Anon Asks: Spiderman

Following your response to the Iron Man question, do you have any thoughts on Peter Parker you could elaborate on?

Before you read this, go watch anything MovieBob has ever done on Spiderman, because that dude gets Spiderman.

He’s the ur-nerd power fantasy, that a pure accident could come along and transform you, the weak and socially awkward nebbish, give you super-strength, toughness, agility, and the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound (webslinging basically being how people who grew up with skyscrapers all around them think about flying). Peter Parker isn’t born on Krypton and he’s not a billionaire playboy with a tragic past, he’s a nerdy kid from Queens who went to a science exhibit and became magic. Without Peter Parker and all the characters who followed him, you don’t get Harry Potter.

What saves him from becoming the Gamergate/Rapid Puppies/etc. toxic nerd is Uncle Ben and “with great power comes great responsibility.” It’s pretty remarkable that, out of Steve Ditko’s objectivist anti-populism, Marvel somehow ended up with a working class hero with a conscience. Spiderman rejects the path of personal fame and fortune in favor of selflessly protecting the people of New York because it’s the right thing to do. And despite J Jonah Jameson libelling him every damn day, the people of New York know he’s on their side:

Another thing that sets Spiderman apart from a lot of superheroes is that, even though he’s super-strong, he doesn’t look it. Spiderman doesn’t have the Charles Atlas body of so many superheroes – he’s scrawny, and though he’s pretty lanky, he’s still on the small side and he looks even smaller when you put him up against supervillains who are giant mountains of muscle. By his very design, Spiderman is an underdog:

Partly that’s because the nerd power-fantasy doesn’t work if the secret identity falls apart because Peter Parker suddenly looks like a linebacker, but mostly because Spiderman’s strength comes from within. At his best, he is the David against the Goliath, the little guy who stands up against the big guy and refuses to give up, ever.