a teenager, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained incredible superpowers (instead of a nasty scab on his hand and/or cancer). After his Uncle Ben is murdered by a thug, Pete starts using his abilities to punch other thugs for the betterment of society.
Not bad for a middle-aged accountant.
But There Is Another Story ...
As perfectly logical as the above explanation sounds, there is a lesser known but arguably more important origin for Spider-Man. Basically, it boils down to "a guy touched his penis."
In a 1984 "very special" issue, Spider-Man comforts a young boy who was abused by his babysitter by telling him the story of another kid who was once in a similar situation. It all started when the kid in Spider-Man's story became friends with a creepy older boy named Skip.
"Wanna go out to eat? I get a discount at Sizzler."
After going over his vintage porno collection together, Skip starts getting fresh with the other boy ... who happens to look remarkably like a young Peter Parker.
The boy, an orphan, eventually confessed what happened to the relatives he lived with (let's call them "Aunt Nay" and "Uncle Den"). However, the comic is vague about whether the kid in the story was Peter or not, because just flat-out confirming that Spidey was molested would be insa --
"Also, if you tell anyone my identity, I'll have to kill you."
Oh. But wait, what if Spider-Man was just making the story up to make the kid feel better about himself? That seems like something he'd do. Except that at the end of the comic, we see Spidey talking to himself and admitting that this was a huge deal for him.
"It's also important to --" *crashes into building*
So wait, Peter was molested as a kid, and up until this story he had never dealt with the trauma? Except, of course, by dressing up in a crazy costume and punching bad men -- which actually makes for a more feasible origin than "He was a nerd who got superpowers." Every time Spider-Man was punching Doctor Octopus in the face, it's quite possible that he was actually thinking of his friend Skip.
It also explains why he never liked Quicksilver from the Avengers.
There's even a song by the Black Lips about this issue, and if you think this was an alternate reality deal or something like that, Skip was referenced again in a later comic from 1987 where Spider-Man starts monologuing about child abuse in the middle of a fight across New York with a possibly very awkward villain.