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Your friendly neighbourhood wallcrawler hits the silver screen in a new adaptation of the classic early Marvel comics hero.

Spider-Man

In the vanguard of the big screen comic book invasion is the original and best New York superhuman - Peter Parker - Spider-Man starring Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and Willem Defoe.

A high-school student gets bitten by an irradiated spider, which grants him incredible arachnid powers. This is the story of Peter Parker, a geeky kinda guy who is to become one of the greatest superheroes ever: Spider-Man.

Peter Parker was orphaned, when his parents were killed in a plane crash. Since then, he has lived with his aunt May and uncle Ben. Peter is seen as a bit of a geek, and considers himself a social outcast at school.

During a field trip to a public exhibition on radiation, an irradiated spider lands on his hand, bites him, and dies. Peter leaves feeling ill but soon begins to manifest strange, spiderfied abilities. He gains superhuman strength; reflexes and balance as well as the ability to cling to most surfaces, and a sixth sense that warns him of impending danger.

Peter Parker

At first he is unsure as to what to do with his newfound powers, but when a burglar kills his beloved uncle Ben, a grief-stricken Peter vows to use his abilities to protect. With his wrist-mounted web-shooters that discharge web-fluid at high pressure, Peter, aka Spider-man, decides to take on crime.

The Webbed Wonder first appeared in the 1960s. In 1962, the Marvel comic, Amazing Fantasy was ready to fold. It wasn't selling very well, and kept undergoing changes in title, to try and attract readers. It became Amazing Adventures, Amazing Adult Fantasy, and for its planned last issue, Amazing Fantasy.

For that last issue, the powers at Marvel, which included Stan Lee, decided to test-run a character deemed "too scary" for young readers, as the publisher thought that people would never relate to a superhero who is a spider as people hate spiders. As nobody seemed that fussed about the last issue anyway, Stan Lee decided to give the character a go.

Talented designer Steve Ditko was given the job of defining the 'look' and 'feel' of Spider-Man. When Amazing Fantasy, featuring the first adventures of Spider-Man arrived on the stands, people loved what they read.

Amazing

The Marvel mailbag was suddenly full of letters, demanding to see more of this new, different hero named Spider-Man, and so, in March 1963, the 'Amazing' was back, in the form of the newly titled Amazing Spider-Man!

Readers began to relate to the adventures on two levels. They loved the web-weaving world of the superhero, but they also related to Peter Parker and his realistic teenage problems like peer pressure and girls. He may be a superhero, but Peter Parker was not superhuman. He was a bit of a misfit.

A collection of villains was introduced for our webbed hero to battle with. The Rogues Gallery for the first ten issues of Spidey’s adventures included The Burglar, The Chameleon, The Vulture, Terrible Tinkerer, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, The Lizard, Electro, the Fantastic Four’s Doctor Doom, and The Enforcers.

The magazine, Amazing Spider-Man, quickly gained cult status! It went to a monthly release, after initially coming out every two months. The creators had fun with it - as well as pitting Spider-Man against a host of evil criminals; they also teamed him up with the Human Torch. The introduction of three of Spider-man’s greatest foes: Mysterio, Green Goblin, and Kraven the Hunter came at the end of 1963.

Gwendoline Stacy

The following year, Spider-Man's first Special was published, and introduced the Sinister Six. Even more foes were introduced, to see which characters proved the most popular - The Scorpion, The Spider-Slayer, The Beetle, Princess Python and the Molten Man. Shortly after this, we were also introduced to Peter's future girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, who was later killed by the Green Goblin, and Peter's friend and roommate Harry Osborn, the second Green Goblin, who later died.

The 1970s saw Spider-Man gain even more popularity, as he was featured in his second monthly comic, Marvel Team-Up... The title teamed our hero, with another Marvel Hero to combat a villain or villains each issue. Bad guys such as Tarantula, Mindworm, The Grizzly, Mirage, Cyclone, Will O' The Wisp, The Human Fly, Hydro-Man, Speed Demon featured, as well as introductions to The Basilisk, Stegron, The Griffin, The Wraith, Arcade, and Professor Power.

Spider-Man has teamed up with a whole host of other Marvel characters during his crime-fighting career too, such as The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man, stand-out X-Men favourite Wolverine and Iceman.

TV Heroics

Peter Parker's be-webbed alter ego has been a TV star several times over, both in live action and animated series. 9 September 1967 was a big day for Marvel fans, as two of their favourite comic series reached the small screen within the same hour.

The Fantastic Four premiered first; followed shortly by the all-new Spider-Man. Bernard Cowan played the webbed wonder for the first season, while Peter Soles voiced him for the second season.

With the comics as reference, the show featured all-new Spidey adventures. Established villains such as Doctor Octopus, Electro, the Green Goblin and the Lizard featured, alongside new foes like The Impostor and Dr Zap. The show was a big hit, and ran until September 1970. It has been a huge success in syndication markets ever since.

On 14 September 1977, Spider-Man (the live-action TV movie version) premiered in the US, with a two-hour pilot. The film starred Nicholas Hammond (one of the children in The Sound of Music), as Peter Parker. The show was a hit in the ratings, and eventually became a series called The Amazing Spider-Man. Five episodes ran during 1978, all getting good ratings. CBS ordered eight more episodes, and showed them between September 1978 and July 1979. Sadly it then got the chop.

Spider Woman

The webbed one next appeared as a guest star, this time in a fellow superhero’s show. Spider-Woman had been launched on TV, but bosses wanted Spider-Man to guest star to attract viewers. He did so in late 1979.

Spider-Woman only lasted one season. In September 1981, the animated series Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends premiered. The programme teamed Spidey with Iceman and the glamorous Firestar, a character created especially for the show. The show also often guest starred other super heroes, such as the X-Men, Captain America, Sunfire, the Sub-Mariner, Dr Strange, and Shanna The She-Devil!

Spidey Goes To Hollywood

In one episode, Spidey Goes To Hollywood, our hero even met the Incredible Hulk, and his evil robot double. Pretty appropriate, seeing as in 1983, Spidey sharing billing with the green one as the show was expanded to an hour, to become The Incredible Hulk And The Amazing Spider-Man. The third and final season of the series found the billing reversed, and the show became The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk.

Then it all went quiet on the web front for a few years. A big screen version of the webbed wonder was promised, but after a mixture of names being mentioned (James Cameron, Jim Carrey, DiCaprio etc, all coming to nothing) and a legal wrangle over rights, Spider-Man’s blockbuster debut was put on hold.

Until recent times that is: 2002 finally saw a big screen Hollywood adaptation, starring Tobey Maguire in the title role. And was it worth the wait? You bet your web shooters it is! The Sam Raimi-directed Spider Man movie has broken box office records in the UK and US, with a sequel already planned for 2004. Not only that but the success of the film paved the way for a whole series of new films, including: X-Men and sequel X-Men 2, the Ang Lee version of The Hulk and Daredevil. Uncle Ben would have been proud.

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