The relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker began the way most great romances do: They hated each other. It's true. Long before the pair developed the charming rapport they exhibit in this weekend's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Iron Man and Spider-Man met in Marvel Team-Up #9's "The Tomorrow War!" It was 1973 and when Tony first encountered Peter his greeting was "I don't need your help, web-head." (Charming.) Spider-Man, not having it, responded with "Yeah? You were doing real great by yourself, chum." To say sparks were flying would be an overstatement.
Actually, the great bromance between Spidey and Shellhead is largely a construction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though they've flown through each others' lives for nearly four decades in the comics, they've never been pals—at least not like the ones portrayed in last year's Captain America: Civil War and now in Homecoming. Though they often agree to fight baddies together, they rarely ever rely on each other. And even though by their second encounter in 1976's Marvel Team-Up #48 Spidey has moved on to at least thanking Iron Man for saving his tail, he still ends the exchange with "you can go stuff it!"
But just because comic-book Tony and Peter would never hang outside of work doesn't mean their relationship in the new movie has absolutely no basis. For the general gist of their onscreen relationship, look no further than 2005's Amazing Spider-Man #519, wherein Peter, Aunt May, and Mary-Jane Watson-Parker moved into Avengers HQ. The relocation—and the unofficial merging of the Spider-Man and Avengers franchises—opened up a new swathe of story opportunities for Spidey and his supporting cast: Aunt May got to flirt with the Avengers' butler! Tabloids got to speculate that Mary-Jane was having an affair with Tony Stark! Everyone got to hang out with Wolverine, who was an Avenger then! Most importantly, though, Spider-Man got to spend time with Iron Man. In a turn of events that would likely bring out Bruce Banner's green monster of jealousy, this period of the Marvel comics saw Stark and Parker (Starker?) bond over a mutual love of technology to form a new friendship—one that came with cool new souped-up costumes. No one got the nickname "Underoos," but at least they got along.
Of course, this all happened just months ahead of Marvel's first comic book Civil War, which didn't exactly turn out the same as its cinematic counterpart. As that storyline developed throughout 2006, Spider-Man and Iron Man found themselves at odds and eventually came to blows. (That's just how things are settled in comics.) And subsequent circumstances in both characters' own series—Peter Parker's history got rewritten in 2007 thanks to a deal with the devil in Amazing Spider-Man and Tony Stark rebooted his brain from an old backup in Invincible Iron Man in 2009—mostly prevented any attempt at reestablishing their bond. Add to that many other end-of-the-world storylines, including the literal end of the world in 2015's Secret Wars, and any chance of Tony and Peter being best bros is pretty much lost.
That's remained true right up to the present day. Indeed, the relationship, or lack thereof, between Iron Man and Spider-Man in the current Marvel comic book continuity would be unrecognizable to audiences leaving Homecoming. For one thing, Tony Stark is in a coma with two other people (one of them being Doctor Doom) pretending to be Iron Man as a result. For another, Peter Parker is presently a tech CEO in his own right, running Parker Industries and discovering that the whole "with great power there must also come great responsibility" thing gets even more complicated when part of your power involves running an international company that employs thousands of people around the world. Interesting storylines both, but neither of them lend themselves to a buddy comedy.
But hey, not everyone gets into superhero-ing to make friends. Anyone whose read a comic or seen a comic-book movie knows that. At least in the case of Stark and Parker they're as good at teaming up as they are at bickering. And if Spider-Man: Homecoming proves anything it's that Marvel's onscreen universe is always expanding and making room for Tony to pick fights with his pals, so there's still time for him and Peter to duke it out one day. Though hopefully he won't have to reboot his brain once it's over.
