Spider Man

Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 in the Silver Age of Comic Books. Initially, Peter was depicted as a teenage high school student and an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and enemies such as the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Venom. In his origin story, Spider-Man gets his superhuman spider-powers and abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider; these include superhuman strength, agility, reflexes, stamina, durability, coordination, and balance, clinging to surfaces and ceilings like a spider, and detecting danger with his precognition ability called "spider-sense". Peter Parker originally used his powers for his own personal gain, but after his Uncle Ben was killed by a thief that Peter could not stop, he began to use his powers to fight crime by becoming Spider-Man. When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. While Spider-Man was a quintessential sidekick, unlike previous teen heroes Bucky Barnes and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he had learned the lesson for himself that "with great power comes great responsibility"—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man's origin story, but later retroactively attributed to the late Uncle Ben Parker. Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is The Amazing Spider-Man. Since his introduction, the main-continuity version of Peter has gone from a high school student to attending college to currently being somewhere in his late 20s. Marvel has also published comic books featuring alternate versions of Spider-Man, including Spider-Man 2099, which features the adventures of Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the future; Ultimate Spider-Man, which features the adventures of a teenage Peter Parker in the alternate universe; and Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, which depicts a teenager named Miles Morales who takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Ultimate Peter Parker's apparent death. Miles later became a superhero in his own right and was brought into mainstream continuity during the Secret Wars event, where he sometimes works alongside the mainline version of Peter. Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.