There is a revealing scene in the new Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day, in which Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) explains to Peter Parker that the Avengers handle the “big potatoes,” while Spider-Man deals with the “small potatoes.”

The distinction encapsulates what has always made Spider-Man appealing. He fights local crime and neighborhood disorder — muggings and robberies, compensating for the shortcomings of local law enforcement in the dense urban jungle of New York. He doesn’t fuss with the specter of nuclear war or fiddle with the space-time continuum.

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