By Brent Frankenhoff
Ask almost anyone who Spider-Man is and how he got his powers, and he or she will say something along the lines of Marvel’s own synopsis of The Wall-Crawler’s origins: “Bitten by a radioactive spider, student Peter Parker gained the proportionate strength and agility of an arachnid. Armed with his wondrous web-shooters, the reluctant super-hero struggles with sinister super-villains, making ends meet, and maintaining some semblance of a normal life.” Of course, the guy in the street might not use such big words, but who’s to quibble? With the success of the live-action movie trilogy, the expression “With great power comes great responsibility” has entered the general public’s consciousness, making its way into advertising copy and headlines.
Character creation is a tricky business, and, while celebrating Spidey’s 50-year milestone, we’re not here to debate his real-world origins. Suffice it to say that writer and editor Stan Lee wrote the origin with influences from artists Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. Kirby had worked with writer and artist Joe Simon on another arachnid-based hero several years earlier, but those efforts were never published, although elements made their way into Archie’s Fly-Man. Kirby’s sketches for the character’s introduction in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug 62) didn’t meet Lee’s expectations, so Ditko took over, making for the iconic first appearance, which also turned out to be the final issue of the anthology title. (Kirby did provide the pencils for the cover with inking by Ditko.)
While The Fantastic Four was Marvel’s first super-team and its titular series was Marvel’s first return to super-hero titles, Spider-Man quickly became Marvel’s breakout hero, spawning numerous titles, appearances in other media, and even a balloon in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. His status as the company’s mascot has made him a recognizable icon, even to non-comics fans.
The Spider-franchise expands. While Amazing Spider-Man, currently published more than once a month, is the character’s flagship title, it’s hard to believe that for his first decade, Spidey stuck to the pages of that single title, with only a rare guest appearance elsewhere in the Marvel Universe.
Then, in 1972, Marvel Team-Up began, pairing The Wall-Crawler with other denizens of the Marvel U. (There were few issues in which Spider-Man didn’t appear during the series’ 150-issue run.) In 1976, Spectacular Spider-Man (aka Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man) began its 22-year run, ending only when Amazing Spider-Man restarted at #1 in 1998. Web of Spider-Man took Marvel Team-Up’s place in 1985, while the “adjectiveless” Spider-Man began in 1990. Add such additional titles as the two Sensational Spider-Man series, Peter Parker: Spider-Man, dozens of mini-series, and one-shots, and you’ve got a large collection of comics right there. According to a rough count of comics titles with the word “Spider-Man” in them, there have been more than 300 in the past half-century, including Marvel’s first crossover with DC: Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man (1976). And, of course, that count doesn’t include his many guest appearances.
All those appearances helped add more to the Spider-Man mythos, allowing dozens of writers and artists to explore nearly every bit of the tangled web of Spider-continuity from his relationships with such women as Betty Brant, Gwen Stacy, and Mary Jane Watson to his constant struggles between being a dutiful nephew to his elderly Aunt May and using his powers to keep New York City safe to the origins and motivations to his most deadly villains.
Today, in fact, there are two successful versions of The Web-Slinger out there — the mainstream character who’s been around for a half-century and the “rebooted” version who kicked off Marvel’s Ultimate Universe in 2000. That version updated many of the adventures of the original and for a modern audience. Peter Parker was the face under the mask for the first two Ultimate Spider-Man series (2000-2009 and 2009-2011, respectively), while a new character, Miles Morales, has donned a version of Spider-Man’s costume in the third Ultimate Spider-Man series (2011-). All three series have been written by Brian Michael Bendis.
Continuity controversies. Spider-Man’s career has almost never been free of controversy, beginning with the original Green Goblin. While Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko deliberately kept readers in the dark as to who the villain really was, when Lee eventually decided it had been Norman Osborn, Ditko objected and left the series, ushering in John Romita. Marvel attempted a similar “Who is it?” story with The Hobgoblin in the 1980s, providing a number of possibilities along the way.
Many fans agree that the death of Gwen Stacy was another major turning point in Spider-Man’s history, although it did lead to his deeper romance with and eventual marriage to Mary Jane Watson: a marriage nullified by the events of the controversial “One More Day” in late 2007, which led into “Brand New Day.” Since then, Peter Parker’s gone back to his bachelor roots, maintaining a friendship with Mary Jane (who still shares his secrets), working as an independent researcher in a think tank, and forming a new relationship with an NYPD forensic scientist, among others.
Spidey swings into other media. By the mid-1960s, Marvel Mania was on a rapid rise, as readers of all ages discovered the different style of Marvel’s stable of characters. Trading cards, postcards, paperback collections of the earliest stories, and even animated adventures were produced. (The first animated Spider-Man cartoons were less stiff than those of his fellow Marvel counterparts, whose comic-book panels had been used in a precursor to today’s motion comics.) Spider-Man’s adventures moved from Saturday morning to Sunday morning reruns to a short-lived syndication run and were released on DVD in 2004. In 1977, a 13-episode live-action series starring Nicholas Hammond was produced. (Prior to that, the character had made live-action appearances on PBS’ The Electric Company — with a tie-in Marvel title Spidey Super-Stories that ran 1974-1982.) Additional animated outings followed with such titles as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981), two series simply titled Spider-Man (1981 and 1994), Spider-Man Unlimited (1999), Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003), Spectacular Spider-Man (2008), and the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man (2012).
While a feature film had been discussed from time to time as early as the late 1960s, it wasn’t until the early 1990s and the announcement of director James Cameron’s involvement with a live-action outing that fans actually believed something might develop. Though rights issues between studios delayed such a project for more than a decade, 2002 saw the first of three Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi with Tobey Maguire in the title role. This summer sees a reboot of the live-action franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb, with Andrew Garfield as The Web-Slinger.
And, of course, the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark is still running on Broadway.
Videogames have also been part of Spider-Man’s marketing — from a cartridge for the Atari 2600 in the late 1970s to such games as Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for various platforms today.
It hasn’t always been all fun and games for Spider-Man’s outreach, however. He’s also been involved in a number of public-service campaigns, beginning in 1971 with a three-issue anti-drug story in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 that didn’t pass the Comics Code Authority. Lee had been approached by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to do such a story, so he published the issues without the Code seal. That, in turn, kicked off the first revamp of the Comics Code, which was further revised to allow other elements that had been banned since the mid-1950s.
In Comic Book Artist #2 (Sum 98, an interview later reprinted in Stan Lee Conversations, 2007), Roy Thomas asked Lee about that drug story and why Lee had dropped the Code seal. Lee’s response: “The Code mentioned that you mustn’t mention drugs and, according to their rules, they were right. So I didn’t even get mad at them then. I said, ‘Screw it’ and just took the Code seal off for those three issues. Then we went back to the Code again. I never thought about the Code when I was writing a story, because basically I never wanted to do anything that was to my mind too violent or too sexy. I was aware that young people were reading these books, and had there not been a Code, I don’t think that I would have done the stories any differently.”
Later public-service comics included stories dealing with abuse, runaways, and other social issues. Spider-Man has also been a spokesperson for the Milk Marketing Board and The Boy Scouts of America, among other organizations.
The future. As noted earlier, in the past four years, Peter Parker has returned more to his 1960s and ’70s roots, although plenty of major events have been happening in his part of the Marvel Universe. He’s even gone to the bigger stage, becoming an official Avenger after being a reserve member for many years. In recent months, Marvel has added new titles to the franchise, including Scarlet Spider and the Marvel Team-Up-like Avenging Spider-Man.
In Amazing Spider-Man, the island of Manhattan was nearly taken over by a virus that gave everyone Spider-Man’s abilities before mutating them further. Later, The Wall-Crawler was given a glimpse into the future, where he saw New York destroyed and had to determine what action of his would cause the devastation. And, reaching all the way back to Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Apr 63), Spider-Man is heading into space to rescue astronaut John Jameson — and Earth itself — from Doctor Octopus.
More upcoming events will no doubt come from the Spider-summit held in late January.
In an interview with Jules Feiffer for Civilization’s June-July 1998 issue, Lee said, “I told my publisher I wanted Spider-Man to have problems. I wanted him to worry about making a living, and girls wouldn’t be so crazy about him. He’d have trouble getting dates. And he’d get ingrown toenails or an allergy attack while he was fighting. ‘You’re crazy, Stan. That’s not a hero, that’s a supporting character. That’s a comedy character.’ But I didn’t listen. I did it. And Spider-Man turned out to be our most popular character.”
For a character in which, according to Lee, no one else had any faith, Spider-Man has overcome adversity — not only in his fictional adventures, but in the real world, as well.
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