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Welcome to the first of three articles exploring Spider-man's history. The difference between this series and others is that this is going to have a more personal slant. I make no claims on being objective. This series will explore the character against the backdrop of history (both real history and the history of the industry) and my own experiences, to explain how we arrive at the point where, for me, there is no more Spider-man.
My first exposure to Spider-man was probably exactly what today's Marvel powers-that-be would loathe: it was on the television show The Electric Company. If you were a kid in the mid-seventies, the trifecta of educational shows was that, Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, so if you're in my age group that might be similar for you, but if not I'll explain. The Electric Company was a kind of sketch-comedy educational show, which focused more on the four-eight age group, with reading skills being central. Marvel Comics, showing some interesting foresight, allowed the program to use a live action Spider-man free of charge. This is speculation, but I'd say this was likely done for two reasons: to get kids reading (so they'd be picking up Marvel Comics, comic books being mentioned sometimes on the show) and to endear this character to this upcoming consumer group. If so, I think it worked like a charm. The irony, however, is that the Spider-man in the show was nothing like any incarnation really seen. Spidey was completely silent - the wise-cracking that seems so much a part of the character was absent completely, since he couldn't speak (he sometimes had thought balloons that appeared, but they were always direct, not jokes). There was nothing about a secret identity, there was just a villain and Spidey showed up and dealt with him.
What this means is that, the way I thought of him, Spider-man wasn't any of the stuff that you might list being his core aspects. He was mysterious, he was cool-headed, he was heroic - like Superman with the polish taken away and mystery added.
My second exposure to him was in the horrible, horrible seventies TV series that flopped. Looking back, it's astonishing really that if you compare that show with The Electric Company, it's the latter that actually had the better-looking character. You'd think the big action movie would look better than a kid's show, but just do some youtube checks and you'll see. It's not Sam Raimi, but it's at least doesn't look obviously like Spidey's running along the ground with the camera tilted sideways.
The third was the animated series, originally created in the late sixties, and found on reruns at this time. This is the one with the famous theme song, "Spider-man! Spider-man! Does whatever a spider can!" The cartoon was, tonally, very dark, with ominous music and grim backgrounds, not to mention villains who were pretty nasty for a cartoon.
At the same time as all of this, the Superfriends was being broadcast on Saturday mornings. That program was all about either stopping super-villains or dealing with the mad scientist/alien invasion of the week. Compared to Spidey, they seemed to be the goofy ones. They stood around pontificating, while Spidey was this mysterious figure who emerged to deal with crime. They had their gadgetry and whatnot, while Spidey had his wits and occassional use of a laboratory that he snuck into. They dealt with things that, while threatening, were never really menacing; Spidey lived in a dark world with threats that were dangerous. It's really hard to believe that this could have ever been the case, that Batman would seem the more jocular, and Spider-man more the dark knight.
In any event, I bring this up to say that when I first went into Spidey in comic book form, it was about a hundred eighty degrees out from where the character really was. They seemed entirely different people, but I quickly embraced what he was presented as. At that time, Spidey was recently married. Yeah, that seemed odd to me at the time, but then, most of it seemed odd at the time. And I'll be direct: if he'd been a teenager, I would have probably not picked up another issue, because it would have been too much out of sync with everything I thought Spider-man was. None of the things I'd seen could have made me for an instant think some kid was that hero.
That's why I cannot buy this "central to the character" stuff: to me, he was never, ever, a teenager. And that fact did nothing to stop me from loving the character.
Of course, it'd be foolish not to look at the comic origins of Spider-man. He did start out as a teenager, and that was a significant point at the time. He wasn't Spider-boy, he wasn't a sidekick, he was Spider-man, who did his own thing. But, that alone didn't make the character, it was just an aspect tied to the character's origin. The real point driven home in the first issue of him, Amazing Fantasy 15, was that he screwed up, and a loved one paid the price. As we all know, that defined his life, what drove him to give up the chance to make money off his powers and use them to help people.
There are many opinions about the development of his character since then and what the appeal was. Unlike Joe Quesada, I'm going to say that there are valid differing opinions, because opinions are not facts, they're not provable. So some say that the aging of Peter was a mistake by Stan Lee, that he should have remained a teenager to keep what was central to the character. My perspective on it is that this was the absolute best thing Stan could have done. Spider-man started as a kid, a kid who made a stupid mistake, and so he changed. And that was the key for me to the character: Spidey was an amateur, but he was trying. Sometimes he'd win, sometimes he'd lose, but he kept learning from them, developing. He wasn't locked in like Bart Simpson, forever doing the same thing, he evolved. He got older, he got more experienced, he made personal enemeies, he formed alliances. This is part of what, ironically, justifies the mid-2000s events around him that led to the sickening conclusion of One More Day.
In 1965, Spider-man was listed as one of the top revolutionary icons at the time, and the reasoning was that he was one of us. He had money problems, he had stuff going wrong with his life, he was human. Batman, in constrast, no doubt has serious tragedies in his life, but it's hard to feel a connection for someone who likely makes more in a month than we'll make in our lifetime (like the discussion between Spidey and Batman in I'm A Marvel/I'm A DC, where Spidey tells Batman to go cry in a pile of money). Unfortunately, this has been taken and run too far, that only when Peter's miserable is he true to the character. He's one of us, he's not the most misfortunate human alive. There's a difference between being an everyman and just being a loser. For Spidey more than anyone, that's a point to emphasize. Peter Parker's a genius, but he's eeking out a living selling photos most of his life. There comes a point where, if life craps on you long enough and seriously enough when you have those kinds of talents, you're going to either kill yourself or stop everything and sort your life out. Peter can easily get his doctorate and make enough to live comfortably, and he has to know that. So this insistance that he must live in constant misery isn't conducive to the character's appeal or long-term health. The Hulk's is a life of misery, Batman's one of tragedy, but Spider-man's is one of ordinariness.
Of course, that's not to say that there weren't pitfalls along the way. A character still has tragedies strike even if theirs isn't a tragic life. Spider-man's life in the Silver Age began and added with those events.
The first and most obvious is the death of Uncle Ben back in Amazing Fantasy 15. This death was due to Peter's refusal to stop a burglar, when he could have done so easily. This event is what causes the transformation between entertainer and hero; it established that other people's problems can easily become our problems, and that if someone would only act it could be stopped. He didn't stop being what he was - loud-mouthed, arrogant, money-grubbing (see his meeting with the Fantastic Four), but he did change his outlook to say that he should get out and help others at the same time.
The second and one of the most famous deaths in comics is that of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacey. This happened because the Green Goblin tracked Spider-man back home (he neutralized his spider-sense somehow) and learned who he was. When he came looking for Spider-man, Peter was out, but Gwen was in, so the Goblin took her to a bridge and taunted Spidey. During the fight, she was thrown off, and when Spider-man caught her with his webbing, she'd gone too far and broken her neck. Enraged at what happened, Spider-man went off to kill the Goblin (Spider-man has never killed before), and beats his to a pulp, but stops himself before he goes too far. In the end, the Goblin gets impaled on his own glider and dies as well. This was a defining moment for Peter as well, because it was the other side of the coin. With Ben, he learned that if you do nothing, your loved ones can die at random. With Gwen, he learned that if you do something, your loved ones can die deliberately.
Many characters connected to Spider-man over the years have perished, such as Jean DeWolffe and Captain Stacey, some quite close to Peter. But besides the obvious fact that they weren't as close, they weren't as visceral. Even the eventual death of his best friend wasn't going to have any impact near these two, because that was just a tragedy, these were hard-learned lessons. These were murders that were caused because of Spider-man's action, or inaction, and it clearly influenced his character.
In the wake of Gwen's death, Peter finds comfort from his friend, Mary Jane Watson. In an unexpected departure, when Peter snaps at her in his grief, rather than heading off to find a good time, she shuts the door with herself in the same room, to be with him during this time. Two years later, Peter realized his growing feelings for her, but his eventual marriage proposal was turned down, and Mary Jane faded into the background. During the Bronze Age, Peter and Spider-man both had a number of relationships, whether it was with the kooky Debbie Whitman who liked Peter, or the mischevious Black Cat who wanted Spidey to keep the mask on. It was during the Bronze Age that Peter sowed his wild oats, as it were, until Mary Jane returned at the end of the Bronze Age, clearly more mature than she had been before she left. She revealed at this time that she was tired of him lying to her, that she knew his secret identity, and over the next few years she would serve as his confidante.
Also during this time, a character named the Jackal cloned Gwen Stacey, and later cloned Spider-man, forcing the clone to battle the real Spider-man. In the end, there was only one Spider-man apparently still alive, who was convinced that he was the genuine article. This, along with some of these other plots points, would wind up crashing together twenty years later.
Next time: Spider-man enters the Dark Age
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