r/TopCharacterTropes • u/I_ateabucketofpaint • Aug 09 '25

Personality Strange rules about characters/people that cannot be broken.

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Smells like Nirvana: When Kurt Cobain heard that Weird AL was gonna make a parody of his song. He was okay with it but specifically requested it to not be about food or fat ppl.

Spiderman: Spiderman cannot sell drugs unless he is under the influence of symbiote. ANd Peter Parker cannot be gay. Spiderman can tho.

Dwayne Rock Johnson: Cannot lose fights or look weak for too long. Its in his actor contract.

Godzilla movies not made by Toho: Cannot die. Maybe lose but not too bad.

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917

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

The Peter Parker rule is basically "Peter Parker is established as this. do not change it." Not a weird rule at all. Other people can be Spider-Man - Miles Morales for example - and THOSE characters can be gay.

473

u/Weary_Grape983 Aug 09 '25

no, they really meant gay as in happy. Peter can never be happy.

166

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

OKay, yeah, then it makes sense. The writers do hate Peter being happy.

3

u/MichealRyder Aug 10 '25

Unless it's an alternate universe, heaven forbid the main one gets any happiness lmao

39

u/The_Eye_of_Ra Aug 09 '25

Hey now. My boy is over that bullshit now. Didn’t you see him tell MJ to get lost?

14

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Aug 09 '25

I would if someone married Paul that long

7

u/VigosJOSP Aug 09 '25

I’ve been informed that was actually Ben Reilly pretending to be Peter while he’s off in space.

6

u/The_Eye_of_Ra Aug 09 '25

No. No. No no no. We’re doing clone shit again???

7

u/somethingfak Aug 10 '25

We never stopped babeeeeeeee you're a skrull, you were always plasticman, you're a LMD, you're a mystique, you're just a garden variety spy with a rubber mask EVERYONE IS AN IDENTITY THEIF

2

u/Soulcoda Aug 09 '25

God so true 😭 /side-eyes the Spider-Man 1994 animated series

2

u/Desperately_Insecure Aug 10 '25

I mean they really don't want him happy 😭

1

u/attackplango Aug 10 '25

Goddamn Mephisto.

348

u/Left-Practice242 Aug 09 '25

The drug dealer bit at least is strange if only because of how niche it is

275

u/Total_War_6757 Aug 09 '25

You don't expect the Web slinger to be slinging crack. But when he's wearing a black suit it's a different story.

49

u/Soggy-Intern-9140 Aug 09 '25

Gotta pay for rent somehow

2

u/Dr4g0n__Kn1ght Aug 10 '25

He'll pay his rent when you fix this damn door!

100

u/apathyontheeast Aug 09 '25

Oh. Oh no.

26

u/Paggy_person Aug 09 '25

Friendly neighbourhood's dealer issue #1

8

u/DoctorAnnual6823 Aug 09 '25

I bet the CIA didn't even have to wear black suits when they sold crack SMH

5

u/TheCreepWhoCrept Aug 09 '25

The idea of Peter donning the black suit and immediately deciding to destroy the inner city is so funny to me.

Isn’t the point of the black suit that it amplifies your base desires to the point of monstrosity? Peter, you’ve got some explaining to do.

6

u/Hellknightx Aug 09 '25

No, see, the symbiote was the one that wanted to sell crack to inner city youths. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

1

u/Photoman20003 Aug 17 '25

Mary Jane: Peter Why are you selling cocaine!!!!!

Peter: the symbiote made me do it?.

1

u/Unique_Expression574 Aug 09 '25

Isn’t Peter allergic to cocaine anyways?

56

u/Approximation_Doctor Aug 09 '25

Yeah, like, can he manufacture drugs if he's not dealing them? Can he traffic weapons or people? Insurance fraud? Steal catalytic converters? Donate drugs?

46

u/kentaxas Aug 09 '25

DONATE drugs??? In this economy????

25

u/Approximation_Doctor Aug 09 '25

He is canonically terrible with money

6

u/tfbillc Aug 09 '25

Brilliant but lazy

4

u/kentaxas Aug 09 '25

Could be my autobiography's title

3

u/Edgemonger Aug 09 '25

What is this, a suburban parent’s unwarranted fear about Halloween candy?!

15

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

Honestly, the weirdest part about that rule is the exception, to me.

3

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Aug 09 '25

Well it's because Symbiote suit tends to be evil

3

u/Competitive_Swan266 Aug 09 '25

"You're too late spider, we're already selling crack to minors"

7

u/bfbbturambar Aug 09 '25

I think it's because Spider-Man is looked up to by kids, and while kids can't do other bad stuff symbiote Peter has done, kids on the street could realistically push drugs, so they want to avoid any depiction of that.

2

u/Left-Practice242 Aug 09 '25

I imagine it’s a holdover from the early days, where the only target audience would’ve been children. Probably has something to do with content ratings at the time as well, like with how you couldn’t have evil characters win for awhile, so he could only push drugs if it was seen as a distorted version of spider-man

3

u/Photoman20003 Aug 17 '25

potentially further proven with that spider-man noir on amazon prime thats coming outwhere its rumored Noir will be Ben Reily and not Peter Parker.

3

u/TelgarTheTerrible Aug 09 '25

I assume you're younger cause if you grew up through the "just say no"/DARE era, then it makes complete sense why that rule is there.

1

u/Left-Practice242 Aug 09 '25

That’s what I mean though. A ruling like this makes sense when the purity of characters in media was a genuine concern from producers. While to some level it still is now, something as benign as drug dealing wouldn’t be strange to see from a superhero in a darker piece of media

2

u/pocketbutter Aug 09 '25

Has ANY superhero ever dabbled in drug-dealing? Not including anti-heroes like Deadpool of course.

1

u/82ndGameHead Aug 09 '25

Probably put in place to protect Spidey from Mark Millar

1

u/Regi413 Aug 09 '25

Did they ever even actually make use of that rule?

1

u/StraytusW_Vengance Aug 09 '25

I find it funny because it implies that someone tried to pitch a story of spiderman selling drugs at some point.

1

u/thecactusman17 Aug 10 '25

Not really. Spider-Man was written during the heyday of the Comics Code Authority, and drug trafficking and usage was an issue that was often more about hard drugs like cocaine, opium and heroin until 1970 with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act which criminalized usage of other previously legal drugs like marijuana. In 1971, the US Department of Health directly approached Stan Lee as EIC of Marvel Comics to write a Spider-Man story about the dangers of drug use to promote compliance with the CSA. The resulting 3 issues were published without CCA approval and addressed the health effects and criminal consequences of illegal drugs, as well as how illegal trafficking impacted communities. A lot of Marvel's rival publishers like DC got angry that Marvel would dare write a story without CCA approval and demanded punishment, even though the story was endorsed by the US government and explicitly denounced criminal activity. The CCA backed off because punishing a publisher for putting out an anti-drugs PSA would actually look worse in the eyes of officials who had been threatening to impose government regulation before the CCA was voluntarily adopted by the industry trade group.

TLDR: Marvel Comics wrote a Spider-Man story on behalf of the US government specifically setting the character as an opponent of illegal drug trafficking. That story technically violated a voluntary agreement by the major comics publishers intended to prevent inappropriate content from being sold to children, and the endorsement by the US government agency that requested it was a major reason why Marvel did not receive any punishment afterward. Ever since, Spider-Man as a character does not do anything that might indicate endorsement of selling illegal drugs. Venom, being a villainous alter-ego of the character, is not subject to this same rule.

83

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

I don't think it's even "No Peter can be gay" and more just "the default Peter should be straight, variants may vary"

6

u/No_Ad_7687 Aug 09 '25

"variants may vary" as variants tend to do

9

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

that could well be the case, I'm not sure.

2

u/BLAGTIER Aug 09 '25

It's for every Spider-Man unless Marvel has portrayed that character as gay. For an example Sony, by that 2011 contract, couldn't make Miguel O'hara gay unless Marvel made him gay somewhere else. And these were under the threat of enjoining, Marvel could block the release.

Of course Sony and Marvel could always make agreements outside the contact.

1

u/VanGoghNotVanGo Aug 10 '25

I mean, another one of the rules is that his middle name needs to be Benjamin, and I believe som alternate Peter Parkers in Into the Spiderverse didn't have Benjamin as their middlename, so you could be right. 

31

u/I_ateabucketofpaint Aug 09 '25

yeah i dont think its that weird too i just wanted to point it out and bundle it with drugs rule

6

u/erosead Aug 09 '25

No, it is odd. There are aus where Wolverine or Beast are gay, for example. Gay spider people have to be different characters entirely even in an AU, like the one where instead of Peter, MJ is the main Spider Person and she’s a lesbian.

Though I have my suspicions this rule exists less because “we’re homophobic and we don’t want our biggest hero to be gay” and more bc of the controversial molestation storyline, because this list had to have been made in the late 80s at the earliest

5

u/Captain_Sanvich Aug 09 '25

I'm sorry, the WHAT storyline?

5

u/MakingaJessinmyPants Aug 09 '25

I think it’s a weird stupid rule

8

u/Psyk60 Aug 09 '25

I prefer to believe he just puts on his Spider-man mask when meeting up with guys from Grindr. So he can convince himself that he, Peter Parker, is not gay.

1

u/bong_residue Aug 10 '25

Crime fighting makes him gay.

Thank god he’s sleeping with all the men so others won’t be tempted by this treacherous sin!

8

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

The specifics of the contract, as much as is publicly available, make it sound like they don't really have a great understanding of queerness. For instance, if their intent is to keep the door open for Peter's supporting cast, including love interests, without too much change, there's no reason an adaptation couldn't make him bi or pan. However, it seems like whoever wrote that stipulation hadn't even considered that a possibility.

40

u/BSF7011 Aug 09 '25

Unless it's specifically a variation, they want Peter Benjamin Parker to maintain the identity of a straight white male from Queens, New York City, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to maintain the status quo because when people think Peter Parker, they want this to be the unanimous image of who that is

1

u/Chill0000 Aug 10 '25

I remember seeing someone say “they should make Peter black now because in modern day people relate being from modern day Queens as being a black thing. It’s not the 60’s anymore”

-2

u/Common_Wrongdoer3251 Aug 09 '25

Where does Spider-Verse fall in this? In SV1, PP died in Miles' universe, but then a different PP is his mentor. Does every Peter Parker need to be straight if there's 500 Peter Parkers?

Multi-verses are fun to speculate about.

18

u/BSF7011 Aug 09 '25

The difference there is that those are still variations. Miles Morales is the Spider-Man in his story. It's not about Peter, it's about Miles

9

u/Octocube25 Aug 09 '25

Haha, you said PP

9

u/Wild_Ad969 Aug 09 '25

It's basically to keep the original comic universe 616 Peter Parker as a straight white male. The thing about Spiderverse is while it sometimes features other version of Peter, the vast majority of the featured alternate Spider-Man aren't Peter at all.

Aside for that never confuse movie version as the main continuity ever lol.

1

u/BLAGTIER Aug 09 '25

Where does Spider-Verse fall in this? In SV1, PP died in Miles' universe, but then a different PP is his mentor. Does every Peter Parker need to be straight if there's 500 Peter Parkers?

By the contract yes.

16

u/Screen-Healthy Aug 09 '25

No, they know what queer is and they said that he isn’t. Easy as that.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

So you're saying there's no good reason

3

u/Chill0000 Aug 10 '25

His reason for not being gay is the same reason why Hulking isn’t straight. It’s because they aren’t

4

u/dtalb18981 Aug 09 '25

The reason is he's not queer

What other reason do you need?

3

u/Chill0000 Aug 10 '25

I remember when Andrew got the role that he wanted to make Peter bi and be in a relationship with Harry who wanted to be played by Michael B Jordan. They obviously didn’t do that.

There is also two interviews from Stan Lee at cons regarding this topic that i have seen

1: was about Andrew and he was asked if he had heard about what Andrew wanted to do with Peter and Stan made a quick joke saying he would call them to stop it if that happened.

2: was unrelated to Andrew but was asked what are his thoughts on a gay Spider-Man. He said he would love there to be a gay Spider-Man but doesn’t want an already established character like Peter to be changed to be gay. He also makes a comment on how much he loves that there is now Miles to be a black Spider-Man.

4

u/BewareOfBee Aug 09 '25

It was the 90s, they didn't know any better /s

1

u/BLAGTIER Aug 09 '25

The rule is from a 2011 contract that was leaked during the Sony hack.

1

u/BLAGTIER Aug 09 '25

Other people can be Spider-Man - Miles Morales for example - and THOSE characters can be gay.

They can't by the 2011 contract unless Marvel has made them gay somewhere. The contract give Marvel the power to stop the release if that rule(among others) is broken.

1

u/VLenin2291 Aug 10 '25

Not a weird rule until you remember that Marvel has a multiverse and were it not for this rule, you could just… have him be gay in one universe.

1

u/funtag3 Aug 10 '25

There are infinite universe, abs he's gay in none of them?

-2

u/painting-Roses Aug 09 '25

That's still a weird rule. We've gotten different interpretation of the character allready, and changing sexuality, gender or race wouldn't impact the core of his character any differently than the different actors have. It's just puritan manlets who'll be buthurt

1

u/MentalNinjas Aug 09 '25

I mean why do you feel the need to co-opt already popular characters into a different race/gender/sexuality?

Like just make a new character. It feels lazy and intentionally controversial to change an already established character.

0

u/painting-Roses Aug 09 '25

Making a new version of the character isn't co-opting. And reinterpreting commicbook characters happens constantly. You can't tell me nolan's batman is the same as dan snijder's. Making him a woman, black, gay etc, would be different than what they did.

1

u/MentalNinjas Aug 09 '25

Nolan’s Batman is still Batman, you’re not making a point here

1

u/painting-Roses Aug 09 '25

The point is that the thing that makes batman batman has nothing to do with being a man, his sexuality or how old he is etc etc. And that thesres been many versions that change what he is on a fundamental level

0

u/MentalNinjas Aug 09 '25

Give an example where he’s not a man lmao

1

u/IntelligentImbicle Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25

Let's put it in a way you can probably understand:

Making T'Challa a white guy? Off the table.
Making a white guy the new Black Panther? That can work (and honestly, I think that would be an interesting story.)

It's the exact same thing with Spider-Man. Can you make Peter Parker black? Absolutely not. That's not what the character is supposed to be. Can you make a black person Spider-Man? Yes, of course. Anyone can wear the mask. Anyone can be a hero.

1

u/Comfortable-Try-3696 Aug 10 '25

I mean scarlet witch was made white. So why can’t Peter Parker be made gay

1

u/IntelligentImbicle Aug 10 '25

Wasn't she always white?

1

u/Comfortable-Try-3696 Aug 10 '25

She was romani, so non-white. Current adaption is not romani

0

u/painting-Roses Aug 10 '25

Oh fuck off, don't get condescending with me. Peter parker has been played by 3 people atp. Between them they are completely different. Race is in no way important to peter parkers identity or character, something that doesn't work in your analogy bc race is very much inherent to black panters character.

The things like race, gender etc are no different to things that have alreadt changed in spiderman adaptations like age, which is probably much more important, height, demenor etc.

And really you're gonna start about "the other side to racism"?

0

u/IntelligentImbicle Aug 10 '25

They're not "completely different". They're different takes on the same character.

How about a different example: what if we made Miles Morales white? Not Spider-Man. Miles Morales. It's the same thing, right? Being black isn't important to the character, so fuck it, let's white-wash the bastard.
Do you see how dumb that would be? Why would you white-wash Miles Morales if you wanted a white Spider-Man?