Ch-ch-ch-changes (Patreon)

If there's anything I'm willing to go to the mat for, it's that Spider-Man's theme isn't youth (we've paid God knows how many visits to that fucking high school over the years, considering it was only a thing for 28 issues. It's like no Batman movie using Alfred because he didn't show up until Batman 16). It's change. The whole idea is to follow a man's journey through life, from youth to old age, only with fucking superpowers in the mix. Yet somehow we've gone six movies without him graduating college. It's like if the James Bond movies insisted on having 007 fight Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Red Grant over and over again.

Anyway, so far most of what I've come up with is just refinements and twists. The biggest changes to canon are leaving out loser ideas like Sins Past, totems, Felicia Hardy being raped--crap like that. But here are the scandals. Spoiler warning for a comic that'll probably never be published.

1. Jameson's feud with Spider-Man would be 'millenials are killing the superhero industry.'

I know, I know, unforgivably topical, but look at it from an in-universe perspective. You have the Invaders during WW2, who were legends. Then the Fantastic Four show up. Public IDs. Captain America returns--it makes sense that after over half a century, the government has declassified his identity (if he had a secret one in the first place), so he has a public ID. So would most of the Avengers. Wanda, Pietro, and Clint are reformed criminals (technically, so is Hulk). Tony, Hank, and Jan have the resources to defend themselves. Thor is a god. It makes sense that these guys would say "fuck it, here's our headshots, we live in a mansion in the middle of New York, if you've got a problem, come on over and see what happens."

Then Spider-Man shows up. Secret identity. Daredevil. The X-Men. And on and on from there. It would be really easy for Jameson to draw a line in the sand between the Avengers and FF, who at least nominally answer to the government, and vigilantes who are accountable to no one.

And of course Peter's position is "I don't live in a mansion with robot guards, I live in Queens with my mom, I'm not letting Hammerhead know where I live."

2. The Vulture shows up as a rival to J. Jonah Jameson who owns his own unscrupulous newspaper.

I've heard a lot online about people, especially the elderly, who've been driven to paranoia, anxiety, and general poor mental health because of fearmongering in the news. If you'll forgive the literalism, here's where Adrian Toomes being a 'vulture' comes in.

I like the idea of depicting Jameson as the traditional news media... beleaguered, flaws, in definite need of improvement, but at least good at heart and trying... versus Toomes as outright fake news. Lying to people and keeping them in a state of fear to make money and achieve political ends.

The climax--besides getting Toomes into a bird-suit, because c'mon--would have Jameson realizing just how much he's compromised himself with his vendetta against Spider-Man. How he's guilty of the same scare-mongering that Toomes was and that it's not harmless, it's leading to shit like anti-superhero lynch mobs.

That's right--Jameson breaks bread with Spider-Man.

Of course, for y'r classic Parker Luck, him calling off the jihad means that he doesn't have as much use for Spider-Man pictures, so Peter's out of a job. More on that later.