As I am sure many have heard by now next year a new Spiderman movie will be released that is going to restart the entire Spidey Universe for Sony. The movie is titled "The Amazing Spiderman" after the long running comic of the same name. Now while there has been some complaining about the new movie I want to look back at how we got to this point, because especially for us Marvel Fans spidey was a culmination of years of wants, dreams and disappointments.
The Comics
Through the years if you were a spidey fan you have probably heard of the following titles: the Amazing Spider-man, the Spectacular Spider-man, Web of Spider-man, Ultimate Spider-man Peter Parker has been swinging through the streets of New York in his red and blue PJ's for the better part of 50 years. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko brought us these wonderful tales of the Queens New Yorker with the extreme case of the guilties starting in 1963. Peter Parker is a straight "A" student, slight in build, high in intelligence, awkward, and seemingly out of place. Peter stays with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker, because something happened to his parents when he was a young child. One fateful night Peter takes a trip to Empire University to see a demonstration of nuclear energy.
The Bite
During the demonstration a spider drops down between the two terminals and becomes radioactive, crawls back up into the roof and then drops on to Peter Parkers hand, the spider bites him and transfers some of it's abilities to Peter and begins his adventures as the smart mouthed web slinger. Peter gained the proportionate strength of a spider, amazing agility, a sort of sixth sense that warns him of immediate, enhanced vision, and the ability to scale walls like his name sake. Initially Peter attempted to use his new found abilities to make money by become a wrestler, unfortunately a tragedy caused Peter to change his drive from selfish pursuits to more heroic endeavors.
The Death of Uncle Ben
While Peter is wrestling with a local company he gets into a dispute with a manager over his pay, when Peter leaves the office(in costume) someone squeezes past him through the door. It's a thief who steals the gate as the man rushes past Spider-man he lets him go and when the guard/manager(depends on which version you read) asks him why he didn't stop the guy "You coulda took him apart with ya bare hands", his response was "why would I get involved that didn't have anything to do with me". As if Karma was listening when Peter arrives home he finds the police outside, it seems that while Peter was coming home a thief broke into his Aunt and Uncle's house and in a struggle ended up shooting his Uncle Ben. While holding his grieving Aunt, Peter over hears the police discussing where the robber was and that if he held them off for too much longer he would be able to easily escape in the darkness.
Peter takes off in costume to go and confront the man who killed his Uncle, Peter arrives in the warehouse and when he confronts the burglar who killed his uncle in the moon light and removes his mask to his horror it turns out to be the thief who he had let escape earlier in that day. And from that day forth his uncle's mantra "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility" became Spider-mans driving force. And Marvel fans have been swinging along with him for the last 48 years.
The Villains
Spider-man's rogues gallery is filled with a menagerie of many different animal themed villains, as well as a few D & D style offering. The Rhino, Doctor Octopus, The Vulture, Mysterio, Green Goblin, Hob Goblin, and many others. Most of Spider-man's villains were either his physical match or else his mental equal SOME (like Green Goblin and Doc Ock) seemed to be mental and physical match, which would often required Spider-man to go back and reformulate his web fluid so that he could overcome whatever difficulty he was facing.
I have often remarked that Stan Lee seems to delight in punishing Marvel's flagship character because it might be a SLIGHT exaggeration(and I do mean slight because there are way too many covers where Spider-man is either beaten down, broken, bloody or in dire straits) but it did always seem that every other issue Spider-man was getting his butt handed to him or was getting laid out by one of his Major Villains. There are some times when Stan would let Spider-man beat up on some regular thugs or minor villains(LAME MINOR VILLAINS BUT I DIGRESS).
High Level of Quippage
Spider-man is known to do a lot of trash talking towards his villains, some of his detractors, and his main Public Detractor J. Jonah Jameson, possibly as a form of pay back for all the times Peter Parker was teased before he had the spider powers. It does seem to be part of his charm since it makes him seem a lot more confident, free spirited, and in control even if things are hectic and crazy.
Next will be focusing on the cartoons
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