A rant very near and dear to my heart, that I won't go into too much depth here, is about Miles Morales' dad. Some of you might think this is about his name, but that is a well trod topic at this point.
No, my huge issue is that after reading through his series 3 times I am CERTAIN there is zero mention of Jefferson being a cop. It came completely out of left field for me in the ps4 game and Into the Spider-Verse. It's a really wild thing where there is now a completely different take on the character now than when he was introduced despite him being a fairly modern character.
So the big thing with comics Jefferson is that he is a complete bigot, fucking hates mutants and people with superpowers. And it's not in a "these dang vigilantes" its a "these people disgust me". They are clearly playing with parallels of queer kids and intolerant parents. Miles gets bit the same time as Peter in the comics, but is much younger but he keeps himself in the closet. Doesn't use his powers at all and just pushes it down because he wants his dad to love him. Then Peter dies and he feels guilty because he had all this time he could have learned, he could have been ready, he could have been part of a community and stood beside it. And here's the thing, Jefferson being a cop here would totally work. But this is what the character is when he's introduced and he got ALL of his edges softened in the adaptations in a way I really dislike. Because I think having that parallel was important.
No, the thing that is wild is when Rio gets gunned down by cops. It's a whole thing, Miles electrifies Venom who explodes and the cops panic and open fire shooting his mom through the goop. Comics since then have been really big on welp, Venom hurt your mom.. let's not focus on where those bullets came from... And Rio dies in Miles' arms and sees her son is Spider-Man and her last words are "Don't tell your father"
It so good. It's such a vicious gut punch. But then after a short time skip we have Jefferson and Miles talking and Jeff is suing the NYPD over the shooting. Let me underline that.
Jefferson is suing the NYPD. For shooting his wife.
And at no point during this do they talk about, hey so did you quit your job? How do you feel about losing your wife to police action? Or if you are still a cop, then how are you like... dealing with being around your co-workers when you are fucking suing your place of employment?
But none of that comes up.
This has driven me fucking bugnuts and the best I can find is the author wrote that Jeff was a cop in response to a tumblr ask... and it was just canonized from that. Which is fucking wild.
Anyway, it feels real telling with how adaptations are willing to handle the police when like... both have chosen to front end Jeff being a cop but then immediately jettison his abuse and turn him into dad of the year.