just curious, I see so many people doing the stuff where they’re like “oh TASM had the worst Peter Parker but the best Spider-Man” and I was wondering if you agreed with that? because I started reading the old comics and idk I don’t really think Andrew Garfield was a bad Peter at all? but I haven’t watched the movies in years so idk
Okay, so, from my perspective, I don't really pay attention to those comments because as soon as anyone says "x played a good Spider-Man but a bad Peter Parker" they have lost the argument.
There is no notable difference in personality between Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Spider-Man is not a more outgoing persona that Peter slips on when he puts on the mask. Everything that makes him Spider-Man he still embodies when he's not wearing the mask. If Spider-Man is occasionally more, it's because anonymity grants people a level of freedom that the accountability of having your face and name attached to things inhibits. Look at the entire internet. But it's always Peter Parker. To play a good Spider-Man, you have to play a good Peter Parker.
The issue becomes that people like the fanon image of Peter out of the mask as an awkward, shrinking violet who suddenly becomes this different person when he puts on the mask. In part because a lot of fanon has sold that image, same as the Eternal Teenager myth. But that's wish fulfillment, and it doesn't have anything to do with comics canon.
(ASM #596) "Just tell me it isn't ego. 'Cause I'm well aware it isn't the introvert who straps on tights and kicks bad guys in the face."
If Peter starts out canon at the very beginning as "Midtown High's resident wallflower," he doesn't stay that way. Rather than Spider-Man being some persona he dons that allows him to be outgoing and daring, I think a better read on the character is that those traits always existed within Peter, and the freedom he gains with the ability to lift a truck over his head unlocks all of that within him. TASM gets that. I know a lot of people didn't love the skateboard at the beginning, but I thought it was good characterization shorthand to show, look -- this is a guy who is yearning for that physical escape. All he has before the spider-bite is the skateboard. Afterwards, he ditches it for throwing himself off buildings. He's an adrenaline junkie chasing a physical high. Part of the reason he acts the way he does as a vigilante is because he is a really, really physical person, in all aspects of his life, in ways that he couldn't quite access before the spider-bite gave him powers.
Andrew Garfield's portrayal also gets Peter's particular brand of intimacy and physicality, like when he chucks Gwen under the chin and rubs their noses together.
Peter's very touchy-feely in relationships especially, and that chin touch is one of his go-to moves.
(Spectacular Spider-Man #194)
The language of touch is one of those things with Peter that I think is so easy to get lost in translation from comics to film, and Andrew Garfield nailed it. Romance for him is very much rooted in physical touch, and you see that with his arm around her shoulders, the way they put their foreheads together, him spinning her into him on the rooftop. Peter needs to be touching her, and Andrew Garfield conveys that.
TASM also allows Peter to be flawed, in ways that audience might not necessarily like. Like yeah, he's definitely stalking Gwen during parts of TASM2. Unfortunately, that's in character! He does that! Stop air tagging your friends. Peter is a little controlling and he makes decisions for other people and he talks over them because he thinks he knows better. He is not an easy person all of the time. A flipside of with great power comes great responsibility means he thinks he has the responsibility to make decisions for other people, like when he repeatedly breaks up with Gwen "for her own good." He's so absorbed in his own drama that he can't see the forest for the trees. TASM lets him be complicated and borderline controlling and deeply human. If it presents the most openly flawed live action Peter Parker, then that's a positive in my opinion, because Peter Parker is flawed. That's reflected in how he acts as Spider-Man, too.
Ultimately, though, this is a matter of personal taste. A lot of times, when people talk about "the best Spider-Man," they're not looking at it from a place of comics accuracy with regards to personality, but personal enjoyment of a movie, which is a totally different conversation.
