Why Spider-Man/Peter Parker is my comic hero of choice

So, before I do a review of the All New Ultimate Spider-Man, I want to explain my love for all things Spider-Man and how it started.

Where my love started.

When I was about 8, Marvel launched it's "Ultimate Comics" line, reboot of many of the Marvel's classic characters to update them for a younger generation. I was a young boy in a local comic book store with my dad when I saw the cover of "Ultimate Spider-Man". I read the first issue right there in the store and Spider-Man became MY superhero.

Spider-Man is the first fictional, character that I could really relate to. The fact that before, and even after, he gained his power, he was still bullied, attacked and forced to face some very real social and family problems that other superheros of his age never had to deal with. As a nerdy kid and then teen, I remember what it was like to be an outcast.

Beyond just being a character I could identify with, he also was a character who made terrible mistakes, which makes him interesting and real. When Peter gained his powers he did not become perfect. He was flawed, he messed up. Sometimes so badly that it would lead directly to the harm of a person he cared for.



When Peter failed to stop a robber to get back at someone who ripped him off, he allowed his own Uncle to be killed. Uncle Ben raised Peter from a very young age and was essentially his father. That Peter's failure to act caused Ben's death is something new to comics, and origin filled with not just discovery but mistakes.

Gwen Stacy's Final Moments

In one of the most tragic twists in comic history, Peter Parker, as Spider-Man inadvertently killed the woman he loved. When Gwen Stacy, Peters first love from high school and the woman he would of married, was taken hostage on top of a bridge by the Green Goblin, Peter tried to save her before the Goblin could throw her off. Peter couldn't stop Goblin from throwing her off the bridge and in a last ditch effort to save her, shot a web at her feet. The webbing grabbed her leg and Peter tugged hard, causing an abrupt stop to Gwen's fall. The jerking stop snapped Gwen's neck and she was dead. Peter had killed the woman he loved and it devastated him. It still scares him to this day in the comics and he still thinks about Gwen and loves her (expressed beautifully in the graphic novel  Spider-Man: Blue).


That a superhero has made such terrible mistakes is intriguing and makes him real. Even after all of that death and tragedy that Peter has been through, he can still joke and quip while in the suit fighting crime or just swinging around. The sense of humor that Peter has makes him so human. He doesn't mope around all the time like some other certain hero (See: Bruce Wayne). He doesn't focus on his dread but instead his love of life.

Peter Parker is one of the most human fictional characters I have ever read and that there is a new person in the suit intrigues me. I would love to see if the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales, can justify wearing the suit.

Excelsior!