| “ | Do I seem like a violent person? (…) Well, he deserved that. | „ |
| ~ Paul trying to justify punching Peter. |
Paul Rabin is a major character in the Amazing Spider-Man comics.
He is Mary Jane's new boyfriend who is eventually revealed to be the son of the deceased supervillain, Emissary, and acted as Peter Parker's rival for Mary Jane's attention before becoming his ally.
What Makes Him a Scrappy?[]
- His only reason to exist in the comics at all is to make sure Peter can’t get back together with MJ, thus making Peter's life even more awful for the sake of drama.
- His existence as MJ's husband ruined the character development that Peter and MJ had, as the comic before Paul appeared heavily leaned on them becoming close again and rekindling their relationship.
- On that note, MJ abruptly started distancing herself from Peter once Paul came into her life. At best she would refuse to talk to him and at worst she would abruptly explode at him over the smallest things.
- The comics leaned too heavily on setting up Paul as a suspicious character only to reveal that, aside from being the son and former accomplice of a supervillain, there is almost nothing of note about Paul to make him more interesting.
- He's anti-mutant and it's never elaborated why, so it just makes him look like a racist jerk, especially since many of the franchise’s most popular characters are mutants.
- A flashback shows him punching Peter and it's never elaborated as to why he did it. In the present, he follows it up by proceeding to say he deserved it.
- He is indirectly responsible for the arc that involved his father killing Captain Marvel and further ruining Spider-Man’s life.
- Aside from being a nice guy who is in love with MJ, he has almost no personality whatsoever.
- He is a Karma Houdini, as although he mooches off of MJ, is anti-mutant, and was ultimately complicit in his father’s villainy, he is never called out for it and is ultimately forgiven because MJ said that Paul was feeling guilty for his actions, something we never actually see from Paul himself.
- Paul's so detestable that fans openly cheer whenever he suffers any mishaps, most notably losing his children, being insulted by Eddie Brock's son, Dylan, and suffering from relationship problems with MJ.
- The narrative attempts to portray him as a foil to Peter if he had overcame his struggles and became a happier person, but Peter has gone through far worse obstacles and trauma than Paul did and Paul resolves his despair offscreen, thus making this an unfair comparison.
Trivia[]
- He is arguably the most recent Marvel Scrappy, with his official debut being in 2022.
- Despite this, he has arguably become the most hated Spider-Man character ever introduced, even more so than Hate Sinks like Emissary or the Burglar, or even previously hated characters like the original Madame Web or Alpha.
- Some fans have theorized that Paul and Peter's dynamic is based on the expression "Rob Peter to pay Paul."
- Despite being memed and circlejerked a lot by fans making him a complete badass, capable of wooing any of Spiderman's love Interests and win any fight and humiliating the loser Peter Parker/Spider-man, all of the fans who say this are only being ironic, and not a lot of the memers behind this stuff actually like Paul unironically.
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| Marvel Scrappies | ||
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