Spider-Man: The Greatest Superhero
I've had many people ask me why Spider-Man is my favorite superhero and quite possibly my favorite character of all time. The answer to that is simple in that Spider-Man/Peter Parker is objectively the greatest superhero every created. In preparation for Spider-Man: Homecoming, his sixth on-screen adaptation with the third actor in less than two decades, I wanted to get to the core of who Spider-Man is and why he's the best.
I am a true believer that superhero stories contain great life lessons. The past century has spawned thousands of superheroes, each with their own intricate personalities and stories. But what is it about Spider-Man that makes him one of the most popular, most dearly beloved of all time by people of all backgrounds and ages (including a certain little boy I know living in Japan)?
Debuting in 1962 in the final issue of a failing comic book--Amazing Fantasy #15--everyone's favorite web slinger was conceived by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to be strikingly different from any other superhero out there. This new character stood out in that he wouldn't be born with his powers or be trained or be the product of his own creation; he wouldn't have a partner or a team or even much of a family he could fall back on for help. He was a superhero who was barely super or a hero, a character with a weird name and weird powers who was ultimately was just an experiment in a comic that was going to get cancelled anyway.
And then he took off.
Amazing Fantasy #15 sold so incredibly well that Spider-Man almost immediately got his own comic book line with Amazing Spider-Man that now has 800 issues and counting, with the web-head owing his popularity to his realism, relatability, and subversion of typical superhero tropes. His is a story of a superhero trying to learn how to be a superhero--neither born great nor having achieved greatness, but rather was a completely ordinary person who had greatness thrust upon him.
In his first appearance, Peter Parker is introduced not as an alien from outer space, a billionaire playboy, or an overly ambitious scientist, but rather as a socially awkward geek with no friends, hating on the world for never understanding him or being good to him. He's miserable and resentful and always angry that things don't go his way. In other words, he's a teenager. Then he is bitten by the now famous radioactive spider, and what does he do? He doesn't go out and rescue people from burning buildings or find the nearest thug robbing a bank. He does what any other young and reckless kid would do and tries to make money off of it.
For the first time in his life, Puny Parker finally had the power to be stronger, faster, more popular than anybody around him. He becomes cocky and selfish, declaring that he's no longer letting himself be treated like trash by other people. From now on, he's only going to be looking out for himself and for the only people who ever gave a damn about him--his beloved aunt and uncle. If anyone else got in trouble, that was their problem and not his.
Then Uncle Ben is murdered. Not by a random mugger, not by a freak accident, but by someone who Peter could have stopped but chose not to. His first big break and he promptly screws it up, losing one of the most important people in the world to him.
And that's it. There's no triumphant victory. There's no riding off into the sunset. There isn't even a declaration of dedicating himself to crime-fighting. The last thing we see in his very first appearance is a panel of Peter walking slowly into the darkness, crying because his beloved uncle was now dead and it was all his fault.
And it doesn't end there, either. Spider-Man doesn't romanticize the death of his uncle the same way other superheroes do for their parents. Superman's loss of Jor-El and Lara mean little to him personally since he was only a baby. Batman's loss of his parents was iconically tragic, but it had to happen to propel him into the life he leads now. By the time Bruce Wayne became the Batman, he was already over the death of his parents because he knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Batman's goal is to stop crime for good so that other people won't go through the same thing he did.
Spider-Man never gets over Uncle Ben's death. He's not even spared Batman's innocence because he knows he could have prevented it but chose not to. Spider-Man's goal isn't to be a role model to others or to stop crime, but to make sure that he never repeats his mistake again. He's driven not by vengeance, but by atonement, but no matter what he does he knows it'll never be enough.
And that tone of tragedy never really goes away either, as Peter quickly learns that attaining his abilities didn't automatically make his life better. Having superpowers didn't solve all of his problems; they enhanced them. Although Spider-Man faces problems on a much higher level, they still are problems that we can always relate to. People who say Spider-Man is relatable constantly cite how he's always broke or has relationship issues, but it extends farther and deeper than that. His are the problems everyone deals with throughout their lives.
They're the bullies that never stop picking on you just because they think they're stronger.
They're the adults who dislike you for no reason other than because you're younger than them.
They're the teachers and professors who give you a hard time for seemingly no reason at all, who seem intent on making you as miserable as possible.
They're your bosses who mistreat you, who abuse you and neglect you just because you're below them.
They're the parents who worry too much about you, who are worried sick when you don't get home on time and don't know if they've done a good job raising you.
They're the part of you that you hate about yourself. Your anger, your hatred, your insecurities.
They're the people you love who leave you forever. They're the friends who've made mistakes that cost them their lives. They're the people you could have saved but failed to.
And it's easy to quit. It's so tempting to just give up because it's not worth the pain and the failure. It's easy to choose your own personal desires over the greater good. Spider-Man's done it many times.
But in the end, he'll always come back. He must always be Spider-Man and do what is right because he knows the cost of not doing so.
This is the heart of Spider-Man, that with great power comes great responsibility. In the movies, Tobey Maguire's portrayal of the wall-crawler gets a lot of flack from some people for being overly geeky and not as funny as the comic book Spider-Man, which isn't wrong. While Peter Parker of the comics was pretty geeky to some extent (one of his first romantic gestures to Mary Jane was a tape about rhinos and magnetic fields that he gave her for Christmas), he was much more handsome and charming after high school than Maguire's portrayal would show. Some people would argue that Andrew Garfield's version in the more recent Amazing Spider-Man movies is "a lot closer to the comics". However, Tobey Maguire nails what it means to be Spider-Man in a way that Andrew Garfield doesn't quite live up to. Spider-Man isn't about the mechanical web-shooters or the jokes. Spider-Man is about learning what it means to be a hero. The beautiful scene in Spider-Man 2 sums it up best when Aunt May talks about how there is a hero in all of us, one that leads us to be good and noble and to do what is right, even at the cost of our dreams and desires.
While we the readers look up to Spider-Man, he's always looking up to the people he sees as the better superheroes. Batman becomes who he is the moment his parents are killed, even before he gets the muscles and the mask. Iron Man becomes who he is right as he chooses to fight crime. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America have always been who they are because it is in their nature to be righteous and good. Peter Parker doesn't know who he is when Uncle Ben is killed. He just knows that he has to use his powers responsibly, and he does this by making a better version of himself.
There is an intimate level of duality between Spider-Man and Peter Parker unlike that of other superheroes. For most, there is no major distinction between their private self and their superhero self; one is just a mask to conceal their true identity. Steve Rogers is the name and Captain America is the mask but there is real distinction between the two. Batman reverses this trend, with the cape and cowl being his true self and the playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne acting as the mask. Neither Peter Parker nor Spider-Man is a mask, but rather both are different aspects of the same person.
Peter Parker is shy, quiet, and aloof. Once he puts on the mask, he's confident, funny, and outgoing. Spider-Man constantly makes jokes at his enemies' expense, but this was--at the beginning at least--so that his enemies will be less scary to him. He laughs at and makes fun of supervillains not just to distract them, but also to distract Peter from the fact that he could die at any second. The heroic feats that Peter would be too afraid to do are just another day's work for Spider-Man. While Batman's mask is used to strike fear into the criminals of Gotham, Spider-Man wears a mask so that the criminals don't see how scared Peter really is underneath. Peter is vulnerable. Spider-Man is strong.
Peter Parker doesn't like the boy he is, the boy with too much guilt and responsibility, who worries too much about his aunt and money and girls. He can't bear the weight of all the pressure that life has in store for him, so he creates someone who can. He creates not a boy, but a man--a man who would have stopped Uncle Ben's killer, a man who can crack jokes under pressure, a man who can be confident in everything he does, a man who will always come out on top and better the world while doing so. Peter Parker creates Spider-Man to be the person he wants to be--a 15-year old teenager from Queens who christens himself not Spider-Kid, not Spider-Boy, but Spider-Man.
And that's the kind of heart and soul that's been missing from the past five Spider-Man movies. Even the comic books seem to have forgotten this. That's why even though I trust Marvel to release a good movie in Spider-Man: Homecoming, I can't have my hopes up for an amazing one. The MCU movies have all been entertaining, some genuinely great, but almost none will ever be a true classic. I've been trying my best to avoid any of the trailers--which is really hard considering there are about 50 of them by now--but from what I've seen I can't really expect much from the movie. There seems to be heavy focus on cool, fun things like his high-tech Stark suit (which is fine and all but really doesn't feel like classic Spidey) as well as proving himself to Tony. But Spider-Man never wanted to prove himself to others. His greatest struggle was always proving himself to himself, proving that he is worthy of his powers when everything always goes wrong and life keeps kicking him when he's down.
There is a beautiful story arc at the beginning of Spider-Man's career in issues #31-33 called "If This Be My Destiny", in which Aunt May falls dangerously ill after receiving a transfusion of Peter's highly radioactive blood. Just as he obtains an antidote however, he is trapped under heavy machinery and is almost crushed under the weight. As he lies there, too weak to lift up the machinery that binds him, he contemplates if he is worthy enough to be called Ben and May's nephew. It was his selfishness that killed Ben, and soon it would be his weakness that killed May.
But no, he realizes that he must prove himself worthy of being their nephew, worthy of forgiving himself, worthy of his powers, worthy of being a man. And so he musters all the strength he never knew he had, determined not to let Aunt May die like he let Uncle Ben die, driven to ensure that he will never make the same mistake again, and he lifts up the machinery and frees himself.
This is a milestone in his career because many of the issues before had ended on some bittersweet note, whether he had failed his mission or believed he had failed or he had put a loved one in grave danger. It's fitting that the first issue in which he gets a truly happy ending is the same one where he truly redeems himself after the death of Uncle Ben. It is from the moment that he lifts up the machinery and proves himself that Peter Parker stops being the insecure, shy, scared boy and becomes the man he's always wanted to be.
And in the years since, he's inspired so many to follow his lead.
I've said before that I am a true believer that comic books have deep life lessons that we can all learn from. Superman teaches us to be the best version of us that we can possibly be. Batman teaches us that one man can change the world if he tries hard enough. Wonder Woman teaches us that love and compassion, not violence and conflict, will bring about true peace.
Spider-Man is the greatest superhero because his lesson is a bit more poignant and a little more human.
Debuting in 1962 in the final issue of a failing comic book--Amazing Fantasy #15--everyone's favorite web slinger was conceived by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to be strikingly different from any other superhero out there. This new character stood out in that he wouldn't be born with his powers or be trained or be the product of his own creation; he wouldn't have a partner or a team or even much of a family he could fall back on for help. He was a superhero who was barely super or a hero, a character with a weird name and weird powers who was ultimately was just an experiment in a comic that was going to get cancelled anyway.
And then he took off.
Amazing Fantasy #15 sold so incredibly well that Spider-Man almost immediately got his own comic book line with Amazing Spider-Man that now has 800 issues and counting, with the web-head owing his popularity to his realism, relatability, and subversion of typical superhero tropes. His is a story of a superhero trying to learn how to be a superhero--neither born great nor having achieved greatness, but rather was a completely ordinary person who had greatness thrust upon him.
In his first appearance, Peter Parker is introduced not as an alien from outer space, a billionaire playboy, or an overly ambitious scientist, but rather as a socially awkward geek with no friends, hating on the world for never understanding him or being good to him. He's miserable and resentful and always angry that things don't go his way. In other words, he's a teenager. Then he is bitten by the now famous radioactive spider, and what does he do? He doesn't go out and rescue people from burning buildings or find the nearest thug robbing a bank. He does what any other young and reckless kid would do and tries to make money off of it.
Then Uncle Ben is murdered. Not by a random mugger, not by a freak accident, but by someone who Peter could have stopped but chose not to. His first big break and he promptly screws it up, losing one of the most important people in the world to him.
And that's it. There's no triumphant victory. There's no riding off into the sunset. There isn't even a declaration of dedicating himself to crime-fighting. The last thing we see in his very first appearance is a panel of Peter walking slowly into the darkness, crying because his beloved uncle was now dead and it was all his fault.
And it doesn't end there, either. Spider-Man doesn't romanticize the death of his uncle the same way other superheroes do for their parents. Superman's loss of Jor-El and Lara mean little to him personally since he was only a baby. Batman's loss of his parents was iconically tragic, but it had to happen to propel him into the life he leads now. By the time Bruce Wayne became the Batman, he was already over the death of his parents because he knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Batman's goal is to stop crime for good so that other people won't go through the same thing he did.
Spider-Man never gets over Uncle Ben's death. He's not even spared Batman's innocence because he knows he could have prevented it but chose not to. Spider-Man's goal isn't to be a role model to others or to stop crime, but to make sure that he never repeats his mistake again. He's driven not by vengeance, but by atonement, but no matter what he does he knows it'll never be enough.
And that tone of tragedy never really goes away either, as Peter quickly learns that attaining his abilities didn't automatically make his life better. Having superpowers didn't solve all of his problems; they enhanced them. Although Spider-Man faces problems on a much higher level, they still are problems that we can always relate to. People who say Spider-Man is relatable constantly cite how he's always broke or has relationship issues, but it extends farther and deeper than that. His are the problems everyone deals with throughout their lives.
They're the bullies that never stop picking on you just because they think they're stronger.
They're the adults who dislike you for no reason other than because you're younger than them.
They're your bosses who mistreat you, who abuse you and neglect you just because you're below them.
They're the parents who worry too much about you, who are worried sick when you don't get home on time and don't know if they've done a good job raising you.
They're the part of you that you hate about yourself. Your anger, your hatred, your insecurities.
And it's easy to quit. It's so tempting to just give up because it's not worth the pain and the failure. It's easy to choose your own personal desires over the greater good. Spider-Man's done it many times.
This is the heart of Spider-Man, that with great power comes great responsibility. In the movies, Tobey Maguire's portrayal of the wall-crawler gets a lot of flack from some people for being overly geeky and not as funny as the comic book Spider-Man, which isn't wrong. While Peter Parker of the comics was pretty geeky to some extent (one of his first romantic gestures to Mary Jane was a tape about rhinos and magnetic fields that he gave her for Christmas), he was much more handsome and charming after high school than Maguire's portrayal would show. Some people would argue that Andrew Garfield's version in the more recent Amazing Spider-Man movies is "a lot closer to the comics". However, Tobey Maguire nails what it means to be Spider-Man in a way that Andrew Garfield doesn't quite live up to. Spider-Man isn't about the mechanical web-shooters or the jokes. Spider-Man is about learning what it means to be a hero. The beautiful scene in Spider-Man 2 sums it up best when Aunt May talks about how there is a hero in all of us, one that leads us to be good and noble and to do what is right, even at the cost of our dreams and desires.
While we the readers look up to Spider-Man, he's always looking up to the people he sees as the better superheroes. Batman becomes who he is the moment his parents are killed, even before he gets the muscles and the mask. Iron Man becomes who he is right as he chooses to fight crime. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America have always been who they are because it is in their nature to be righteous and good. Peter Parker doesn't know who he is when Uncle Ben is killed. He just knows that he has to use his powers responsibly, and he does this by making a better version of himself.
There is an intimate level of duality between Spider-Man and Peter Parker unlike that of other superheroes. For most, there is no major distinction between their private self and their superhero self; one is just a mask to conceal their true identity. Steve Rogers is the name and Captain America is the mask but there is real distinction between the two. Batman reverses this trend, with the cape and cowl being his true self and the playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne acting as the mask. Neither Peter Parker nor Spider-Man is a mask, but rather both are different aspects of the same person. Peter Parker is shy, quiet, and aloof. Once he puts on the mask, he's confident, funny, and outgoing. Spider-Man constantly makes jokes at his enemies' expense, but this was--at the beginning at least--so that his enemies will be less scary to him. He laughs at and makes fun of supervillains not just to distract them, but also to distract Peter from the fact that he could die at any second. The heroic feats that Peter would be too afraid to do are just another day's work for Spider-Man. While Batman's mask is used to strike fear into the criminals of Gotham, Spider-Man wears a mask so that the criminals don't see how scared Peter really is underneath. Peter is vulnerable. Spider-Man is strong.
Peter Parker doesn't like the boy he is, the boy with too much guilt and responsibility, who worries too much about his aunt and money and girls. He can't bear the weight of all the pressure that life has in store for him, so he creates someone who can. He creates not a boy, but a man--a man who would have stopped Uncle Ben's killer, a man who can crack jokes under pressure, a man who can be confident in everything he does, a man who will always come out on top and better the world while doing so. Peter Parker creates Spider-Man to be the person he wants to be--a 15-year old teenager from Queens who christens himself not Spider-Kid, not Spider-Boy, but Spider-Man.
And that's the kind of heart and soul that's been missing from the past five Spider-Man movies. Even the comic books seem to have forgotten this. That's why even though I trust Marvel to release a good movie in Spider-Man: Homecoming, I can't have my hopes up for an amazing one. The MCU movies have all been entertaining, some genuinely great, but almost none will ever be a true classic. I've been trying my best to avoid any of the trailers--which is really hard considering there are about 50 of them by now--but from what I've seen I can't really expect much from the movie. There seems to be heavy focus on cool, fun things like his high-tech Stark suit (which is fine and all but really doesn't feel like classic Spidey) as well as proving himself to Tony. But Spider-Man never wanted to prove himself to others. His greatest struggle was always proving himself to himself, proving that he is worthy of his powers when everything always goes wrong and life keeps kicking him when he's down.
But no, he realizes that he must prove himself worthy of being their nephew, worthy of forgiving himself, worthy of his powers, worthy of being a man. And so he musters all the strength he never knew he had, determined not to let Aunt May die like he let Uncle Ben die, driven to ensure that he will never make the same mistake again, and he lifts up the machinery and frees himself.
This is a milestone in his career because many of the issues before had ended on some bittersweet note, whether he had failed his mission or believed he had failed or he had put a loved one in grave danger. It's fitting that the first issue in which he gets a truly happy ending is the same one where he truly redeems himself after the death of Uncle Ben. It is from the moment that he lifts up the machinery and proves himself that Peter Parker stops being the insecure, shy, scared boy and becomes the man he's always wanted to be.
And in the years since, he's inspired so many to follow his lead.
Spider-Man is the greatest superhero because his lesson is a bit more poignant and a little more human.
Spider-Man teaches us that life is hard, that you're going to fail utterly and completely. You're going to screw up badly and it's going to be your fault.
You're going to make bad decisions and the weight of the world is going to crush you. And it's going to hurt a lot.
But even when life gets hard and it feels as if you have no way out, he teaches you to never, ever give up. That the quick and easy way, sometimes even the way that your heart wants to go is never as good as the right way to go. That there is a hero in all of us that calls us to do what is right even at the cost of our dreams.
That it's not going to be easy, and it might even seem impossible, but you can overcome the odds. You can get past the obstacles. You can beat anything that gets in your way.
You can become the person you want to be.
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