Spoke to my friend about this, he says Spider-Man is a fragile shell ready to crack open massive amounts of hatred and frenzied anguish. So if a writer decides to take him to a truly hopeless story, how serious and grim should the content be, thiers watchmen/miracleman level abstract horror and theres the shock value that mark millar/warren elis create in their stories. Should a writer get his hands on a Spidey title and brutally break Peter's world into a nightmare gone real, would you accept it.

What is with people and there fetishes for dark superhero stories

As long as Spidey ain't the dark part, i'm cool with dark stories.

Beata

Spider-Man doesn't need to be dark, the best thing about him is that he manages to keep a sense of humor despite all the horrible things that happen around him. Most of these "Dark and Gritty" characters are that way because they are fundamentally broken. Batman for instance is almost as crazy as the people he fights, Punisher is a legit psychopath, Spidey is different.

i wonder if grimdark is already taken as a villian name

But if done properly, it would be a great take to the character beyond the usual depiction. Noir is a example of this. But I'm thinking on of a more horror type depiction of the character. Some gritty heroes also have humor despite their darkness. Spidey could be blacker than normal/depressingly hopeless and retain humor

I think dark Spidey stories can work as long as Spidey himself isn't dark. The best Kraven stories were quite dark.

Spider-Man should never really be Grimdark, it been done quite a few times now and it almost always ends up being adolescent-edgy. I'm all for changing things up every now and then but not if it means that you stray too far from the core concept or foundation.

The sort of thing you are talking about was actually the status quo for Spider-Man during much of the 90s

That said, he can have the occasional story that is downbeat or tragic, so long as it doesn't descend into never-ending bleakness.

Chiefly because the writers always treat the characters as if they're adolescent

The only instance of the grim stuff working was with DeMatties and JMS, but that's because they were highly skilled writers who respected the characters and made them go through very tense situations like actual adults.

You will never again see a modern day Peter Parker ever accept the natural passing of Aunt May in the mature and graceful manner that he did in the 1990s

JMS' Back in Black is the most adolescent-edgy Spider-man comic I've ever had the misfortune of reading (well, except maybe Reign).

DeMatteis' stuff was cool though, I'm not sure how well it fitted Spider-Man at times, but at least it could be somewhat interesting and people tended to still act in character. I guess his Spectacular run could be used as an example of good grim Spidey.

There are already way too many depressingly hopeless characters around now days and I'd prefer Spidey not join the crowd. Spider-Man isn't a cliche', he's an archetype.

Spider-man stories should not be dark. That is not who Spider-man is, and that is not what Spider-man stories should be about. However it would be OK if a few stories are mildly dark.

@zarius:

LOL, JMS did not respect the characters. This is the guy who temperately changed aunt May's last name to Fitzgerald, Called Eddie Brock Edwin and Changed Peters origin to some BS with animal totems. The first two were temporary mistakes because he did not know May's maiden name was Reilly and Eddie was short for Edward.

Not "sell his future daughter and marriage to Devil" grimdark.