Spider-Man: The Complete History
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VOICE OVER: Adrian Sousa
WRITTEN BY: Michael Wynands
With great power comes decades-worth of unforgettable stories. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be taking a closer look at the History of Spider-Man. Come along as we revisit Spidey's long and complicated history by highlighting some of the Webslinger's biggest moments, starting with his 1962 debut up to the present day.
With great power comes decades-worth of unforgettable stories. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be taking a closer look at the History of Spider-Man. Come along as we revisit Spidey’s long and complicated history by highlighting some of the Webslinger’s biggest moments, starting with his 1962 debut up to the present day.
Peter Parker was just your average teen. Well, technically he was an exceedingly intelligent teen, but being naturally shy and a bit of wallflower, he’s not the sort of person his peers would have expected to become a superhero! In his debut appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, a field trip to a laboratory saw young Mr. Parker get bitten by a radioactive spider; that was the day that changed his life forever. Peter soon began to develop amazing abilities, including increased speed and agility, heightened reflexes and the ability to climb walls.
Of course, being a high school student with little in the way of real-world experience, Peter’s first inclination was to use his powers for personal gain. Participating in televised wrestling matches, Peter (disguised as Spider-Man) quickly becomes a minor celebrity and develops an ego to match. He might be wearing a Spider-Man costume -and by this point he has developed his brilliant web-shooters- but a hero is not. In fact, he’s actually become a bit of a jerk. One evening, after performing, he allows a thief to run past him backstage, telling the frustrated guard: “That's your job! I'm thru being pushed around ... by anyone!"
With his abilities, it would have taken almost no effort for Spider-Man to stop the thief. And this moment of selfishness would go on to become one of Peter’s greatest regrets. That same thief would wind up taking the life of Peter’s Uncle Ben, who, alongside his Aunt May, raised him like a son after the death of Peter’s parents. Ben’s death is crushing for Peter, but it’s also a crucial and formative moment. The spider bite gave him great power, but it wasn’t until he experienced this tragic loss and brought the criminal to justice that he truly learned of the responsibility that comes with it.
Though Peter had found a noble purpose as a teenage superhero, unlike his wrestling career, crimefighting doesn’t bring in any sort of income. And unfortunately, with Ben’s tragic passing, Aunt May was struggling to make ends meet, so Peter took it upon himself to find work. His attempts to find gainful employment were anything but smooth, but eventually, he realized that he could pair his super-heroics with photography, selling the pictures of his battles with supervillains to the Daily Bugle. This job, of course, also put him in close proximity with editor J. Jonah Jameson, one of Spider-Man’s greatest detractors, setting them up to have an entertaining but antagonistic relationship that would go on to span decades worth of comics.
Armed with his costume, his trusty web-shooters, and a modest source of income, Spider-Man proceeded to build a reputation for himself as a hero. In subsequent issues, he would face off against and defeat a staggering number of evildoers and criminals, building himself an impressive Rogues Gallery in seemingly no time at all. This includes villains the likes of the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, and his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin.
Sadly, the path of the hero is one fraught with danger and heartbreak, and it was only a matter of time before Peter’s life be marked with more tragedy. By this point in time, Peter had moved on to University, where he began dating Gwen Stacy, the daughter of police captain George Stacy. His ongoing superheroic adventures saw him square off against a variety of new villains, including Rhino, and learn about the life of his parents, who, as it turns out, led pretty exciting lives of their own as CIA agents. But his successes also made him a target for the many enemies he’d accrued over the course of his career. When Spider-Man faced off against a vengeful Doc Ock, Captain Stacy lost his life saving innocent children from the collateral damage. In his last moment, he would reveal to Peter that he knew he was Spider-Man, and subsequently asked Peter to care for Gwen.
Unfortunately, Captain Stacy’s dying request would prove much harder to honor than Peter ever could have imagined. A particularly tumultuous time in Peter’s life culminated with the Green Goblin persona resurfacing in Norman Osborn. The nefarious villain proceeded to kidnap Gwen and take her to the George Washington Bridge. Though Spider-Man fought valiantly and did everything in his power to save her, the conflict ultimately ended with Gwen’s death, and Peter taking much of the blame on to his own shoulders. “The Night That Gwen Stacy Died” would prove to be a most formative tragedy in Spider-Man’s life, second only to the death of Uncle Ben.
Peter went through an understandably rough period in the wake of Gwen’s death. But eventually, he recognized that the responsibility ultimately lay with Green Goblin, not him, and that he needed to continue to live his life, both as Spider-Man and Peter Parker. For the former, it was simply a matter of continuing to protect his city from evildoers. In terms of the latter, that took the form of opening his heart to Mary-Jane Watson, allowing himself to be vulnerable and get close to someone again. It would prove to be the start of arguably Spider-Man’s greatest romance to date.
The next major event in Spider-Man’s life came when he became embroiled in the Beyonder’s “Secret Wars”. During one of the numerous conflicts that play out on Battleworld, Spidey’s costume gets damaged. Rather than get it repaired as he intends, however, our hero is presented with an alternate costume - one that would go on to seriously complicate his life. This new black suit was not a simple piece of futuristic material, but a living alien symbiote. And while it gave Spider-Man some exciting new abilities, it also influenced his personality for the worse. Proving to have a mind of its own, the symbiote would go on to become an iconic character in its own right - Venom.
You’d think that after besting a parasitic alien our beloved web-slinger could handle just about anything, but during the events of the 1987 crossover event “Kraven's Last Hunt”, the wallcrawler nearly bit the dust. In the very first issue, Kraven, clearly having been pushed over the edge, appears to kill Spider-Man - giving the conflict a real sense of finality when he buries Peter. Of course, there’s no keeping a good hero down, and Peter survived, literally rising from the grave a few issues later. Dark, gritty, expertedly plotted and navigating some challenging themes, it has rightfully gone down as one of Spider-Man’s greatest stories.
Unfortunately, in terms of major Spider-Man events, we go from one of the best Spider-Man story arcs to ever grace the page, to what is generally considered to be among the most maligned. Legendary for all the wrong reasons, the Clone Saga, which ran from 1994 to 1997 is truly infamous. The plot dragged on far longer than initially advertised, and saw Peter plagued by a number of clones. The final straw, for many readers, came when one of them was revealed to be the “real Peter Parker” - meaning that the character we knew and loved was the clone. In the end, it was revealed that the tests had been manipulated. The Peter we’d been reading for decades, was (and always had been) the original. As for Ben Reilly, Peter’s clone, he dramatically sacrifices himself to save our hero.
Towards the end of the events of the Clone Saga, another shocking revelation was made: Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, was in fact alive and well despite his apparent demise following the Death of Gwen Stacy. Not only that, but he was revealed to have been instrumental in orchestrating certain events of the Clone Saga. In “The Final Chapter”, he finally made his presence known, adding serious stress to an already tumultuous time in Peter’s life. Adding insult to injury, after laying low for a few months following the death of Ben Reilly, Osborn takes control of the Daily Bugle. He fakes criminal activity on the part of Spider-Man to frame him and turn the public against him, forcing Spider-Man to relinquish his identity and take up a variety of other ones until he can clear his name.
After this brief identity crisis, Spider-Man’s adventures took a bit of a left turn in 2001 when it veered into the realm of mystic, linking his powers with totemic forces. It was definitely uncharted territory for Spider-Man, but it was a relative short-lived phase, and before long Spidey’s world became overtly science-based again.
This brings us to one of the biggest events in Marvel history and one of the most defining moments in Peter Parker’s career as Spider-Man: Civil War. When the superhuman registration act is passed, Peter originally aligns himself with the side of pro-registration. Following Iron Man’s lead, Peter takes his stance public by unmasking himself as Spider-Man to the entire world. As you can imagine, this fundamentally changed his life and the lives of those nearest and dearest to him. Not only did it make him the target of much criticism, but it also made his family targets in the eyes of his many enemies. Worst of all however, Spider-Man soon came to regret allying himself with the superhuman registration, ultimately joining the underground resistance and becoming a fugitive after witnessing firsthand the costs of registration.
Though things may have largely returned to normal for the heroes of Marvel after the events of Civil War, for Peter, there was no taking back his secret identity. And it ultimately results in Aunt May being fatally wounded by an agent of the Kingpin. The guilt that Peter feels over this brings him to make a decision that fans are still debating to this day - a literal deal with the devil. In the pages One More Day and Brand New Day, Spider-Man has his slate wiped clean by Mephisto, who makes Peter’s identity a secret again - saving Aunt May in the process. Of course, the devil doesn’t do favors, and so it comes at the cost of Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson and, he discovers in the process, their future child. This event essentially saw Spider-Man returned to his status quo by erasing many big moments from his recent history.
Of course, comic book writers aren’t content to stick with the status quo for long, and soon enough the world of Spider-Man was rocked like never before. Superior Spider-Man saw Peter Parker and a terminally ill Doctor Octopus switch bodies, resulting in the death of Peter, while Doctor Octopus got a new lease on life in the young hero’s body. Otto actually did a pretty decent job in the role - some controversial methods aside. In the end however, Peter’s consciousness survived and, when Doc Ock finally found himself overwhelmed by the challenges of being Spider-Man, in a time of crisis, he returned Peter’s body to its rightful owner. Of course, this meant that Peter also inherited the many changes that Octavius had made while holding the reins, including the founding of Parker Industries.
Not long after regaining control of his body, Peter was introduced to various versions of himself from different realities in the crossover event “Spider-Verse”. In order to stop some interdimensional vampires (long story), our beloved Earth-616 Spider-Man joins this multiverse-hopping band of Spider-themed heroes to form a veritable Spider-Army. After saving the day, the various Spider heroes returned to their respective homes.
Though Spider-Man has had a long and complicated history with many ups and downs, no matter how crazy and life-changing the adventure, he inevitably returns to a comfortable resting state - the Spidey status quo if you will. His run as a CEO of a major company was interesting but, sure enough, the company eventually collapsed and his doctorate was revoked. The silver lining? Not long after this, he also begins dating his enduring flame again, Mary-Jane Watson - because some things never change!
And that’s the Complete History of Spider-Man! At least… so far. For this iconic hero, these numerous ups and downs, trials, tragedies and victories are all part of the job description, and we can’t wait to see what sort of adventures the future holds for him.
Peter Parker was just your average teen. Well, technically he was an exceedingly intelligent teen, but being naturally shy and a bit of wallflower, he’s not the sort of person his peers would have expected to become a superhero! In his debut appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, a field trip to a laboratory saw young Mr. Parker get bitten by a radioactive spider; that was the day that changed his life forever. Peter soon began to develop amazing abilities, including increased speed and agility, heightened reflexes and the ability to climb walls.
Of course, being a high school student with little in the way of real-world experience, Peter’s first inclination was to use his powers for personal gain. Participating in televised wrestling matches, Peter (disguised as Spider-Man) quickly becomes a minor celebrity and develops an ego to match. He might be wearing a Spider-Man costume -and by this point he has developed his brilliant web-shooters- but a hero is not. In fact, he’s actually become a bit of a jerk. One evening, after performing, he allows a thief to run past him backstage, telling the frustrated guard: “That's your job! I'm thru being pushed around ... by anyone!"
With his abilities, it would have taken almost no effort for Spider-Man to stop the thief. And this moment of selfishness would go on to become one of Peter’s greatest regrets. That same thief would wind up taking the life of Peter’s Uncle Ben, who, alongside his Aunt May, raised him like a son after the death of Peter’s parents. Ben’s death is crushing for Peter, but it’s also a crucial and formative moment. The spider bite gave him great power, but it wasn’t until he experienced this tragic loss and brought the criminal to justice that he truly learned of the responsibility that comes with it.
Though Peter had found a noble purpose as a teenage superhero, unlike his wrestling career, crimefighting doesn’t bring in any sort of income. And unfortunately, with Ben’s tragic passing, Aunt May was struggling to make ends meet, so Peter took it upon himself to find work. His attempts to find gainful employment were anything but smooth, but eventually, he realized that he could pair his super-heroics with photography, selling the pictures of his battles with supervillains to the Daily Bugle. This job, of course, also put him in close proximity with editor J. Jonah Jameson, one of Spider-Man’s greatest detractors, setting them up to have an entertaining but antagonistic relationship that would go on to span decades worth of comics.
Armed with his costume, his trusty web-shooters, and a modest source of income, Spider-Man proceeded to build a reputation for himself as a hero. In subsequent issues, he would face off against and defeat a staggering number of evildoers and criminals, building himself an impressive Rogues Gallery in seemingly no time at all. This includes villains the likes of the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, and his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin.
Sadly, the path of the hero is one fraught with danger and heartbreak, and it was only a matter of time before Peter’s life be marked with more tragedy. By this point in time, Peter had moved on to University, where he began dating Gwen Stacy, the daughter of police captain George Stacy. His ongoing superheroic adventures saw him square off against a variety of new villains, including Rhino, and learn about the life of his parents, who, as it turns out, led pretty exciting lives of their own as CIA agents. But his successes also made him a target for the many enemies he’d accrued over the course of his career. When Spider-Man faced off against a vengeful Doc Ock, Captain Stacy lost his life saving innocent children from the collateral damage. In his last moment, he would reveal to Peter that he knew he was Spider-Man, and subsequently asked Peter to care for Gwen.
Unfortunately, Captain Stacy’s dying request would prove much harder to honor than Peter ever could have imagined. A particularly tumultuous time in Peter’s life culminated with the Green Goblin persona resurfacing in Norman Osborn. The nefarious villain proceeded to kidnap Gwen and take her to the George Washington Bridge. Though Spider-Man fought valiantly and did everything in his power to save her, the conflict ultimately ended with Gwen’s death, and Peter taking much of the blame on to his own shoulders. “The Night That Gwen Stacy Died” would prove to be a most formative tragedy in Spider-Man’s life, second only to the death of Uncle Ben.
Peter went through an understandably rough period in the wake of Gwen’s death. But eventually, he recognized that the responsibility ultimately lay with Green Goblin, not him, and that he needed to continue to live his life, both as Spider-Man and Peter Parker. For the former, it was simply a matter of continuing to protect his city from evildoers. In terms of the latter, that took the form of opening his heart to Mary-Jane Watson, allowing himself to be vulnerable and get close to someone again. It would prove to be the start of arguably Spider-Man’s greatest romance to date.
The next major event in Spider-Man’s life came when he became embroiled in the Beyonder’s “Secret Wars”. During one of the numerous conflicts that play out on Battleworld, Spidey’s costume gets damaged. Rather than get it repaired as he intends, however, our hero is presented with an alternate costume - one that would go on to seriously complicate his life. This new black suit was not a simple piece of futuristic material, but a living alien symbiote. And while it gave Spider-Man some exciting new abilities, it also influenced his personality for the worse. Proving to have a mind of its own, the symbiote would go on to become an iconic character in its own right - Venom.
You’d think that after besting a parasitic alien our beloved web-slinger could handle just about anything, but during the events of the 1987 crossover event “Kraven's Last Hunt”, the wallcrawler nearly bit the dust. In the very first issue, Kraven, clearly having been pushed over the edge, appears to kill Spider-Man - giving the conflict a real sense of finality when he buries Peter. Of course, there’s no keeping a good hero down, and Peter survived, literally rising from the grave a few issues later. Dark, gritty, expertedly plotted and navigating some challenging themes, it has rightfully gone down as one of Spider-Man’s greatest stories.
Unfortunately, in terms of major Spider-Man events, we go from one of the best Spider-Man story arcs to ever grace the page, to what is generally considered to be among the most maligned. Legendary for all the wrong reasons, the Clone Saga, which ran from 1994 to 1997 is truly infamous. The plot dragged on far longer than initially advertised, and saw Peter plagued by a number of clones. The final straw, for many readers, came when one of them was revealed to be the “real Peter Parker” - meaning that the character we knew and loved was the clone. In the end, it was revealed that the tests had been manipulated. The Peter we’d been reading for decades, was (and always had been) the original. As for Ben Reilly, Peter’s clone, he dramatically sacrifices himself to save our hero.
Towards the end of the events of the Clone Saga, another shocking revelation was made: Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, was in fact alive and well despite his apparent demise following the Death of Gwen Stacy. Not only that, but he was revealed to have been instrumental in orchestrating certain events of the Clone Saga. In “The Final Chapter”, he finally made his presence known, adding serious stress to an already tumultuous time in Peter’s life. Adding insult to injury, after laying low for a few months following the death of Ben Reilly, Osborn takes control of the Daily Bugle. He fakes criminal activity on the part of Spider-Man to frame him and turn the public against him, forcing Spider-Man to relinquish his identity and take up a variety of other ones until he can clear his name.
After this brief identity crisis, Spider-Man’s adventures took a bit of a left turn in 2001 when it veered into the realm of mystic, linking his powers with totemic forces. It was definitely uncharted territory for Spider-Man, but it was a relative short-lived phase, and before long Spidey’s world became overtly science-based again.
This brings us to one of the biggest events in Marvel history and one of the most defining moments in Peter Parker’s career as Spider-Man: Civil War. When the superhuman registration act is passed, Peter originally aligns himself with the side of pro-registration. Following Iron Man’s lead, Peter takes his stance public by unmasking himself as Spider-Man to the entire world. As you can imagine, this fundamentally changed his life and the lives of those nearest and dearest to him. Not only did it make him the target of much criticism, but it also made his family targets in the eyes of his many enemies. Worst of all however, Spider-Man soon came to regret allying himself with the superhuman registration, ultimately joining the underground resistance and becoming a fugitive after witnessing firsthand the costs of registration.
Though things may have largely returned to normal for the heroes of Marvel after the events of Civil War, for Peter, there was no taking back his secret identity. And it ultimately results in Aunt May being fatally wounded by an agent of the Kingpin. The guilt that Peter feels over this brings him to make a decision that fans are still debating to this day - a literal deal with the devil. In the pages One More Day and Brand New Day, Spider-Man has his slate wiped clean by Mephisto, who makes Peter’s identity a secret again - saving Aunt May in the process. Of course, the devil doesn’t do favors, and so it comes at the cost of Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson and, he discovers in the process, their future child. This event essentially saw Spider-Man returned to his status quo by erasing many big moments from his recent history.
Of course, comic book writers aren’t content to stick with the status quo for long, and soon enough the world of Spider-Man was rocked like never before. Superior Spider-Man saw Peter Parker and a terminally ill Doctor Octopus switch bodies, resulting in the death of Peter, while Doctor Octopus got a new lease on life in the young hero’s body. Otto actually did a pretty decent job in the role - some controversial methods aside. In the end however, Peter’s consciousness survived and, when Doc Ock finally found himself overwhelmed by the challenges of being Spider-Man, in a time of crisis, he returned Peter’s body to its rightful owner. Of course, this meant that Peter also inherited the many changes that Octavius had made while holding the reins, including the founding of Parker Industries.
Not long after regaining control of his body, Peter was introduced to various versions of himself from different realities in the crossover event “Spider-Verse”. In order to stop some interdimensional vampires (long story), our beloved Earth-616 Spider-Man joins this multiverse-hopping band of Spider-themed heroes to form a veritable Spider-Army. After saving the day, the various Spider heroes returned to their respective homes.
Though Spider-Man has had a long and complicated history with many ups and downs, no matter how crazy and life-changing the adventure, he inevitably returns to a comfortable resting state - the Spidey status quo if you will. His run as a CEO of a major company was interesting but, sure enough, the company eventually collapsed and his doctorate was revoked. The silver lining? Not long after this, he also begins dating his enduring flame again, Mary-Jane Watson - because some things never change!
And that’s the Complete History of Spider-Man! At least… so far. For this iconic hero, these numerous ups and downs, trials, tragedies and victories are all part of the job description, and we can’t wait to see what sort of adventures the future holds for him.
