Spyder-Man
“Hang on a minute. That's bollocks! Does he eat flies? No. Does he get eaten by his female mate after having sex? No. I don't think they thought it through, have they?”
Spyder-Man is a man who happens to be a spy, and also has spider tendencies. His physical features are mainly human; however, he has the bizarre ability to create an icky-sticky web out of a white substance that nobody knows the name of. Spyder-Man also has the ability to lay eggs: he does this during the day, which explains what the hell Peter Parker does with his free time. Though he is supposed to be a professional photographer, and carries a valid up-to-date international press card, very few of his photographs are ever printed or entered for awards, and the few that have been seen are out of focus, with people’s heads cut off.
The Origin of Spyder-Man
On November 22, 1963, the painfully shy “geeknerd” Peter Parker was having an ordinary day, sipping soda pop and stammering at pretty girls, when he was suddenly munched on by a rare exotic spider at the Cincinnati Spider Sanctuary, when the Russian H bombs dropped. The giant bug would have taken off his whole left arm, and perhaps gobbled up his appendix, if he hadn’t brained it with a nearby fire extinguisher in a dimly lit corridor. Parker’s cardiovascular system absorbed 7.35g of exotic poison, which shampoo scientists have since broken down as: 2g unknown proteins, 2g funny carbohydrates, 1g Viagra, and 2.35g pure spider semen. All this weird stuff made Parker feel nauseous for a while, but he awoke: stronger, faster, and noticeably more genetically engineered radioactive and able to shoot webs from his infected looking mutant wrists from the web fluid shooters he invented. This makes slightly more sense than the original version in Amazing Fantasy #15, where he swung around using regular liquid cement. [Citation not needed at all; thank you very much]
Like a teenage girl about to go to the prom, Parker was then seized by a thorny problem: what should he wear? If he was going to swing around skyscrapers with icky goo shooting out of his palms, that would look mighty strange in a tuxedo or a pair of PJ's, or a rugby shirt or a suit of armour, or a poncho-and-sombrero combo. He could not decide on a proper costume, until one night when he was watching What Not To Wear with Aunt and laughed so hard that they both peed just a little bit.
Dressed in a patriotic red, white and blue suit from Gap, hastily customized with a picture of (get this) a spider on the back, Spyder-Man made his live debut at the 2003 Academy Award ceremony, where Matt Damon saw him, screamed and ran to the little boys’ room. Spyder-Man later gave out Special Spydey Awards to famous people whose names sounded a little bit like bugs – Stephen Fly, Faye Dungbeetleaway, Termite Hatcher, Linus Roache, Ant (of Ant and Dec), Tony Barrell and Jeff Goldblum.
Super-Powers
According to legend, Spyder-Man can do anything a spider can. This includes climbing walls, scaring women, spinning webs, detaching his junk, turning up in people’s bathtubs, and getting squashed by shoes and news papers. He has the proportional strength of a big hairy spider, which means he can drive big trucks and beat fat blokes in fights. Unfortunately as a guilt ridden and gifted young adult: paying his rent and utilities on time, keeping a steady academic schedule and maintaining honest relationships are not part of his power set.
Really Peter's powers would make him the ultimate assassin if that's the route he chose to go like his SHIELD agent parents, he could just drop down from the ceiling, or parachute down from the sky from a web balloon, fire off a web cartridge and snap everyone's necks, or muffle their mouths and stick their feet to the floor as they try to run away and get help. The science whiz seamster wouldn't kill a fly unless he absolutely saw no other way to stop his arch enemy the nefarious Fly-Man, people already think he's a monster thanks to his boss J. Jonah Jameson. Besides, he already gets enough people killed accidentally as it is: his uncle, his girlfriend, his girlfriend's dad, his best friend's dad, all those people his old clothing has eaten over the years; really if being a super hero was anything like driving someone would have taken away his license by now even if it technically wasn't his fault they all died.
Regular-Weaknesses
Like Clark Kent's weakness to Kryptonite, Peter Parker suddenly keels over in pain as soon as you throw a utilities bill at him. Where as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman speak every language on Earth fluently, Peter had to die and get replaced by Miles Morales in order for Spyder-man just to speak Spanish and Peter Parker has troubles talking to the girls in his class even when it's in English. Where for most super heroes it takes torture to break down their resolve and them to quit their endless battle for justice, for Pete all it takes is a reminder that all his friends and family hate him for not being there for them because he's too busy hanging out with his enemies instead.
Or, if you really want to mean, just remind him that although only a crazy person would expect an eight year old to run up to a man with a gun and punch him in the nuts, declining a request for help from a police officer to trip a thief running down the hall was entirely within his super human ability range at the time, which included clinging to walls, shooting out webs and throwing cars. Had he only been less focused on feeling bad he got screwed out of money, he would have seen the bigger picture that everything and everyone is connected like some kind of karmic web or something, and his poor Uncle Ben would still be alive. So would his girlfriend Jean Stacy if the science nerd had bothered to learn enough medicine to know about whiplash, and that you shouldn't grab people by the neck when their moving fast.
Peter Parkour "gives up" being Spyder-Man the way regular people "give up" smoking cigarettes. He'll realize what a mess his life has become one day as he's sneaking into the dumpster outside a bakery looking for stale bagels to save some much needed money on groceries, and realize he's hit rock bottom. Than he'll quit his part time job as a photographer taking selfies of himself, and get one that's slightly less narcissistic; in class, he'll remember that he's actually a pretty talented student when he's not juggling his lab work with receiving extra curricular concussions from one of his many super villain instructors like Doc Ock, Professor Connors or Dr. Warren robbing a bank for their dangerous unregulated super science experiments.
Than, like all cycles of addiction Petes at a party and hears police sirens and gets a whiff of gun smoke and starts getting that old Spider-Sensation, before running outside for a "breather" that lasts 10 minutes, coming back winded as he throws all he's rebuilt away to get his next super heroing fix.
Super-Enemies
Spydey has made many enemies among the technologically super-augmented villains of the big wide world of New York. They hate him because he has no plans for world domination, his costume is even sillier than theirs, and because they hate spiders like everyone.
- The Green Gobbler - GG is Halloween-fixated, probably as a result of some childhood fright on October 31, and has made the invention of power rangers for the army his life work. Being another brilliant scientist, he built himself the "Gobbling Glider", wayward machine shaped like a bat, but jet-powered, and fueled by candy. GG killed Spydey's main squeeze, Jean Stacy.
- Doctor Octopus - Not strictly super, but definitely quite villainous. Doc Ock, as his friends and lovers call him, has really bad eyesight requiring hideous spectacles, a really stupid bowl-cut making him look like a moron his four extra arms are mechanical and gammatronic, designed and built by Doc Ock himself, a brilliant scientist and sometime undersea physicist, and powered by 2 AAA batteries. The good doctor likes nothing better than to grab Spyder-Man with two of them while the other four flay open his face.
- Sandman - Sandman's power, such as it is, derives from being made of sand. He originates from a heap of builder’s sand haunted by the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa. Sadly, when it rains, Sandman becomes mud, and when it doesn't, a stiff broom is usually all it takes to see him off.
- Venom - Venom, previously known as Eric Forman is a photographer for the Good Morning New York Special News Magazine Inquirer. After Peter caught him plagiarizing and using photoshop and got him fired. Eric had the misfortune of being there the night Peter was found nude by those nuns. After Peter's goop suit plopped down from the bell tower and stained his soul, Eddy had big teeth that he used for chomping steak, which he uses as a food chewer for elders at nursing homes.
Spyder-Man's Women
Spyder-Man couldn't bag a chicken in his early years, but after the spider-bite incident he bulked up and became a little less weedy (but only when wearing his spider suit, strangely). Add to that the money he was bringing in ($24 a week from his paper round, and $4,000 from drug-dealing), and he became a much more attractive proposition to pretty girls and eventually began dating a few of them, and marrying one: Mary Jane Watson, who refers to him as "Tiger" because he too is being hunted to extinction. Mary Jane was a tease and hotter than the bonnet of a black Mercedes in Dubai. As Peter continuously dated MJ, it was discovered that Peter had an additional power of giving cancer to anyone he has sex with or bled on.
Definitely not on the rebound from their breakup, Peter also dated Mary Jane's clone, after all what kind of costumer doesn't love a good pair of Mary Janes?
Before smooching with Mary Jane, Peter dated the ill-fated Jean Stacy. Pete met Jean as undergrads at Empire State University and was soon happily studying anatomy with her until the Green Gobbler tossed her off a bridge, leaving Spydey free to date MJ or the Black Pussy.
The Black Pussy was the super-ish antihero persona of Fellatio Hardy. She and Spyder-Man had a fling on a swing and considered setting up house together, but the obstacles were insuperable: cats eat spiders and she didn't want radiation poisoning. Also, would their kids have 8 legs and get a scholarship from the Xavier school?
The Fox years
After several botched attempts by genetic engineers in the 1970's to bring Spyder-Man to the silver screen, scientists finally succeeded in 1990's after forming a Faustian pact with Fox. Spydy managed to walk the line between the old silver age tales of Doc Ock, Scorpion, Rhino, Mysterio, Chameleon, Shocker and Green Goblin and with cutting edge recycled CGI web slinging through New York, balancing the 90's paradoxical need to avoid mentioning the concept of violent death on Saturday morning TV while featuring the edgy 90's alien symbiotic serial killers from the comics, Venom and Carnage. Spyder-man's main enemies were an obese businessman and a scientist in a wheel chair who sent giant robot arachnids after Spyder-man that you could buy that Christmas from from toy manufacturer and marvel owner Avi Arad's north pole workshop of plastic wonders.
The Sony years
Japan had always loved Spyder-man, perhaps for his contribution of the giant robot to television or for his resemblance to a ninja, and by dawn of the era of the superhero movie at the turn of the millenium, his successful Sony Playstation games and cartoon had earned him a shot at Hollywood. Spyder-Man was portrayed by Toby Keif in the early 2000's film trilogy Spyder-Man 1, 2, and 3. The film series has been criticized for a number of epic costuming disasters, with the Green Goblin engineering himself into a power ranger and Doc Ock believing he was Neo and could talk to machines; not to mention Peter Parker's infamous midnight wardrobe malfunction in front of some nuns. While some admire Keif's nerve in playing the world's favorite superhero as a geek, most people vomit at the sight of him. Similarly, Kirsten Dunst's portrayal of the super-hot, brash and confident Mary Jane as a timid, bland, retiring loser with pudgy thighs was not well received. How hard can it be to find a beautiful redhead in Hollywood? Spyder-Man 3 was particularly notorious for the scene where alien venom mysteriously transforms him into a jazz club attending abusive ballerina.
Without Sam Raimi's creative spirit freed into the ether of hollywood, Spyder-Man was dead, but luckily Sony could clone him and regenerate like a lizard grows a new tail after biting it self in the ass. Andrew Garfield's Spyder-Man could dunk and preferred blonde Tom Boys over red head glamour models, but ultimately ended up crushed by a stampede of villains loose from the zoo in the form of Electro Rhino and Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin. After The Amazing Spyder-man 2, Spyder-Man's body was returned to Disney and cremated so that a new, younger Spyder-man played by Tom Holland could rise from the ashes of the old and bring new blood to the Avengers.
The Death of Spyder-Man
Spyder-Man has died several times, but never very severely. Fortunately, he gets two extra lives every now and then while fighting Venom. The closest he ever came to permanent death was whilst attempting to impregnate Spyder-Woman. Female spiders bite the heads off their mates after impregnation – but Spydey had already shot his web fluid several times that day and was unable to empty his egg-sac, thus saving his head.
See also
- Venom
- Jean Grey
- Mary Jane Watson
- Spider-Woman
- Green Goblin
- World Wide Web
- Spider villains
- New York City
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