Or at least his own Poochie equivalent: Alpha!

File this new comic book news under ‘eye-rolling’, as Marvel is apparently going to give Spider-Man a sidekick! According to Fox News (of all places), a new character named Alpha is going to be introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #692 in order to celebrate Spider-Man’s 50th anniversary. Marvel has been teasing “Who is Alpha?” for a week or two now, and today they finally revealed that he’s going to be some white kid who accidentally gets super-powers while visiting Peter Parker’s lab.

Someone got paid to design that costume?

Since Peter is going to feel directly responsible for the kid (‘power and responsibility’ kind of being Peter’s thing), then Spider-Man is going to take Alpha under his wing to teach him about being a superhero. And in glorious fashion, Alpha is going to not only be more powerful than Spider-Man, but he’s going to be edgy and have a little attitude. Because that’s exactly what comic book fans want in their shoe-horned characters. Apparently they also want painfully generic black and teal superhero costumes.

When I first saw this announcement this morning, I thought it had to be some kind of joke. This story could almost qualify as an Onion parody about Spider-Man getting a generic, mainstream media-friendly sidekick.

Check out this quote from Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso from that article:

“Part of it is that Spider-Man is grown up. He’s older, more seasoned, but young at heart. He’s still a young man, but he’s been around. It’s interesting because it flips the paradigm. Teen hero Spider-Man is now responsible for this teen hero sidekick. He’s responsible because one of his inventions caused this kid to get his powers. He’s directly responsible for the responsibility this kid now has with his new powers. He feels he has a responsibility to make sure this kid walks the right path, which won’t prove easy.”

Did you guys know that Spider-Man is all about ‘responsibility’?

After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided that Alpha is being trotted out for a mainstream-friendly story designed to reinforce the ‘powers and responsibility’ motto in time for Spidey’s big anniversary. Alpha is going to be an homage to classic Spider-Man stories. There’s no way this kid is a permanent sidekick for Spider-Man. Or even filling in as a replacement Spider-Man.  In fact, I think these news stories are using the word “sidekick” a bit too heavily. Maybe he’ll stick around and become a member of the supporting cast, someone Peter is always thinking about and looking out for, but we’re not talking a Robin level of sidekickery. He’s not going to become as intricate a partner to Spider-Man as the Boy Wonder is to Batman. He’s just going to become a new character in Spider-Man’s life because Dan Slott had a great idea about Spider-Man feeling directly responsible for Alpha getting super-powers.

You can check out a preview for issue #692 and the origin of Alpha right here.

Basically it looks like Peter invents some kind of ‘Science Gizmo’ that fires ‘Parker Particles’, which blast the kid and give him super-powers. Ho-hum.

Science!

If Spider-Man were to really get a permanent partner, the people at Marvel Comics could come up with someone a lot more creative than Alpha.

There is no way that the brilliant Dan Slott, current writer of Amazing Spider-Man, came up with such a bland, generic-looking character as a permanent sidekick to Spider-Man. I mean, c’mon. The name ‘Alpha’ is as generic as calling a new superhero ‘Power Boy’ or ‘Vengeance’. And that costume is ridiculous. Not even a mask?

Here’s what Slott himself said on the message boards at ComicBookResources:

As soon as I turned in the first draft of the story, I said, “When news of this breaks, there are going to be 3 comments made IMMEDIATELY on the internet…”

“I dropped Spider-Man shortly after Brand New Day started and I honestly haven’t missed it. This whole, sidekick thing just shows how right I was to drop it when I did.” <– I nailed this one almost WORD FOR WORD!

The other two involve the words “Poochie” and/or “Scrappy Doo.”
🙂

Seriously tho– This is going to be a fun storyline and one I’ve wanted to do for ages. It is VERY Spider-Man. It’s SUCH a Spider-Man story straight-to-the-core. In fact it is SO VERY VERY VERY a quintessential Spider-Man story– it’ll be one of the ones where people AFTER THEY’VE ACTUALLY READ IT will go, “I can’t believe the series has been going for 50 years and no one EVER told that story before.”

So clearly Slott recognizes just how generic and impromptu Alpha is, comparing the character to Poochie and Scrappy-Doo. Slott recognizes that idea and dismisses it. So it’s safe to say that he has something else in mind. Which is good to know, because Slott is a great writer, and there’s no way he’d be responsible for such a weak character.

However, I think Slott would absolutely be willing to create such a boring character as a foil for Spider-Man. Because, as he said, this is Spider-Man’s story, not Alpha’s story. Alpha is just a plot point. He’s a character for Spider-Man to react to. He’s someone for Spider-Man to mentor and reinforce his ‘power and responsibility’ motto. This will be like those Public Service Announcement comics. A fluffy, mainstream-friendly story that anyone can pick up and appreciate Spider-Man for Spider-Man.

We love ya, big guy!

Though we can probably anticipate a dark twist or two, like Alpha becoming a villain or something. I doubt Alpha will be immediately dropped after one story. I’m sure Slott has an end game in mind.

And if you want anymore proof that Alpha is just a mainstream-friendly character: Alpha’s real name is ‘Andy Maguire’. In the big screen films, Spider-Man has been played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Come on!