“It is the duty of the citizen to serve the polity. Without the duty of the citizen, the polity reverts to totalitarianism. The disintegration of participation, the negation of responsibility and thinking, are the seeds from which evil grows. The end of the conversation between the citizen and his government is equivalent to the end of the conversation between man and himself.”
-Tom King, Rorschach
When trying to understand power, it’s equally worth looking around for the also rans. The failures that point in a different direction than what ultimately won out. The power of monsters is often revealed through examining the corpses of those its murdered. Be it the claw marks of a lion, the hickeys of a shark, or the scars of a serial killer, one can see the nature of the enemy within the dead.
To that end, we must consider The Amazing Spider-Man duology. In terms of individual texts they are rather minor footnotes in the grand scheme of things. The first one was the first Superhero movie released during the immediate high of the post-The Avengers age, right before the most anticipated sequel of the year, The Dark Knight Rises, so it wasn’t going to do well in terms of cinematic comparisons. Quality wise, the first Amazing Spider-Man is about as good as an above average MCU film[1] while its sequel is a hot mess full of ideas that it never quite develops enough to make work, yet is charming enough in every other area to get away with a lack of coherence and the drab decision to kill off Gwen Stacy. As with all hot messes, however, it’s useful in order to examine what could have been.
For our purposes, it’s perhaps best to start with the police. In the wake of 9/11, the police utilized a mixture of public good will at the sight of Police Officers in their dorky outfits[2] pulling people out of the wreckage of the World Trade Center as a means to increase their budgets[3]. Historically, the police have utilized these budget increases to purchase more militaristic weaponry from machine guns to tanks in order to improve their job of keeping the peace.
It is certainly easy to make a parallel between the police and the costumed superhero. Both are invested in sustaining a status quo wherein the systems currently in place remain in place, be the threat to said systems be a bank robber shooting up the streets, an anarchist out to overthrow the system, or an unarmed black man with breathing difficulties. While the superhero has often avoided the worst excesses of police brutality, that brutality can nevertheless be seen within the genre.
It should be noted, however, that the superhero is not inherently an agent of the status quo. While certainly an extremely popular take on the archetype, the superhero can, in theory, be a figure aligned with overthrowing the status quo. Superman famously took down both Hitler and Stalin as well as the Klu Klux Klan at a time where being opposed to both institutions of power was unpopular. Equally, there’s the Occupy Wall Street movement, which took to the streets wearing Guy Fawkes masks (as inspired by the superhero movie V for Vendetta).
And, of course, there’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While the films never explicitly go out of their way to condemn the police as an outright fascist organization, throughout the film they are portrayed as, at best, passively aiding Spider-Man in dealing with the various criminal elements. However, this isn’t how they behave throughout the majority of the film. Rather, the police within The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are shown to frequently escalate situations via shooting everything that moves.
In one truly shocking sequence (that the film is woefully ill prepared to deal with the full implications of), we see Electro (played by Jamie Foxx), confused and disoriented, doing something weird to the electrical system of Time Square. A passing by police officer, upon seeing Electro, request he step away from the electrical wiring. Electro, dressed in a hoodie, looks up at the police officer, who immediately responds by pulling his gun on the unarmed black man.
The scene of an unarmed black man having a gun pulled on him for no other reason than the officer was “scared” is a familiar one within the post 9/11 American landscape[4]. There are a number of ways in which this scene is defanged. The officer in question is portrayed by a black man and Electro, in that moment, looks a bit freaky. But the moment nevertheless strikes a chord with an era that, only two months later, would see four police officers hold Eric Garner down on the ground (one of whom holding Garner in a chokehold) while he cried “I can’t breathe” before dying.
But even outside of this moment, the police frequently escalate a situation via shooting at whatever threats come their way. By contrast, Spider-Man is shown frequently attempting to deescalate situations. The most obvious case for this is what follows with Electro being shot at by the police in Time Square. Spider-Man sees Max Dillon is frightened and confused and tries to talk him down from what is blatantly a nervous breakdown brought about by overstimulation. He uses a previous encounter he had with Max to help calm him down. Even when he’s committed violence against the police after they shot him for moving funny, Spider-Man still attempts to deescalate the situation until it gets to a point where he has to use violence against Electro.
And yet, even when Electro goes full “I’M GOING TO KILL THE LIGHT! SO EVERYONE IN THIS CITY WILL KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE IN MY WORLD! A WORLD WITHOUT POWER! A WORLD WITHOUT MERCY! A WORLD WITHOUT SPIDER-MAN!” supervillainy, Spider-Man still attempts to deescalate the situation. Likewise, Spider-Man portrays this same degree of de-escalation with his other baddies like The Green Goblin[5]. Indeed, violence within the films is portrayed as, to some degree, a failure state for Spider-Man. In the first Amazing Spider-Man film, Peter spends the first act of the film punching his way through random car thieves to find the man who killed his Uncle Ben[6]. However, the films are apt to point out that this mode of Spider-Man is actually not that great. They’re the reactions of a someone who is less interested in fighting for the little guy and more interested in punching people. In many regards, this (along with the conflicted relationship with the police[7]) acts as a contrast with what is quite possibly the most important superhero franchise to understand post-9/11 America: Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy.
In the history of the superhero concept, there has been an insidious ebb towards fascism. While anti-fascist creators such as Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, and Ram V have done weird and interesting things with the medium, the majority of lasting takes on the medium opt for a more conservative, fascist take on the field. And nowhere is this more apparent than in Batman. While many runs (including ones by Grant Morrison and Tom King) have attempted to confront the fascist bug, their ideas have, ultimately, been rejected and discarded in favor of more authoritarian takes from creators like Frank Miller or Chuck Dixon. And, of course, Christopher Nolan
Consider The Joker. Within the framework of The Dark Knight, The Joker is an evil leftist out to uproot the systems of corruption within Gotham that created an environment that allowed a figure like Batman to be necessary. He talks about disrupting a cruel “natural order” that sees working class people like soldiers and gang bangers being murdered as a banal reality of life whereas, when similar events happen to politicians and decision makers, it’s deemed a tragedy.
And, perhaps most shockingly, The Joker is never once portrayed as being disingenuous about his desires for a better world[8]. By contrast, the following film’s Bane (heavily utilizing Occupy Wall Street rhetoric) is shown to be a sham leftist out to kill everyone due to the world being too “degenerate” for his sensibilities. To combat these threats, we have an interpretation of Batman who can best be described as the conservative wet dream.
He frequently uses his fists, threats of violence, outright torture, and NSA level spy craft to combat his foes. He is a detective in the model of Robert Aldrich’s Mike Hammer: A thug whose only response to the problems of the world is violence, and frequently violence against women. To say nothing of the racialized contempt the films have for various Middle Eastern cultures such that Liam Neeson plays the yellow peril villain Ra’s Al Ghul and has the tragic hero Harvey Dent make a quip about buying American[9] in his introductory scene. Not to mention how the film villainizes the people of Gotham once the chips are truly down. At the climax of The Dark Knight, we have a contrived scene where two boats are given detonators for the bombs on the other boats. In an uncharacteristically sentimental move on Nolan’s part, both boats decide not to blow up the other boat.
And then, in The Dark Knight Rises, the people of Gotham, freed from the chains of Western civilization, opted to burn everything and everyone for their own pleasure. The only people who stand up to violence and looting are the police leading to a climax with, in what is perhaps one of the most blatant “DO YOU GET THE FUCKING POINT” moments in cinematic history, a war between the heavily armed working class people and the unarmed, ill-equipped police acting as a backdrop.
All of this is in service to the core question at the heart of the trilogy: What is the cause of everything wrong with the world? Why are we in a downward spiral towards decay and horror? Why are there more homeless people on the streets than before? Why is there more crime? Why don’t I feel safe anymore? Why is Batman necessary?
The answer, unsurprisingly given the films’ conservative bent, is because there are forces outside the world you know. Evil foreign powers from vaguely middle eastern lands. Anarchistic dissidents who want to take away your freedoms[10]. Bureaucracy and “rights” that get in the way of justice being served. And that’s not even getting into the people. The people, the films ultimately argue, are one step away from becoming the monstrous horde the police fear them of being and the baddies see them as being. Without an authoritarian fascist like Batman, a man who must come from the City rather than from outside of it, the people would eat each other.
In many regards, the Amazing Spider-Man films act as an alternative both to the heroism of the Dark Knight and the political implications therein. To start with, there’s the nature of the people. In what is perhaps the defining moment of heroism within the Amazing Spider-Man films, Spider-Man descends into a car that is about to explode to rescue a single kid. The kid is terrified, so Peter removes his mask to calm the kid down. When things start to get really hairy, Peter gives the kid the mask as a means of letting him feel safe. He then saves the kid.
This act of kindness is returned by the kid’s father opting to help Spider-Man in the climax of the film. He organizes his fellow construction workers to create a path of cranes to guide Spider-Man towards the main baddie. Is the moment cheesy? Yes, obviously. But it nevertheless highlights a vision of heroism of these films. A vision outside of police and authoritarianism: that of the rescue hero.
Further rejecting the Nolan vision of the world is the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Here, we have a scene reminiscent of the train sequence from Spider-Man 2 where an ordinary person confronts a mechanized monster out to hurt everyone. Where in that movie, the people where tossed aside like nothing, here we have one person stand up to the baddie: a small boy named Jorge, whom Spider-Man had defended from bullies earlier in the film. Dressed as Spider-Man, Jorge stands up to the baddie. We know how this is going to end, we know the only way this could end: Jorge is going to die.
But the film never once undercuts this moment. It never rejects the heroism of Jorge as any lesser than the heroism of Spider-Man for the sake of a joke. Indeed, the film’s ultimate argument is that both are worthy heroisms. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stupid and pointless gesture, if it’s ultimately going to end with the baddie coming out on top and you dead[11]. As long as you tried to fight against the bastards of the world, your heroism is worth it. Indeed, it will be rewarded in kind. Because attempting to make the world a better place, ultimately, is a worthwhile endeavor.
But perhaps the ultimate aspect that contrasts the two visions of superheroism is their choice of main antagonist for their whole series. For the Nolan Batman films, the antagonist is a foreign power out to destroy our freedoms. (Be that foreign power from the Middle East or simply outside the walls of Gotham.) For the Amazing Spider-Man films, it’s a corporation utilizing tech for admittedly vaguely defined reasons. Throughout the films, there is a conspiracy related to the death of Peter’s parents that the films are ostensibly interested in[12]. In practice, however, they are a secondary interest to the films, often discarded in favor of other things.
(The core interest of the films is, of course, the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone both do wonders with characters who, at times, aren’t written with depth so much as archetypes. However, as a consequence, the films uncritically regurgitate harmful tropes regarding the romantic comedy genre, most particularly the stalking as a form of romance trope.
This is something it shares with the notable work of superhero fiction within the romantic comedy genre: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog[13]. In many regards, Dr. Horrible is what the Amazing Spider-Man films would be like if they lacked the charm, competence, and ethics that make them interesting. Directed by Joss Whedon, Dr. Horrible is a movie about a wannabe supervillain who loves the girlfriend of a superhero. Throughout the film, the main love interest, Penny, is treated like a naive little girl who doesn’t understand the complexities of the world and must be protected from the Alpha males who will make her do uncomfortable sex stuff. [Felicia Day, god bless her, tries her best with the role, but can’t salvage it.] It’s up to Beta males who are just nice guys out to conquer the world because superheroes are mean, nasty bullies [Neil Patrick Harris is simply too charismatic to be capable of making this guy work and Nathan Fillion is shockingly inept at playing the boorish, smarmy asshole jock he has often done in his sleep.]
Women are slabs of meat to be fought over, to mourn for. But they are never people. They don’t have interiority [not that any of the important people care] because that would make them more than the willowing waifs who were taken to early from this wretched world of ours. Their role isn’t to make things better with protests and petitions and soup kitchens, it’s to die while the important people feel bad about it and justify their cruelty. There is a degree of awareness of the cruelty of this portrayal of women but it never extends to Dr. Horrible, who is framed as a shy, nebbish stalker who loved Penny.
In contrast, the Amazing Spider-Man films [though more so The Amazing Spider-Man 2] portray Gwen as an actual character with agency and opinions. The romance feels genuine and the awkwardness between the two works in a way that doesn’t undercut the film for the sake of explaining a joke[14]. There’s a quick wit and comradery shared between them not often seen outside of a screwball romance. It’s refreshing and lovely, even as the film opts for the boring choice of killing Gwen for pathos. But even there, the film rejects the Dr. Horrible [and, yes, Nolan Batman] model that the death is merely for the sake of male angst. It still is, but, as discussed earlier, its core is about the role of heroism. It is Gwen’s words of the fleeting nature of life that acts as the film’s core thesis on heroism. Do what you can to make the world better, for we don’t have much time within it. It doesn’t detract from the criticism that killing Gwen Stacy is a cheap and boring move, but it’s at least more than what Joss Whedon gave Penny.)
They do, however, provide an interesting transition to the final section of this piece and specifically in the face who ultimately represents Oscorp stands for: Mr. Fiers. Mr. Fiers is an… interesting character. Or, rather, an interesting presence within these films. He appears in two scenes that act oddly within the context of their respective films, yet reveal so much about the core of the Amazing Spider-Man films. More than that, it provides us with the power that fuels the horror of the post 9/11 age of superheroes.
The first scene with Mr. Fiers, on a purely cinematic one, is strange. On a script level, it’s a basic sequence of a mysterious man confronting a familiar character (Dr. Curt Conners) about a conspiracy they’re both aware of, threatening Curt to make sure he doesn’t reveal the conspiracy to Peter Parker. However, it’s the way it’s shot and edited that makes things interesting.
Throughout the film, Marc Webb opts to use primarily wide and medium shots (usually with longer takes) to depict the action at hand. Here, however, Webb opts to use short takes and extreme close ups, causing editors Alan Edward Bell and Pietro Scalia to use a rather disjointed editing style. But perhaps the moment that shifts this away from a quickly hashed out, last minute attempt at hooking the audience in for a sequel and towards something brilliant with implications so vast, one wishes we got The Amazing Spider-Man 3 is this: on a Dark and Stormy Night, Mr. Fiers (pronounced Fears) comes out from the shadows and then leaves. But he doesn’t step back into the shadows like the panto baddie he is. No, no. Instead, the filmmakers opt to make the most brilliant decision they could with such a character: he’s edited out of the shot.
Throughout the Amazing Spider-Man films, there’s a degree to which cinema is a part of what it is. Peter evokes various trickster characters from cinema from physicality of Buster Keaton to the slapstick intention of Jerry the Mouse to the hammerspace abilities of Bugs Bunny. He is shown via background decorations to be an avid fan of the cinematic arts[15]. And he feels as if he’s come out of a Screwball comedy with the quick wit and charm he oozes throughout. As such, it’s perhaps befitting that the main antagonist is also a creature of cinema.
But more than that… Mr. Fiers is an empty suit. There’s nothing underneath the hat and trench coat that denotes a person. He is constantly draped in shadows, even if it’s impossible for there to be shadows. He is less a man and more a physical embodiment of capitalistic excess and greed[16]. Tellingly, he’s not even named until the next movie, and even then only the name “Mr. Fiers” is provided. For he is not a character at all. He is a symbol for the monstrosity at the heart of the Amazing Spider-Man films, that which this take on Peter Parker is inherently opposed to. That which must be fought.
It’s the second scene he appears in that reveals the game away. As a text released in the peak of the modern age of blockbuster cinema, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was required to gesture towards franchise building. Contrary to many critiques of the film, it’s approach was rather akin to earlier pieces of superhero fiction where a minor character played by an interesting actor who could come back (or not) gets named after a comic book character, regardless of how well they fit[17].
That is, until the end of the film wherein Mr. Fiers walks past a bunch of suits for potential supervillains. This sequence advertises the potential villains to come in future Spider-Man films so the audience will come marvel at the sheer spectacle of these films. Here’s Dr. Octopus, there’s The Vulture, who else will come next? Black Cat? Alistair Smythe and his Spider-Slayers? Kraven the Hunter? Morbius, perhaps?
And it is here we find the main horror at the heart of it all, the potential villain of the doomed franchise revealed. A villain who uses pointless violence and cruelty, the spectacle of watching the world turn to ash as justification of its own existence. A being whose political ambitions veer conservative, even as it frames itself as apolitical. Who sees the great technologies of the world not as a means of creating a better world, but as one of self fulfilment, self-betterment. A capitalistic monster who destroys everything in its wake solely for the sake of gaining more and more power.
In short, the main antagonist of the Amazing Spider-Man films is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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[1] Think Captain America: The First Avenger or Ant-Man.
[2] Much like the superhero, the uniform of the average police officer has an air ubiquity and dorkiness that allows for easy queering of the design. Perhaps most tellingly with regards to the relationship between Superheroes and law enforcement is the fact that, upon attempting a redesign to look less stupid, the police opted for something more militaristic and increased the number of pouches they wore.
[4] And, indeed, the pre-9/11 American Landscape. As activist Derrick Ingram notes in response to the police “mistaking” him for a terrorist, “We’ve created a monster that’s kind of always existed within America, but we’ve given that monster — because of 9/11, because of other terrorist attacks and things that have happened — unquestionable, unchecked power.”
nytimes.com/2021/09/08/nyregion/nypd-9-11-police-surveillance.html
[5] An interesting digression for where Spider-Man cinema ultimately goes: there’s a degree of confliction when it comes with sympathizing with Harry Osborn. On the one hand, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 deftly creates a close relationship between the two despite it never once being built up within the previous film. On the other hand, there’s a degree of toxicity with how Dane DeHaan plays Harry, essentially a first draft performance of Lockhart in the grotty anti-capitalist text A Cure for Wellness. The Amazing Spider-Manfilms likewise view billionaire playboys with a degree of suspicion, but always to some degree halfcocked. Gesturing at anticapitalism rather than embracing it.
[6] Intriguingly, though never developed, Peter’s various obsessions (from the man who killed Ben Parker to the conspiracy that acts as a half-hearted throughline of the film to his romance with Gwen Stacy) is portrayed less like an obsession and more like a hyperfixation.
[7] Of the two, The Amazing Spider-Man treats the police as a more neutral entity, something initially antagonistic to Spider-Man, though ultimately aligned with him by the end. Willing to investigate strange occurrences within the city rather than leaving then just blaming hip hop and ultimately teaming up with Spider-Man (albeit grudgingly). There is, however, an extremely tantalizing line which introduces the semi-antagonistic Captain George Stacy, wherein he says of Spider-Man, “He’s not a vigilante, he’s an anarchist.”
[8] No doubt due to the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger. One can easily see a version of The Dark Knight Rises that has The Joker in the Bane role.
[9] For those unfamiliar with the concept, or have simply forgotten, in the wake of 9/11, the discourse often pushed a nationalistic messaging that emphasized the American nature of products as being superior to their non-American counterparts. This is most obvious in the phrase “Freedom Fries,” but can also be seen in the desire for products to be Made in America.
[10] As David Graeber notes in The Utopia of Rules, “Nolan’s villains are always anarchists. But they’re also always very peculiar anarchists, of a sort that seem to exist only in the filmmaker’s imagination: anarchists who believe that human nature is fundamentally evil and corrupt.” (222)
[11] This is especially telling in a movie that makes the extremely drab choice of killing Gwen Stacy.
[12] Were the films more interested in this conspiracy, it would be prudent to explore the ramifications of having 9/11 truther Roberto Orci as a co-writer of the second one. Though it’s worth noting that Peter’s parents were killed due to Richard Parker not wanting anything to do with a plan to sell his work as a weapon to a foreign power.
[13] If you think I’m going to watch My Super Ex-Girlfriend again, go fuck yourself.
[14] For all that it’s become a meme, “The hammer is my penis” doesn’t work in the context of the film.
[15] And, pleasingly, David Bowie during his Berlin period.
[16] Tellingly, one of the steps that led Harry Osborn down the route of villainy was his fellow Oscorp executives working to oust Harry from the corporation in the name of a power grab to increase their profits. Like I said, first draft for A Cure for Wellness.
[17] This becomes most unfortunate when it comes to the minor character of Dr. Ashley Kafka. Originating from JM DeMatteis’ Spider-Man work, Dr. Kafka was a female therapist based on a friend of DeMatteis who acted as the moral center of that era of Spider-Man. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Dr. Kafka is a German mad scientist out to torture Electro purely for his “scientific curiosity.”
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