In most places you go, odds are you’ll see Spider-Man in something. A child’s T-shirt. Murals on buildings on a busy metro street. Movie posters. Netflix, the FX channel, Disney Plus, and NBC’s Peacock app. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s 1962 creation inspired by a tiny spider climbing a wall has spawned countless comic books, movies, and animated series. He’s even inspired beyond superhero media, seen in the likes of athletes, professional wrestlers, and other works of fiction.
How ironic is it, then, that this financially struggling teenager from Queens, New York, would be a sensation that would transcend generations? From Peter Parker to Ben O’Reilly to Miles Morales to an alternate reality Gwen Stacy, the web-slinging persona has earned his keep in the pantheon of cultural icons.
Many of the themes as to why the wall-crawler is persistently relevant throughout the ages that I’ll spout have been shared by others before, time and again. However, my approach is to strongly connect the webby threads that connect us to our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
The heart of Peter Parker
Though there may be many variations of Spider-Man, it’s this original version that stands out as the measuring stick. Peter Parker is a character rife with struggles. He’s meant to be burdened with the weight of everything around him, only to persevere in the sake of goodness. Buried under perpetual guilt after the death of Uncle Ben, he’ll add on so much to help the world even if it hurts him in the long run. Parker is the first to jump into a fire, even if he’s already battle-ravaged, his suit in tatters. His conviction to do the right thing is steadily moving forward, never wavering, never waning.
Living in poverty, caring for his Aunt May, maintaining relationships with Mary Jane (or whoever he’s dating at any given time), and enduring the beratement of J. Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle—this alone would overwhelm most people, let alone fighting crime and world-ending threats. Yet he does it, not questioning it. And he’ll do it while cracking jokes, one of the few things to keep him sane in the crazy existence of criminals and megalomaniacal villains threatening daily life.
As much as he’s a role model for his relentless pursuit of doing good, he’s also flawed in this. The night he learned that with great power came great responsibility, he has since mistakenly believed things were all waiting for him to fix. He’ll pile on everything he can to take care of everyone he cares for, and even beyond. He’s a protector, the embodiment of aiding and rescuing that we all wish we could do. And just like us, he’ll fail at this. It will weigh on him like it does us. Still, he perseveres, and so must we.
Why Peter Parker endures — he’s just like us
If you ask most Marvel fans, they’ll tell you that at the center of why their characters are so endearing is that they’re relatable. They break like us, they are selfish like us, they live like us. That side of good that’s in all of us, that’s something so intrinsically at the core of what makes Peter Parker, well, Peter Parker.
Though I subscribe to the idea that his character should grow and live through other parts of his life beyond being shoved into high school lockers, I get it now. I get why people want to see him struggle. They want reassurance that, like them, Peter Parker’s mission to stick to his morals and beliefs in the face of hardship means they, too, are doing the right thing. That they’re not alone. And thus, he’s stuck in a Sisyphian effort, pushing a boulder up a hill that never ends, destined to push again once it rolls back down.
Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) and subverting expectations
For other fans, this approach becomes tired. It’s like eating the same food at the same restaurant, longing to try another, but the person you’re with is adamant about sticking to routine. Why should Peter still be a bullied teenager, overworked at a newspaper?
This is why I believe the recent Ultimate Spider-Man comic run by the team of Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto scratches this itch. Here, Parker is married to Mary Jane and has children. He has a positive relationship with Jameson, and Uncle Ben is alive at the cost of Aunt May. However, this version of Parker has his own set of issues related to parenthood, marriage, friendship, and a world of lies built by a creator whose machinations demand no superheroes.
Reimagining superheroes like this has its benefits. It shows a newer, fresher way of doing things. In Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter has grown. He faces unique issues as a brand-new Spider-Man, this time as an adult. Moreover, this remixed world mirrors relevant aspects of our current events — misinformation, media literacy, and political corruption.
This set-up that has altered Parker’s life as we knew it isn’t even new, either. The origin of Mayday Parker as Spider-Woman, the Secret Wars spinoff Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Peter B. Parker being a dad in Sony’s Spider-Verse film series, and Tobey Maguire reprising his iconic 2000s Spidey, this time a married father, have all shown us that Peter can move on. He can represent New Yorkers, good people, humans in general without the status quo.
Spider-Man is all of us
I went on a bit of a tangent there. But I’m not sorry, because I wanted to show how fluid Spider-Man is as a concept. There’s not one way to be Spider-Man. There’s a reason various spider-people in Marvel have their varying levels of popularity.
In 2010, actor Donald Glover hoped to be cast as Peter Parker in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, and even dressed as Spider-Man in the “Anthropology 101” episode of Community. His earnest and eager approach brought about the creation of Miles Morales, a Spider-Man who followed in a previous Ultimate iteration of Spider-Man. Fans were hesitant about this, and to this day, some are. Yet, he exists, and many different variations of Spider-Man came crawling out of the woodwork thereafter. Because of Glover, a wider web was spun for wall-crawlers in various Marvel media.
Miles Morales, much like Peter Parker, has persevered. His mere existence reflects what the inception of Spider-Man in 1962 had intended—anybody can be Spider-Man. The mask is only that, not a single entity unto itself, but a representation of everyone climbing uphill.
The Spider-Verse films reinforce this. Spider-Man can be many things: an alternate universe version of his dead girlfriend, a pig, a Japanese girl inspired by anime, a noir detective, an angry Oscar Isaac in the future, and an Indian teenager.
Spider-Man’s legacy
The wall-crawler has left an indelible mark on history. Not only is he a pop culture icon, but he’s also a folk hero. A man trying to survive in a world where the corrupt have power and the poor still struggle, still going out of his way to save the day. In that respect, he’s a working-class hero.
Spider-Man represents everyone trying to make ends meet during uncertain circumstances. To that point, he resonates more and more. His struggles become ours. Moreover, he represents the hope that we can all hold onto our humanity. Furthermore, his fictional status is an added benefit when the public is exposed to the skeletons lurking in the closets of notable figures on a semi-regular basis.
Akin to Superman, Spider-Man embodies what people should aspire to be. He shows us that we can do the right thing and not lose our joy in it. Things may be tough, but we keep on swinging. While we may never know the exact thrill of the wind brushing past us as webs propel us forward or climbing about on ceilings or sensing danger before it happens, we can always do good right now. And if we can’t, we just do what we can. That’s our power. And with power comes responsibility.
As Aunt May once said, “There’s a hero in all of us.”
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