Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

When I was in sixth grade, a new cartoon aired on FOX Kids. It was simply called Spider-Man.

I loved this show. Because I was in sixth grade when it came out, my birthday was geared toward a plethora of Spider-Man related merchandise. When I finally got to my big day, I was delighted that I got so many Spider-Man toys. I got the Lizard (a.k.a. Curt Conners, a biologist who lost his right arm--in the Vietnam war in the comics, but for undisclosed reasons in the TV show--and tried to regrow it by fusing his own DNA with reptile DNA), Kraven the Hunter, and a Peter Parker figure.

Peter Parker. Complete with camera accessory! Source. 

I never got the Scorpion character (bottom left), but the others all ended up in my collection. Source.

When I unwrapped Kraven--likely the last one that I received for my birthday--my mom said, noting the slight look of disappointment on my face, "It's good to have some villains for Spider-Man to fight!"

This is a true statement. What she likely didn't know--or notice--was that I hadn't been given any Spider-Man action figures for that birthday. Perhaps she was prescient: I have over twenty Spider-Man figures (I'm guessing; too lazy to go count) from various iterations of the TV show and comics. It wasn't long before I had too many Spider-Man figures for a preteen to keep track of. So she wasn't wrong...she just wasn't accurate.

I don't remember if I was disappointed by the fact that I didn't have Spider-Man. I do remember being at our family cabin during the following summer, Peter Parker and (I think) the Lizard in hand, playing with them among the tacky hand-me-down couches of prior decades, wishing that I had Spider-Man in costume to fight the bad guys with.

I share this anecdote, not to embarrass my mother (number one reader and fan!), but instead to dwell a little on the importance of the external. Spider-Man is not like Batman in a lot of ways, but one of the most important differences is that Peter Parker is Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Bruce Wayne is Batman whose secret identity is Bruce Wayne. Playing with a Bruce Wayne action figure was always disappointing because he wasn't Batman. He didn't have his gadgets, he didn't have his cape--actually, that might have been the deal breaker: Bruce Wayne doesn't wear a cape. Anyway, what I'm getting at, is that Spidey is also Peter Parker. Like all of us, he has different roles that he plays depending on the situation, and some of them are him even when he isn't wearing spandex and swinging through the city. Sure, his coolest features are when he's in the suit, but Peter is comfortable in his Parker skin, too.

Of course, he his issues. His "Parker luck" plagues him throughout the comics, making his life more complicated than needed. But he also has a lot going for him, including a top-notch brain, a pretty handsome mug, the ability to attract supermodel girl friends (and wife, but that's a weird subject right now in the comics and let's move on), and a rubber bank account that constantly bounces instead of scrapes. Peter tries to balance a lot of responsibilities, and he does so pretty well, particularly considering all the crap that he has to go through while wearing the webs. 

Now, as a sixth grader, I didn't really understand all of that. Peter Parker was the vehicle for Spider-Man, at that point. The character's thoughts, sense of humor, and identity--all of which are tightly bound up into Spider-Man's essence--were opaque to me. But one thing that I intuited was that Spider-Man was Peter Parker. The costume wasn't what made him a superhero; it was who he chose to be.

But, as I said before, this taught me about the external. As much as I enjoyed Peter Parker--the toy was used so much, in fact, that his too-long legs spin around at the waist freely--I really wanted Spider-Man. He and Peter were the same...but let's be really honest: Our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man looks way cooler than his geeky counterpart. See?

Most dudes' crotches illuminate like that when punched. True story.