He lives in Queens, not in a mansion or penthouse. Spider-Man doesn't get the idealized life that most superheroes get to lead. It's easy to figure out that Spider-Man isn't going to die, but disappointing his aunt, missing a date, or losing his job are all within the realm of possibility. Often times, Parker's personal drama seemed more dangerous and exciting than the cadre of villains who would do him harm. Everyone knows what it feels like to have someone else's expectations sitting on their shoulders, and that's part of why Spider-Man works so well. He's defined by the fact that he keeps struggling and striving to be the person his uncle knew he could one day become. Spider-Man has failure at his roots, but he isn't defined by his tragedy. Instead of fighting crime as a show of his own innate goodness, Spider-Man begins to fight crime as a way to atone for his own sins. He is indirectly responsible for the death of a loved one, and that tragedy provides the fuel for his crusade. Instead of being a self-assured man with functionally infinite resources for fighting crime, Spider-Man is a lonely and bitter teenager who struggles to help his aunt keep the lights on. The shift in approach there should not be ignored. Instead of doing good deeds with his powers, he made a selfish decision that led directly to his Uncle Ben's death, leaving his Aunt May widowed and adrift. After gaining powers from being bitten by a radioactive spider-a reflection of the atomic paranoia of the time on par with Godzilla-Peter Parker chose to become a wrestler and try to make some money with his powers. Superman's tragedy is set at a distance from his day-to-day life, but Spider-Man's is much more personal. Superman's home planet Krypton exploded when he was a baby, and his birth parents placed him in a rocket and aimed him at Earth. Where Superman was motivated by his innate goodness, Spider-Man had to work to be a hero, and often fell short of the mark.īoth characters have tragedy as part of their origin. Where Superman enjoyed the adoration and trust of those he protected, Spider-Man was regularly vilified in the press. Where Superman was a grown man, Peter Parker was a bullied teenager. He was a twist on a 20-year-old formula, but managed to become a paradigm shift at least as important as Superman.īoth Superman and Spider-Man are heroes, but the differences between them are profound. Instead of growing out of a pulp tradition like Superman, Spider-Man's forefathers were superheroes. In 1962, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee created Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man. The creation of Superman led to plenty of direct imitations-Captain Marvel being the most popular off-brand Superman, I believe-and eventually the complete dominance of superhero comics over most other genres in comics, a status quo that survives to today. Rather than fighting the colorful super-villains that would later define him, Superman attacked a wife beater and rescued a woman from being wrongfully executed by the government by storming a governor's mansion with proof of innocence. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1932, Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938 as more force of nature than fully fleshed-out character.
To understand how revolutionary Spider-Man was, it helps to understand the most important hero who came before him: Superman. He's a major figure, and he deserves to be: Spider-Man redefined our idea of a hero by making superheroes a lot more relatable than they were before.
#Spider man reader x batman tv
Since then, Spider-Man has spawned four-soon to be five-big-budget movies, nine TV shows, a stage play, a radio drama partially masterminded by Brian Mays of Queen, a few dozen video games, and, of course, thousands of comic books and toys. Amazing Spider-Man #1 hit shelves 50 years ago, on March 10, 1963.
0 kommentar(er)
