Can Spider-Man be grim and gritty?

@strider92: Grim Hunt and Back in Black Spider-Man are great choices.

You could also have the sin-eater arc as well as the non-cannon Spider-Man Reign too :)

Or you can have what-if Spin-Offs

short answer......yes.

It doesn't fit with spidey/Pete. He's not a batman personality type.

hehehehe... i like your profile.

Anyway. Yeah, of course he can. Merc spiderman is pretty grim. He even killed a guy. Just, shot him in the face.

Yes, that's spiderman. I think it was from "The Spider That Went Into the Cold."

Yes but very rarely.

-m3th.O.D.-

For an arc or two a darker Spiderman book works but not as a full time thing.

Wasn;t it the point of Adjective-less Spiderman

EXACTLY! Those are awesome stories! Honestly, spiderman's life is quite grim and gritty to begin with if you think about it. I've felt touched by them on more than one occasion!

Screw grim and gritty or light hearted and happy. I just want a good quality written story dammit with an in character Peter Parker personality.

Why there are not many people like you!

@july16th: He's still a guy in a ridiculous get up. While I like him being taken seriously, I don't see how he can be made as dark as batman. Any attempt would just seem like trying too hard. Maybe for an arc or two, but reinventing him to be Grimdark would be incredibly silly.

How is a guy with a cape any better off for being taken seriously?

I don't want dark and gritty! Too many comics are dark these days, please leave Spidey with some lighter moments! We cant all be Batman and I don't want everyone to be modelled on the dark knight!

@spider11211: Spiderman can be taken seriously, but he really shouldn't be Grimdark, not permanently anyway. Leave that for Judge Dredd and Batman.

Besides, way too many comics don't know how to have fun with themselves anymore.

Trust me I agree I am not a fan of the current direction of the book.

Just like most here have said, dark stories in which Peter is pushed to his emotional limits, or have a darker tone are cool. However, Peter deep down is an optimist, and persistant darkness just would not work with him.

I like some dark Spider-Man stories but I don't want all Spider-Man stories to be dark. If they were the character would lose something and I'm not sure if his comics would be as enjoyable.

Ironically I consider a Bat book one of the funnest comics on the market right now.

Just write a good story.

Like I said, I didn't mean that Peter would take like Frank Miller Batman, that Mary Jane is a cheating crackwhore, Aunt May gets raped by Doc Ock, and Harry Osborn has AIDS. I meant, maybe his "darkness" is meant to intimidate the criminals in a funny way, laughing at a guy who pees in his pants, and then kicking in the nuts.

The character has surrounded by death and misfortunes since his conception.

Seems like a dark character to me.

BB

That would give me a chuckle.

yeah. I feel like just because he usually maintains a sense of humor while fighting, it might be able for one to deduce that he's a cheery and happy go lucky guy..but he just isn't. The death of Gwen Stacy was one of the significant comics that marked the end of the silver age and brought on a darker take all together. If you know parker......or ben....or kaine...... lol you would know that nothing goes right and you always loose the people close to you and find out your a failure of a clone etc. I could spend weeks going over how the life of peter parker is nothing light hearted. Even in the earlier comics, with the happy go lucky-stan lee, most of them end with him walking off into the night with his head down.