welcome to the beginning of the spectacular spider month of august, and what better way to start then with a hero spotlight on none other then good ol web head himself.
everyone knows the origins, shy reclusinve nerd peter parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and their dna fuses to give peter the power of a spider. walking on walls, a sensation that alerts him to danger, superhuman agility, and the strength to life 8 times his own body weight. pete tried to use this to his advantage by joining a wrestling tournament and did quite well, though he got shafted in pay by the manager, and when the manager got mugged, he stood aside and did nothing, figuring it was his karma. the mugger however carjacks his uncle and shoots him dead. thinking that it was his fault his uncle died, pete takes his kindly words to heart, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and he swears to keep the streets safe from villainy. being the veritable boy genious, pete created a set of devices that would shoot out a solution that would mimic spider webs… in proportion, and he creates a suit that will stike fear into the hearts of men, a red and blue spandex suit with spider webs and a spider logo. he also got a job at the daily bugle, the local paper, as a photographer who took candid shots of spidey in action.
the crime fighting career wasn’t so easy though, being pretty much a kid and having to balance your superhero life, and your secret identities life. he used sarcasm, humor, and a quick wit to help calm his nerves when fighting crime, but still couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to girls. although throughout the years, this slowly began to fade, having relationships with gwen stacy, mary jane watson, and felecia hardy just to name a few. eventually, he gave in to mary jane’s fiery red hair and sultry demeanor and ended up marrying her.
spider-man was never in short supply of villains, and that list grows larger almost every day. sandman, green goblin, rhino, mysterio, electro, shocker, doc oc, hobgoblin, carnage… its almost as if he could fight a different villain every day of the week for half a year. yet although the web slinger is friends with almost every hero known to man, he has very few allies in his little pocket universe, at least very few with powers, leaving spidey to fend for his lonesome. but peters biggest thing, was to keep his secret identity, a secret. while others may be willing to show who they are behind the mask, webs knew that if his identity were to be revealed, his enemies would come after those closest to him.
spidey has also had his fair share of costumes and upgrades (not to mention a few dozen clones, but i’ll tell you all about that later), most notably his symbiote costume. an alien parasite he found in space during an epic battle, that conformed to his body and made him stronger, faster, and able to use webs without his web shooters, with the downside of not having his “spidey sense”. the symbiote though had a mind of his own, and tried to corrupt peter into being a little bit evil. though it was unsuccessful, the symbiote merged with another person to create venom, one of petes most dangerous villains. parker also had the iron spider suit, which was more recent during the civil was arc. a suit built by tony stark himself.
in more recent times though, spider-man has had 2 major things happen to him that changed him forever. the first of which was the one more day story arc, where after his identity was revealed, an assassin tried to kill his aunt may. as her life hung by a mere thread, peter begged his friends to help, even some of his enemies like doctor octopus, but the only one who could was lord of the underworld himself, who offered him a deal. he would spare her life, but in exchange, peter and mary jane would have never gotten together. in their subconscious, they would know that they had a life together, but consciously they wouldn’t. that subconscious pain was what mephisto truly wanted. so to save the life of his aunt, he agreed, and the couple of peter parker and mary jane parker was no more.
the other event was a story arc called the other, where petes powers start to go haywire. in looking for an answer, he found out that thing that gave him his powers, was killing him, and he had a week to live, and a super powered imortal named morlun was on his way to kill the wall crawler for good. after his death though, when the heroes went to see his corpse, they found nothing but an open shell. spider-man was reborn, and a spiritual voice of a spider was guiding him. pretty much, his dna and the spiders were one, he tried so hard to keep his humanity, that he blocked out the spider side of him. once he embraced it, spider-man got a whole lot more powers, such as the ability to see in the dark, cling to objects using the skin on his back, able to feel vibrations in his webbing, and a pair of stingers in his palm… plus he no longer needed his web shooters.
well, that’s just a quick rundown. to actually give the biography of this superhero would take pages and pages of text. and throughout the month, many other things will be explained about spider-man. all in all, he is marvels flagship character, and one of the most popular figures in the marvel universe. as for whats going on now with spidey? it seems that some of his old villains are coming back, and a very old villain might finally get his long awaited revenge through his offspring. anyways, hope you liked the spidey spotlight. as always, if you have any questions or comments, post away. till next time.
