User:SirDot/sandbox/Spider-ManFA

Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books and is the alias of 15-year-old teenager Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben who received spider-related abilities from a radioactive spider bite. Spider-Man has since appeared in many forms of media, including feature films, television series, and video games, and dealt with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues in his earlier years. Lee, Ditko, and John Romita Sr. developed many long-lasting supporting characters, such as friends Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn; Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson; romantic interests Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson; while notable Spider-Man enemies include the arch-nemesises Doctor Octopus and Green Goblin, who are members of the Sinister Six supervillain group.

When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens, New York, as Spider-Man's secret identity, whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" were issues to which young readers could relate.^[7] Unlike Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no mentor like Captain America and Batman, thus learning that "with great power, there must also come great responsibility"–a line that is retroactively attributed to Uncle Ben. By focusing on Parker's everday problems, Lee and Ditko created a very flawed and self-doubting superhero; Ditko's "quirky" art provided a stark contrast to the more cleanly dynamic stylings of Marvel's most prominent artist, Jack Kirby,^[8] and was combined by Lee's pathos and humorous writing to lay the foundation for the enduring Spider-Man mythos.

The Peter Parker character developed significantly from 1962, when he was simply a science-wiz nerdy teenager who becomes Spider-Man, to a troubled college student in the late 1960s and 1970s, a married superhero from 1987 to 2007, a single freelance photographer in the late 2000s, and the leader of a multinational company in the mid-2010s. Doctor Octopus operates as the Superior Spider-Man after a body swap plot in which Parker seems to die in the "Dying Wish" storyline,^[9] and the Peter Parker clone Ben Reilly does as well. Marvel has also introduced many Alternative versions of Spider-Man whom play a major role in the saga of Spider-Verse events.

Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.^[10] The character was first portrayed in live action by Danny Seagren in Spidey Super Stories, a The Electric Company skit which ran from 1974 to 1977.^[11] In films, Spider-Man has been portrayed by actors Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield,^[12] and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Tom Holland; as well as Chris Pine, Nicolas Cage, and Jake Johnson voicing three versions of Spider-Man in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). Reeve Carney starred originally as Spider-Man in the 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.^[13] Spider-Man has been well received as a superhero and comic book character, and he is often ranked as one of the most popular and iconic comic book characters of all time and one of the most popular characters in all fiction.