Spider-Man Evolution

The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

Peter Parker sits on his best friend's couch notebook and pencil in hand, carefully drawing a schematic for a new mask with the voice changer built into the fabric.

After three months of swinging around Queens with a plate pressed against his mouth and wires against his face he was officially over it.

He was over it from the first week but it was difficult designing a circuit layout for fabric.

“You should make the eyes bigger.” Harry Osborn recommends as he leans over looking at the sketch with critical eyes. 

“Hm?" The boy hums questioningly, his eyes never leaving the paper.

“Like, you want to be the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man? More like Superman than Batman, right?”

The preteen turns to look at the teen, “I… yeah, I guess you can put it like that.”

“Well you should make your eyes bigger, less intimidating.”

Peter huffs a bit in disbelief, “You think my mask is intimidating?”

The rich boy makes an unsure noise in the back of his throat, “A bit but I know it's you. I think if I didn't I would be downright terrified of you if we meet off the street, especially in the dead of night. Frankly, I think you need a whole new costume.”

“What? Like spandex?" He jokes but Harry doesn't laugh.

“If I'm being honest, yeah. I mean you're the world's first superhero Pete and you dress like a thug! No one wants to be saved by a thug. It was fine when you were this mysterious stuntman performing death defying feats but now… “ He lets the sentence hang. 

“Now I'm trying to save people.” The genius finishes and sighs, “You're right, I got to start thinking what's best for the people out there and not my own preferences. If I want to act like a… a superhero then I need to dress like one.”

Harry rubs the other's shoulder. 

“What ideas do you have for a new costume?”

The other frowns in thought, “I think you should keep the red and blue color scheme, especially in the shade you already have; they're bright and friendly but lose the yellow it's too angry. Like I said before, make your eyes bigger, cartoonishly big if you can so people take you less seriously and if you can maybe make them expressive like those LED masks? The most pressing thing is that your voice needs to change, you sound like a robot pretending to be human and failing hard at it.”

Peter blinks owlishly, “You've been thinking about this for a while, huh?”

Harry just smiles.

“Anything else?” 

“I like the spider symbol, very superheroey, very marketable.”

The boy genius blinks, “Marketable?”

His friend sits up straight, “Well, we're still trying to make money right?”

“Well, we're making plenty of money already aren't we? I mean Spidernest has over two hundred thousand subscribers, we're going to make millions a month.”

“Yeah sure.” Harry waves it off, “But is that really enough? I mean you're trying to do private research, right? That’s going to take a lot of dough. Not to mention May is trying to expand F.E.A.S.T, which takes serious capital.”

Peter nods, “You're right." He shakes his head. “Of course you're right but I'm not sure how I feel marketing Spider-Man like, like a product.” He looks to the other with confusion and doubt. “It feels wrong, like… like I'm just doing it for the money.”