The Blog of Spoon

Ok, so, when adding a new antagonist to the mythos of a long-running character like Spider-Man, a lot of writers seem to think the only way to make their contribution count is to try and top the antagonists that came before. They don't just want to make another Spider-Man villain, but rather The Best Spider-Man Villain, the Archest of Arch-Foes, the one so bad that all the previous arch-enemies look like a pile of shit by comparison. They will craft a character who isn't so much a person as a collection of traits designed to antagonize the protagonist as much as possible - someone who has no facet of their existence that isn't entirely dependent on that comparison with the protagonist.

The thing is, a character that's existed as long as Spider-Man will have arch-enemies already, and they're probably much better characters. The Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man's time-tested arch-enemies, both have a lot to their characterization that can be divorced from Spider-Man entirely and still make them recognizable. They don't exist solely for Spider-Man's narrative, which in turn allows them to bring more depth to that narrative when they're included in it. Both villains have their own shit going on, their own lives, their own motivations and desires outside of Spider-Man, which allows them to make all sorts of interesting plots when they do come into conflict with him.

But Morlun, the Interdimensional Vampire Who Only Eats People With Spider-Powers, doesn't have that. Everything about him is crafted solely to be a dick to Spider-Man. Doctor Octopus has big evil schemes - harnessing the power of the sun, recruiting other villains to become a supervillain crimelord, etc. Green Goblin kills his business rivals, abuses his son, and even tries to corrupt Spider-Man into being his sidekick in crime. But Morlun? His evil schemes are, uh, killing and eating alternate versions of Spider-Man, and then trying to kill and eat the version of Spider-Man we care about. That's it. That's all he does, because it's all he can do, because there's nothing about him that isn't solely devoted to being Spider-Man's Biggest Bad Guy.

Decades from now, people will still have new ideas for stories where Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, because those two are actual characters. And no one will remember Morlun unless they've memorized whatever passes for The Big Book of Obscure Spider-Man trivia in the future, because Morlun was a badly written plot device masquerading as an antagonist.

Post-Script:

I should note that Venom, the evil alien parasite that was Spider-Man's costume for a hot minute and now hates him because Spider-Man rejected his love confession and bonded to another reporter who is basically Peter Parker But Douchier, initially had the exact same problem as Morlun, i.e. being so obviously designed to be an Anti-Spider-Man that it was kind of painful. But the kernel of a unique idea buried in that concept - i.e. "a douchebag and his evil alien parasite boyfriend" - proved interesting enough to make Venom his own character, and that's honestly pretty good. And hell, even Venom's arch-enemy, Carnage, who is basically the Morlun to Venom's Spider-Man, ended up growing into his own character too, in a Freddy Krueger sort of way. I don't think Morlun's going to be salvaged the way those two were, though.

Post-Post-Script:

The reason why Mary Jane became Spider-Man's most famous love interest is that she was the first one whose personality did not begin and end with "is Spider-Man's love interest." Liz Allen, Betty Brant, and Gwen Stacy were all written by Stan Lee with the character concept of "A girlfriend for Spider-Man," while Mary Jane was written with the concept of "A recurring obstacle/temptation in Spider-Man's romance with Girlfriend Character of the Moment." Mary Jane could flirt with Spider-Man, invite him to parties, present all these little temptations for him to quit his current course of action, whether that be trying to sneak out to be a superhero or trying to keep a date with Gwen Stacy or whoever, but since they were never intended to get together, Mary Jane also had to have Her Own Shit Going On. Gwen Stacy was emotionally available for a relationship - Mary Jane, however, was hard to get.

And the result was that Peter and Mary Jane's relationship had a lot more intrigue to it, a lot more push and pull. Their flirtations and growing friendship had a push and pull - it was a conflict of its own in a way that was far more nuanced and realistic than the "Peter I love you but this is the seventeenth issue in a row you've been late for our date, and also I hate your alter-ego because of some contrived bullshit probably involving the Daily Bugle" routine that Liz/Betty/Gwen pulled.

The writers broke up the Peter/Liz and Peter/Betty ships pretty quickly, and spun their wheels with redundant Gwen Stacy plot-lines until finally realizing they had no idea what to do with her and killed her off. But Mary Jane stuck around because, like Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, she had her own shit going on, and that made her relationship with Peter interesting. It made their romance complicated and fun.

...until writers started writing Mary Jane as, well, Spider-Man's girlfriend/wife, and failed to give her any shit to do beyond Being Spider-Man's love interest. And soon writers who grew up in the "Mary Jane is just Peter's love interest" era wanted to get rid of her, because, like Gwen, what the fuck can you do with that?

And ironically, getting killed is kind of the best thing to happen to Gwen, because now she has THAT as her Own Shit Going on. Post-death Gwen stories really bring a lot of dimension to the character that she originally lacked - one of the reasons Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider is so popular is that they can really play with dramatic irony and the cosmic tragedy of Gwen and Peter seemingly being predestined to love each other only for one of them to die tragically. That's compelling shit - Gwen's own compelling shit, going on, making her cool!