Poll Position: Spidey jobs

Marvel has announced that Peter Parker will be losing his job as a Daily Bugle photographer in an upcoming issue. Which raises the question:

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Discussion to follow.

Trying to support yourself financially while a super-hero would be very difficult, I would think. Since you never know when a major crisis is going to call you away, trying to work a normal nine to five would pose problems. Plus, you're probably going to be up most nights patrolling, which would leave you perpetually short of sleep, doubtlessly impacting your job performance.

Peter Parker's daily struggles to make ends meet has always been one of the character's most appealing and endearing attributes, and I'm glad Marvel's responding to the current unemployment situation by making him deal with it too. Plus, he works in a print publishing industry that's struggling mightily to figure out a business model in an online world, so it makes sense they'd be cutting back.

The challenge for Peter, then, is to get a job that is flexible enough to allow him to continue being a super-hero, while paying him enough to eat and pay rent.

  • A science-y type job at a lab. Peter has an amazing scientific mind, having invented the web shooters and webbing and done well at university. It would be nice to think he could get a job using his brains. But lab monkey work involves keeping regular hours. Heading up research (which he'd be unqualified to do, in a resume-sense) takes a lot of hours, as well, so that wouldn't be much better. On the other hand, I could see a lot of good plot points coming out of him working in some sort of research facility.
  • Start a web site publishing Spidey photos and gossip. Granted, I'm an internet worker, so this appeals to me. But it makes a lot of sense given Peter's somewhat unique needs. He already knows how to take photos, and one assumes he could master the intricacies of an iPhone with video support as well or something like it. He could keep doing what he was doing for the Bugle -- getting exclusive and very cool images of a super-hero at work -- only get paid directly. Once he had the basics of the site up and functioning (subscription only or something like that), he could pretty much come and go as he pleased, making money while swinging around fighting crime. The startup costs nowadays for an internet business are very minor and you barely have to know anything about the technology.
  • Get funding to sell a variant of your spider-web formula and rake in the big bucks while doing nothing. Look, Peter, you invented one of the coolest things outside the Baxter Building. Get off your ass and sell the formula to Tony Stark or Reed Richards or someone with money, in return for a chunk of change and a continuing percentage of sales. Problem solved.
  • Reveal secret ID to SHIELD and go on the payroll. Don't fight the power any more Pete, let the power fight for you. Go on SHIELD's payroll as an at-large agent and keep doing what you're doing, only with benefits.
  • Teaching gig at the local community college. Teachers have a very flexible work schedule and can disappear for large chunks of time without anyone objecting. Plus, hot co-eds.
  • Night-time security guard. It would have to be someplace centrally located, that didn't have anything very valuable, and which was almost completely unsupervised. Good luck with that.

If you come up with better suggestions, leave them in the comments and I can add them in to the poll. I haven't had good luck with open-ended user-added answers in the past so I'm not turning that on right now, but I am happy to add them in myself as we go.