Peter Parker is a JERK!


This is the tale of a character who was part of Spider-Man's supporting cast when I first started reading Spider-Man on a regular basis. Debra Whitman appeared regularly between 1979 and 1982 in both Spectacular and Amazing Spider-Man, and had a short-lived almost-romance with Peter Parker.

Introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #196 by Marv Wolfman & Al Milgrom, Deb gets just two panels as the secretary of Doctor Sloan, for whom Pete works as a teaching assistant.

In Spectacular Spider-Man #42, Deb has a bit of a moment with Pete while Doctor Sloan's staff are on a boat trip. Pete is distracted by a flaming message over the Statue of Liberty, seemingly from the Human Torch (in fact it's a trap set by The Frightful Four), and he rushes off, leaving Deb understandably upset.

As the two of them become better acquainted over the next few issues, this kind of thing becomes almost a running joke. Pete rushes off to attend to Spidey-business, leaves Deb in the lurch, but then shows contrition - notably, only in his thoughts. He never really apologises to Deb.

In Amazing Spider-Man #213, Pete and Deb share their first kiss, although it's clearly a little bit one-sided because Pete immediately decides he doesn't like like Deb.

A couple of issues later, Pete, feeling sorry for himself after another battle with The Frightful Four, goes to Deb's apartment hoping for a little TLC. Instead he finds she has a guest, the improbably-named Biff Rifkin, a guy from her hometown who's known her for years. Suddenly, Pete decides maybe he does like Deb after all!

Next issue, as Pete is leaving a movie theatre, he meets Deb and Biff (who Pete's now decided is "smarmy") coming into the theatre. They ask him how the movie was, and he tells them how it ends, then leaves in a huff! Because he's a JERK!

Over in Spectacular Spider-Jerk, Pete is having a bit of a moment, and decides to take out his frustrations on an innocent locker. Deb overhears the crash and Pete decides to be a huge jerk to her, hoping that she won't notice the dented locker.

Later, Biff goes after Pete for upsetting Deb, and Pete just swats him away with a "FWAP". After he gets a talking-to from Doctor Sloan, Pete heads for the roof. Unbeknownst to him, Deb follows Pete, and she then sees Spider-Man swinging away. "It... it can't be... can it??"

Later, Deb tries to talk to Pete about what she saw, but, well... I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Pete is a colossal jerk! "Boy, the last thing I need in my life right now is Deb Whitman!" Wow, Pete! Just.. wow!

Things take a bit of an odd turn at this point, when Deb is shown confiding in... a stuffed animal.

The following issue, thankfully, she finds a human being to share her problems with; her psychiatrist.

Things finally come to a head in Spectacular Spider-Man #74:

Deb's psychiatrist behaves incredibly unethically by letting Pete listen in on one of their sessions. Then he has the wackadoo idea that Pete should dress up as Spider-Man to "shock her back to reality". I'm no medical expert, but I don’t think this guy's a very good psychiatrist... 

Pete goes to visit Biff Rifkin, who's finally given a third dimension by writer Bill Mantlo. He tells Pete that Deb was married to a guy who physically abused her, and he had tried to persuade her to leave him. Biff seems to be a decent guy - until he victim-blames Deb for being in an abusive relationship.


 Anyway, Pete decides to go and see Deb as Spider-Man, and unmask. Of course, this being comics, it really does shock her out of her "delusions." Turns out Deb's psychiatrist was a genius after all!

Deb decides to return to her home town, divorce her husband and start over. "Before I can deal with the future, I've first got to resolve my past" is a nice way to finish Debra Whitman's story, IMO.

There is a minor postscript, however. During Civil War, Spider-Man unmasked to the world. Which meant that Debra Whitman discovered that she hadn't been delusional - she'd been right all along. Peter David brought her back for three issues of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Deb writes a book about her relationship with Peter Parker. Peter's friends all see her as the bad guy until she reveals she needed money to pay her mother's medical bills and the Daily Bugle-owned publisher had twisted her words and sensationalised her story.

It doesn't really add anything of interest to the character - it's basically just Peter David saying, "look, I remember her!"

Anyway, if you enjoyed this post, I wrote something similar about Karen Page and Daredevil here.


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