The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, the high school student behind Spider-Man’s secret identity and with whose “self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness” young readers could relate.
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. Spider-Man’s creators gave him super strength and agility, the ability to cling to most surfaces, shoot spider-webs using wrist-mounted devices of his own invention (which he called “web-shooters”), and react to danger quickly with his “spider-sense”, enabling him to combat his foes. Lee and Ditko conceived the character as an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and as a teenager, having to deal with the normal struggles of adolescence in addition to those of a costumed crimefighter. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated Aug.
Spider-Man is a fictional superhero who appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
