Spider-Man: How A High School Student Changed Marvel Comics

Ocean Ma | Nov 6, 2015 | culture

It was a random day in 1962 at Marvel Comics, the company is going to cancel a series, and they planned to do one last issue and drop it. Stan Lee, a comic book writer who just created The Fantastic Four, a famous group of superheroes, put a character with a spider costume into the issue and featured him on cover. This character was recognized as a failure, but nobody really cares since it’s the last issue. However, he is going to change the world, and his name is Spider-Man.

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After World War II, comic books became less popular because many people connected the increasing rate of juvenile delinquency to comic books. Later, the Comics Code Authority is founded to regulate the contents of comics. Comic book writers began to re-introduce superheroes into comics, this change started with a new version of DC Comics’ The Flash in Showcase #4 in 1956. The publish of The Flash is recognized as the opening of the Silver Age of Comic Books (circa 1956-1970). The Flash soon became very popular, in strong demand, DC Comics continued introducing more superheroes like Green Lantern, The Atom and Hawkman, then they formed their superheroes into Justice League of America, which now is recognized as DC Comics’ iconic superheroes group. To follow suit, Marvel Comics created and published The Fantastic Four. However, DC seemed to have taken advantage of this competition.

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One day, Stan Lee was casting about for a new idea for superheroes. He wished to create a superhero that is an ordinary teen so that this character would be identified by teenagers. At the moment, he saw a spider swinging on a wall. This spider inspired him to create a superhero in a spider costume, and the name of this superhero would be Spider-Man, which is an inspiration of DC Comics’ Hawkman.

To be able to create Spider-Man, Lee has to receive the approval from the publisher Martin Goodman. However, Goodman rejected Lee’s proposal. He said, “First of all, you can't call a hero Spider-Man, because people hate spiders.” Then Stan Lee said he want a teenager to be the superhero, but he denied, “A teenager can't be the hero… teenagers can just be sidekicks.” At the end, Lee said Spider-Man would face many financial problems and family issues, Goodman said, “Stan, don't you know what a hero is? That's no way to do a heroic book!” (Plume). Although Goodman finally agreed to publish Spider-Man, that’s because nobody really care what to put into the last issue.

As soon as Goodman approved his proposal, Lee had a conference with Jack Kirby,who had an unpublished character in 1950s. Kirby’s character is an orphaned boy living with a old couple who finds a magical ring. Lee asked him to draw some pages, but when he saw the first couple pages, he wasn’t satisfied. Lee described Kirby’s character is too “heroic” (Wikipedia Spider-Man) during many interviews. Then Lee began to work with Steve Ditko, another great artist. Ditko created the costume for Spider-Man, a young kid in blue and red costume with a mask on his face who has the clinging power. Also he asked Jack to draw the cover, because he always has “a lot of confidence” (Wikipedia Spider-Man) in Kirby’s cover.

Months later after the publish of Amazing Fantasy #15, which they first introduced Spider-Man, Marvel Comics received their sale figures. Martin Goodman was shocked by the result. Amazing Fantasy became the best-selling book of months. Goodman ran to Stan Lee and said, “Do you remember that Spider-Man character of yours that we both liked? Why don't you do a series with him” (Plume). In March 1963, after his inaugural appearance, Spider-Man had his own title, The Amazing Spider-Man.

Before the appearance of Spider-Man, people always portrayed superheroes as strong, handsome and macho-looking males who are very popular with girls. They are representatives of successful, rich and perfect. Nobody would consider a nerdy high school student like Peter Parker (Spider-Man’s alter ego) as a superhero. The Rolling Stone describes him as“everything other superheroes were not” (Ebiri).

Just a character like Peter Parker, created a counterculture that is welcomed by many readers. More realistic story occurred at real location, these would be impossible to happen in comics if Spider-Man wasn’t published. Spider-Man is not only the superhero of New York City, he is also a normal citizen who has to worry about his sick aunt and money. Readers can feel related when they are reading, many readers expressed that they care more about Peter’s personal life. Dr. Robin Rosenberg, the author and editor of numerous books on superheroes and psychology, including Superhero Origins: What Makes Superheroes Tick and Why We Care, explained how Spider-Man’s stories respond to public’s ideology. He said that Spider-Man speaks a fact that “we often don't think people see our true best selves” (Ebiri), if heroes like Superman and Batman are the dreamland of perfection, then Spider-Man is a mirror that reflects ourselves when we look at it. Dr. Robin Rosenberg supported his point with analysis to his life that “he was made fun of and marginalized” for being Spider-Man; his uncle Ben was murdered because of

“a specific choice Peter has made, not just a random criminal act ” (Ebiri).

The popularity of Spider-Man was surprisingly high, he attracted not only kids and teenagers, but also students and professors at college campuses. In December 1963, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a new group of superheroes that is inspired by Spider-Man, X-Men. They are mutants, “a subspecies of humans who are born with superhuman abilities” (Wikipedia X-Men), that is rejected by society. Wikipedia Contributors describe X-Men as “ the most recognizable and lucrative intellectual properties of Marvel Comics” (Wikipedia X-Men). The tormented of nature is used effectively by Stan Lee to create struggles in life for his superheroes: Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four began to worry if she was really invisible (her superpower is invisibility) to her husband Reed Richards (also known as Mr. Fantastic); Tony Stark, the alter ego of Iron Man started to battle his alcoholism while saving the world and being a billionaire; even The Incredible Hulk was revealed at stories wrote at late 1990s that Bruce Banner (a.k.a The Incredible Hulk) is not only a victim of a gamma ray explosion, but also a victim of child abuse in his childhood.

These struggles from personal life reflected a distinguishing feature about characters of The Silver Age. Arlen Schumer, who has a great fetish about comic books of 60’s, explained this in his book, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, “ Superheroes started out as champions but ended up as chumps” (Schumer). He described how this is a process of superheroes from “being self-confident heroes to fallen idols who doubted and questioned the very authorities that had made them de facto deputies in the fight against evil” (Schumer). These features have an interesting connection with the process of history. The line between good and evil had been smudged, while American heroes were going through “racial strife, political assassinations and the Vietnam War, superheroes were transforming at the same time. When the heroic ideal transformed from cowboys and soldiers to Bonnie & Clyde and Midnight Cowboy, superheroes in comic books like Superman, The Flash and Green Lantern were replaced by Spider-Man, Green Arrow and Dr. Strange. Schumer concluded as they were “fighting their own war against the establishment” (Schumer).

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Stan Lee and Steve Ditko worked together and produced 38 issues from March 1963 to July 1966. However, Ditko left “while Lee remained as writer until issue 100” (Wikipedia, The). To stay relevant, Lee and his team kept to “not only reflect but purposefully refract the cultural issues of their day” (Ebiri). They introduced one of the “first African-American supporting characters” (Ebiri), Joe Robertson,who is an editor at the Daily Bugle. The subplots of Spider-Man involved “college protests, and even a famous three-issue arc about drug addiction that was refused approval by the Comics Code Authority” (Ebiri). Marvel kept bringing in “the world outside of the stapled” (Ebiri). Sean Howe, author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. He really wanted to play to that as much as possible, he described this action of Marvel as “neurotic characters in real life settings” (Ebiri).

Meanwhile, Spider-Man’s first cartoon in 1967, later, Marvel made a deal with PBS kids’ show The Electric Company that they can “use the superhero's likeness free of charge”. TV provided “a chance to reach a bigger underage crowd” (Ebiri), which had a more greater impact than a comic book. Nowadays, Spider-Man has involved in 17 series on television in “both live action and animated television programs” (Wikipedia, Spider-Man in). There are also two series of Movie about Spider-Man, Spider-Man 1-3 (2002-2007), The Amazing Spider-Man 1-2 (2012-2014). These gave Spidey (Spider-Man’s nickname) the chance to become “one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes” (Wikipedia, Spider-Man).

While Spider-Man is expanding his influence in other medias, Marvel Comics also introduced more characters to enrich his stories setting. Spider-Woman (1977), Spider-Man 2099 (1992), Black Cat (1979) are all significant characters that are introduced in later production. Spider-Man became one of the Special flags from Marvel. However, in 2010, Peter Parker died in a fighting against his old opponent Green Goblin. Things were not the same anymore. Marvel introduced a new Spider-Man featuring Miles Morales, a teenager of Black Hispanic in 2011. Peter Parker came back to life in 2014’s relaunch. They also introduced a new hero Silk, who is a new heroine with the same power as Peter does that is also bitten by the same spider. In 2015, Spider-Gwen was introduced, as a heroine in a parallel universe.

The Amazing Spider-Man has been rebooted for at least 3 times, and the closest relaunch just happened at September 2015. Although the new heroes are welcomed by readers, their popularity are very high too, the original spirit of Spider-Man is somehow lost on the way of creating. Now, Spider-Man is no longer a high school student who need to worry about money, he became a successful businessman who is running Parker Industries.

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That’s true that now Spider-Man is still popular. That’s also true that these new characters based on Peter Parker and Spider-Man are very successful. However, something is lost during the process. Peter Parker is no longer an everyman who has to worry about money to pay the debt. Also with time flying by, a spirit seems to be gone. A spirit that Spider-Man brought in, a Spirit to break the rules and make a difference, instead of just copy and paste.

This quote is from the Green Lantern after Vietnam War, one can not help but be sad about the Silver Age of Comics, to the great artists at this time and those incredible characters they created:

“Those days are gone -- gone forever -- the days I was confident, certain . . . I was so young . . . so sure I couldn't make a mistake! Young and cocky, that was Green Lantern. Well, I've changed. I'm older now . . .maybe wiser, too . . . and a lot less happy.”

-----Green Lantern

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