Spiderman is possibly the most recognizable superhero to have ever existed, and he has maintained an active fan base for 60 years!
This web-slinging New Yorker has captured the hearts of people from all over the globe and served as massive success early in the legendary Stan Lee’s career.
Spiderman would give both Stan Lee and Marvel Comics the boost in popularity they needed to become the entertainment titan they are today.
Why Is Spiderman So Popular? (Top 10 Reasons)
Spiderman’s popularity can be attributed to a multitude of factors, from his iconic design to the different ways he has been marketed over the years.
When Stan Lee and Steve Dikto first created this character, they had no idea how long the series would go on or how well fans would receive the young hero.
From his conception, Spiderman has leaped off the printed pages and has since been seen in cartoons and live-action features for generations.
Part of the magic behind Spiderman is how many generations have fallen in love with the character.
1. He’s Been Around Since The 1960s
Spiderman was first created by Stan Lee and Steve Dikto and he premiered in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962.
He was able to change the way that comic book fans saw teenagers and young adults, who were more often put into the role of sidekick.
This hero was one of the first to show not only how strong he was as a hero, but also how his personal strength was tested through a childhood filled with loss.
From the very beginning, Spiderman walked the hero’s life alone and quickly had to learn the lesson, “with great power comes great responsibility,” from the murder of the man who raised him.
Spiderman was a part of the Silver Age of comic book heroes, which occurred from 1956 until 1970.
During the Silver Age of comics, these types of stories were rapidly picking up popularity and eventually became a major source of entertainment throughout the United States.
In the previous generation, comic books had just started, and there was little to no reference to what could and couldn’t be a comic.
The Golden Age took place from 1938 until 1956, which is where we got popular heroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America.
By the 1940s, comic book stories began to expand outside of just superhero stories.
They began to include genres such as detective stories, science fiction, and even westerns.
Characters like Spiderman were meant to be positive role models because parents were worried that other comics were leading their children to become delinquents due to the content found in some Mystery and Horror comics.
2. Peter Parker Is A Relatable Character
Part of what has always separated Spiderman from other comic books heroes is the person behind the mask.
Both Stan Lee and Steve Dikto wanted to ensure that Peter Parker’s side of the story was just as important as when he put on his webbed suit.
Since the beginning, Peter Parker has been an awkward and nerdy high schooler who is trying to maintain a healthy social and home life, in addition to being New York’s favorite superhero.
Like any young boy his age, he has a couple of close friends and a childhood crush.
Having lost his parents in a tragic plane crash, Parker is instead raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben.
Peter Parker helped normalize situations where children were living with family members other than the parents during a time when society took a lot of pride in traditional families.
To help make Peter Parker a better role model, he was incredibly studious.
In Spiderman’s origin story, Parker was on a science class field trip when he was bitten by an arachnid and given his legendary powers.
Ever since his first appearance, kids around the country have hoped that they’d be able to go on field trips and gain amazing powers just like Peter Parker.
In another version of Spiderman’s origin story, Peter builds a variety of tools that allow him to shoot webs and climb on walls.
There have been plenty of people, like Hacksmith Industries, who have been inspired to create versions of superhero-like creations.
Spiderman has been an inspiration for children for decades and has created multiple generations of engineers, scientists, and inventors.
3. Spiderman’s Appearances In Animation
Spiderman has appeared as the main character in 10 different animations, ranging from 1967 to as recently as 2021.
Although each series may have its own artistic style and target audience, each of them shows the goofy and nerdy nature of teenage Peter Parker.
The first Spiderman animation was simply called Spider-Man.
If you have seen the popular image of a cartoon spiderman pointing at another spiderman, then you’ve seen a cel from the 1967 series.
Spiderman was given another shot at being the main focus of a television show in 1981, which was also called Spider-Man.
This series is praised for staying the truest to the story told in the comics, but some find this series repetitive because it tells the same story that audiences have heard time and time again.
That same year, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends showed Spiderman alongside his superhero friends Iceman and Firestar.
This story follows a college-aged Peter Parker who gets to live with his two best friends and fight crime.
Spider-Man: The Animated Series premiered in 1994 and ran for five seasons.
This series is still a fan favorite to this day, but it was canceled in 1998 due to disagreement between the executive producer and the head of the network.
Spiderman was brought back to television screens in 1999 when Spider-Man Ultimate premiered.
However, the series lacked a solid cast or strong storylines and it was canceled suddenly after only 13 episodes.
The year 2008 brought the most beloved Spiderman animated series, Spectacular Spider-Man.
This show is praised for revitalizing the Spiderman story without sacrificing the parts of the story that fans loved and giving the characters more fleshed-out personalities.
Spiderman’s most recent show is Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
The show is meant for young children and is very stylized.
4. Legendary Live-Action Movies
Spiderman has not only had a massive effect on how superheroes were seen, but he changed the way that people saw superhero movies as well.
The Spiderman movies are broken up into three categories: the Tobey Maguire movies, the Andrew Garfield movies, and the Tom Holland movies.
Tobey Maguire was the first actor to don the live-action webbed suit when he appeared in Spider-Man in 2002.
This was the first Marvel movie to ever use the flipping page logo as an introduction.
After finding massive success with the first movie, Maguire took on the role of Peter Parker again in 2004 for Spider-Man 2.
According to Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi, this is the best film out of the trilogy.
Maguire would don the suit one final time for Spider-Man 3 in 2007.
After both Maguire and Raimi had begged to bring Sandman in as a villain for the third movie, their wish was granted when Thomas Haden Church took on the villainous role.
Spiderman wouldn’t appear on the silver screen again until Andrew Garfield took on the lead role in The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012.
To prepare for his role, Garfield actually studied the way that spiders moved in order to incorporate it into how his version of Peter Parker moved.
Garfield would get to play Peter Parker again when he appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014.
Although there was a third movie in the works, it was canceled due to the public’s poor reception of the movies.
When Tom Holland took on the role of Peter Parker, people were amazed by how accurate his portrayal was to the character fans had loved for decades.
Spider-Man: Homecoming premiered in 2017 and was followed up by Spider-Man: Far from Home in 2019, and Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021.
Holland also portrayed the character in five films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including his debut as Spiderman in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 and, later, in Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
5. He Has An Eye-Catching Design
Spiderman is best known for his colorful, webbed suit.
While the suit has been given slight changes each time he appears in something new, some attributes rarely change.
Although Spiderman is known for his red and blue outfit, he was almost orange and purple thanks to his artist Steve Dikto.
However, the idea was turned down because it was difficult to consistently get the same shades of orange and purple.
Stan Lee wanted to create a costume that any reader could see themselves in and wanted to choose colors that’d pop out on the page.
The simplicity of his suit design allowed it to be ageless and rarely need any touching up.
6. A Bestseller Superhero
Spiderman isn’t just a hit on television, but he is also one of the best-selling comic heroes of all time.
Out of the 10 best-selling comic book issues, Spiderman firmly holds 8th, 6th, and 5th place.
Amazing Spider-Man #583 was released on January 15th of 2009 and was the first comic based on Spider-Man attending former President Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony.
This one comic sold 530,500 copies alone.
The Amazing Spider-Man series started with a bang in 2014 when it sold 559,200 copies on the first issue.
This comic series was meant to follow along with the movie that had just recently premiered but was received much better than the movies.
The bestselling Spiderman comic to ever exist was the Free Comic Book Day Edition of Ultimate Spider-Man, which sold 631,990.
This is the comic that eventually led to Peter Parker giving up the title of Spiderman and handing it over to fan-favorite Miles Morales.
This comic was meant to serve as an introduction to the modern take on who Spiderman was and what he would become.
The Ultimate Spider-Man series would go on to be a massive hit among comic book and movie fans.
7. Modern Fans Love Miles Morales
Miles Morales is the newest face behind the webbed suit and even gave the traditional suit his own twist by appearing in red and black instead of red and blue.
Morales achieved the same powers as Peter Parker after Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, tried to replicate the situation in which Parker was bitten.
A thief named the Prowler, Aaron Davis, stole the spider without even knowing why it was special.
Miles went to visit his Uncle Aaron to tell him about getting accepted into one of the nicest schools in Brooklyn when the spider breaks loose into Davis’s home and bites young Morales.
Miles Morales quickly discovered that he had unique powers and used them to save people from a burning building, but Morales doesn’t feel that the hero’s life is something that he can handle as a young teenager and decides to no longer pursue it.
One day, Morales decides to skip school because he hears the location of where Green Goblin and Spiderman are fighting.
Among the other onlookers, Morales watches the battle ensue before everyone watches Green Goblin and Spiderman die by each other’s hand.
Miles Morales feels guilty for not having tried to save Peter Parker and decides to go to his funeral.
Gwen Stacy inspired Morales to become the hero that New York City needed when she quotes Uncle Ben and reminds everyone that with great power comes great responsibility.
Fans have fallen in love with the new Spiderman and are begging for his story to be brought to live-action.
Some of the most commonly recommended actors for the role have been Caleb Mclaughlin and Kevin Feige.
8. Targeting The Right Markets
Throughout the years, Spiderman has been marketed towards a variety of audiences.
When he was first introduced in the 1960s, the story of Peter Parker was supposed to be for teenagers.
As Peter Parker aged in the story, he began being made for older and older audiences.
This has allowed fans to have content that they could grow up with and enjoy throughout the different stages of their lives.
The live-action movies have always been targeted towards teenagers and young adults, with each of them earning a PG-13 rating for the action sequences, some violence, brief suggestive comments, and some bad language.
Although the movies may be more suitable for a slightly older audience, there are plenty of things marketed towards young children that are Spiderman-themed.
By getting children into Spiderman from a young age, marketers are able to firmly shape childrens’ preferences.
With modern families having fewer children at a later age with a higher household income, parents are more willing than ever to invest in their children’s interests.
When marketing attracts young children, it is giving the brand a new fan base for years to come.
Some of the best ways that Spiderman can be promoted to children is through all the Spiderman merchandise that’s available.
There is everything that a child could want or need with a Spiderman theme, from shoes to backpacks.
9. The Spiderman Variants
When you’ve had generations of people working on the same character, things are bound to get strange.
Not every Spiderman variant is a success, but they’re all incredibly memorable.
One of the lesser-known versions of Spiderman was the alternate reality Spiderman that used Hostess Snack Cakes to defeat his enemies.
Although he started as an advertising campaign between Marvel and Hostess, he was officially added to the Spiderman universe.
There have been multiple animal forms of Spiderman, including Spider-Monkey, Spider-Ham, Spider-Wolf, and Man-Spider.
Spider-Ham even appeared in the popular Spiderman movie Into the Spiderverse.
There have been many female interpretations of the webbed superhero, with the most popular being Spider-Gwen.
Other ladies to take on the Spider name have included Penelope Parker as Spider-Girl, May Reilly as Lady Spider, May Parker as Spider-Woman, Betty Brant’s Spider-Girl, Anya Corazon as Spider-Girl, Mary-Jane Watson as Spinneret, Cindy Moon as Silk, and Aunt May as Spider-Ma’am.
Not all of the variants share the same storyline or superpowers as Peter Parker as Spiderman.
Spider-Man Noir follows the story of a man from the 1930s who is a formidable opponent thanks to his fighting skills alone.
Some of the Spiderman variants come from attempting to make Spiderman for international audiences.
There’s the Japanese Spiderman Takuya Yamashiro as Supaidāman, Billy Braddock as Spider-UK, Arácnido Jr. from Mexico, and Pavitr Prabhakar as Spider-Man from India.
Spiderman variants like Patton Parnel or The Spider wanted to take a look at what would happen if Peter Parker wasn’t the friendly neighborhood hero that New York relied on.
Both of these variants show what would happen if Spiderman had been a sociopathic killer instead.
May Parker’s Spider-Girl and Spiderling both looked at what it would be like if Peter Parker went on to have a crime-fighting daughter.
10. Spiderman’s Story Blends Well With Other Marvel Heroes
Spiderman is the perfect superhero to integrate into the stories of other heroes because he only really tries to maintain the safety of a couple of neighborhoods.
He’s a young teenager who is looking for a mentor to help him become the hero that the world needs.
A year after his initial release, Spiderman teamed up with the Fantastic Four.
He has also come together with heroes such as Daredevil and the X-Men.
Spiderman is now best known for his supporting role in the Avenger movies and the comics of individual Avengers like Black Widow or the Incredible Hulk.
The first time Spiderman teamed up with the Avengers was Avengers #11 in December of 1964.
Between the movies, merchandise, and comic books, there is plenty of content for Spiderman fans to enjoy for decades to come.
Spiderman has been around for 60 years and he’s only getting more popular with time.
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