Spider-Man!
Elsewhere in Midtown Manhattan, a teenager named Peter Parker is rejected by his classmates for being a science geek. They almost invite him to a dance, but decide against it. Peter is an orphan who grew up by his elderly aunt May Parker and her husband Ben Parker. They both love their nephew dearly, encouraging his academic achievements. Something his fellow students are less than stellar about, making Peter Parker an outcast.
On one particular day, Peter goes to a science exhibit after school involving radiation by himself. There is a demonstration involving radiation rays. Unseen by everyone, a tiny spider descends from the ceiling into the ray, soaking up the radiation. The spider finds its way onto Peter's hand and bites.
Peter feels strange. He leaves the exhibit to clear his head, when he is nearly run over by a speeding car. Leaping out of harm's way, Peter finds himself stuck on the side of a building. He climbs the building up to the roof where he manages to crush a steel pipe with his bare hands. Then he is able to easily descend back down by a thin cable.
On his way back home, Peter sees a competition at a local gym. Anyone who can defeat Crusher Hogan wins $100. Peter goes home to make a disguise for himself and returns to test his new skills and win the $100 prize. The masked Peter quickly makes a mockery of Crusher Hogan, which is witnessed by a TV Producer. After Peter wins the money, the producer pulls him aside to offer a spot on the Ed Sullivan show.
Sometime after Peter returns home, he starts designing a more showy costume. He invents his web-shooters, these mechanical devices that go around his wrists so he can shoot out sticky web fluid paste that he also invented. Now in his classic red and black webbing outfit he comes up with his stage name, Spider-Man.
Spider-Man Appears. At his first show, he crawls around on the walls, shoots candles out with his webbing and swings around a lot. As the show ends he walks into a crime in progress. The criminal runs right past him with a cop chasing behind. Spider-Man just stands there and watches the crook escape in an elevator. The cop stops his pursuit and chews Spider-Man out for not helping. Spider-Man who has had enough of people telling him what to responds, "Sorry pal! That's your job!" When Peter returns home, his aunt and uncle gift him with a brand new microscope just for being a good person.
As the days follow, Spider-Man has become very famous, catching the eye of every newspaper. One night, after another appearance of Spider-Man, Peter sees a cop car in front of his house. An officer explains to the young man that a burglar broke in and shot his uncle Ben. They have the murderer surrounded in an old warehouse, but it's too dangerous for them to go inside. Shaking off the tears, Peter dons his Spider-Man costume and goes after the criminal.
Finding the old warehouse Spider-Man sneaks inside. Leaping from the shadows, Spider-Man confronts the burglar and uses his webbing to dispose of the gun. Spider-Man punches the burglar off his feet. He gets a closer look. It's the man who ran past him before. The criminal he could have just tripped, but chose not to. He webs the burglar up and sends him down to the police. Peter walks home in the dark as tears stream down his face, blaming himself for his uncle's tragic death at the hands of this burglar; if he hadn't been so careless. Learning that in this world, with great power, comes great responsibility.
Notes:
So here is Spider-Man with our heaviest origin story yet! Everybody knows Spider-Man's origin yet if you sit down to read it in detail the emotions still hit harder than any story we've had up to date. A lot of it has to do with Ditko's beautiful dark, moody lighting Then Stan Lee breaks the darkness with his levity in the narration, something we'll be seeing a great deal more of, a bit in excess at some places. It works here to balance this very dark tale.
The List
- Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
- Fantastic Four #1
- Fantastic Four #4
- Incredible Hulk #1
- Fantastic Four #5
- Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
- Fantastic Four #2
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
- Fantastic Four #3
- Incredible Hulk #2
No comments:
Post a Comment