Peter Parker

High school student and child prodigy Peter Parker submerged himself in his passion for science to avoid the taunts and threats of his fellow classmates and stumbled into a world beyond his imagining. While visiting a public exhibition of new breakthroughs in radiation manipulation and genetics, Parker felt the bite of a common house spider exposed to a particle beam and felt immediately ill from it, little realizing how much his life would change in the coming hours.

On the way home, the teenager unconsciously avoided a wayward automobile by making an incredible leap to the wall of a nearby building, finding himself miraculously able to stick to it by his hands and feet. Quickly realizing he had somehow acquired the abilities of a spider, he began testing his new-found powers and marveled at their width and breadth. Parker tested his spider abilities in the ring of a local wresting competition and, wearing a mask to hide his identity, easily bested the reigning champion.

Parker, an orphan, lived with his kindly Aunt May and Uncle Ben and was wary of exposing them to the public scrutiny that would surely ensue if he revealed his powers to the world, so he adopted a suitable costume and the name of “Spider-Man” to hide his true identity. He also designed and crafted two wrist-worn “web-shooters” to approximate a spider’s web-spinning capability, and with them swiftly became a smash television personality. Now with money to take care of his guardians and acclaim to salve puny Peter Parker’s wounds from classmates, the young man grew cold to everything but his media-darling career.

Like his namesake, Spider-Man’s strength and agility stand far above those of the average human, allowing him to lift nearly ten tons and to leap and move at incredible speeds with high accuracy. He also heals faster than normal when injured, though he is not completely immune to viruses and other human ailments.

An inner “spider-sense” allows him a high degree of awareness to impending danger and to gauge not only its level of threat to him personally, but also the general direction of its approach. Combined with his unique fighting style, this grants Spider-Man an edge in his battles that often times defies logic.

Spider-Man has designed and built many devices to aid him in his crime fighting, but the stand-out invention among these are his web-shooters. Strapped to both his wrists and activated by finger pressure applied to touch pads on his palms, the shooters can spray a unique fluid of the hero’s creation which solidifies to various thicknesses upon exposure to air and form into “webbing.” The tensile strength of the substance may be modified with each activation of the shooters, but at its peak can stop a large vehicle and also hold several persons for nearly two hours, after which, the webbing begins to dissolve.

In addition, Spider-Man carries small “spider tracers” that once placed upon a person or object transmit a specialized signal the hero may identify with his spider-sense and thus allow him to track to its origin point.

With one of the most extensive and vile rogues gallery of any super hero, Spider-Man counts among his enemies and adversaries a collection of the world’s wickedest villains.

Many of Spider-Man’s foes stand as normal humans with extraordinary ambition who adopted themes and gimmicks to elevate themselves above the simple man on the street. Wealthy Norman Osborn crossed swords with the young hero in the early days of Peter Parker’s costumed career and, decked out in his Green Goblin persona, taunted Spider-Man with his fearsome devices and hidden identity until his own mental instability drove him over the edge to his defeat. He returned time and time again, sometimes seemingly from death itself, to corrupt Parker’s life in every way imaginable, as either himself, or as a resurrected Green Goblin.

Osborn’s clashes with Spider-Man stand out as some of the most challenging of the hero’s career, including replacing May Parker with an actress, framing Peter for murder, attempting to mold Spider-Man into his heir, a brief affair with Gwen Stacy, becoming the “top cop” of American law-enforcement, his rebranding as the Goblin King, and his continuing recollection of his hated foe’s secret identity.

During the first time Spider-Man believed him dead, Osborn’s son Harry’s own mental issues led to him donning the Goblin gear and continuing his father’s horrific legacy. Other villains—most notably the Hobgoblin—have also patterned their villainous identities after the Green Goblin.

Doctor Otto Octavius became the dreaded Doctor Octopus when an accident merged a set of mechanical, robotic limbs to the nuclear scientist’s body and accentuated his antisocial personality. Spider-Man battled the eight-limbed villain multiple times, and like the Green Goblin before him, Octavius cheated death on more than one occasion to bedevil the world—and his spidery adversary—anew. Octavius would go on to make a last-ditch attempt at prolonging his life by transferring his mind into Parker’s body to twist Spider-Man’s career into his own “superior” world-view.

One of the wallcrawler’s first enemies, the Chameleon, used his mastery of disguise and impersonation to make Spider-Man question the identity of everyone around him. Kraven the Hunter took big game hunting to evil extremes and turned Spider-Man’s very existence into a jungle of mystery and intrigue, not to mention immense danger. Kraven also replaced his foe for a short time, but lost his own life at the end of the twisted trail.

Not all of Spider-Man’s enemies hail from this planet. The threat of Venom began when an alien parasite arrived on Earth as a replacement costume found on a far-off world by Spider-Man. The “symbiote” bided its time to subvert Spider-Man into a permanent host, but when Peter fought off its influence, it moved onto other humans to play out its violent desires, even to the point of splitting off parts of itself to create new menaces, most notably the murderous Carnage.

Other formidable foes Spider-Man has faced over the years include memorable threats like the Vulture, Electro, Sandman, Rhino, Scorpion, Kingpin, Shocker, and the Lizard. While Spider-Man has managed to fend them off numerous times, they’ve all been notably resilient, returning to fight him time after time.

Strong ties to family and friends have seen Spider-Man through his ongoing trials and tribulations and provided him with a lifeline when things seemed darkest.

The presence of Parker’s aunt, May Parker, in his life cannot be understated for its importance. Raising her nephew as her own after the death of his parents provided him with a foundation of love and wisdom that he carries with him to this day. May’s advanced years and shaky health brought turmoil to Parker’s young life, but also drove him to strive for success and often times gave him something to fight on for. Most importantly, together the two survived the murder of May’s husband Ben, and their relationship strengthened because of it.

Parker’s college girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, also acted as a catalyst in his life. Peter and Gwen had a turbulent relationship – much of it do to his secret identity as Spider-Man, which she never learned the truth about – but they also had a close bond and Peter envisioned his future with her. Her death at the hands of the Green Goblin impacted him severely, but reminded him of the sanctity of life and how easily it may slip away.

Peter grew closer to his good friend Mary Jane Watson following Gwen’s death, and the friendship eventually blossomed into a romance. The two married, but after a time of happiness balanced with tragedy, the Parker’s marriage was wiped from history by the demonic figure Mephisto, who offered to spare the life of a dying May Parker in exchange for Peter and Mary Jane’s nuptials. However, the young woman remains his good friend and strong ally when Spider-Man needs her most.

In the super hero community, the webslinger counts Johnny Storm, the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, as one of his best friends and frequent foil. The two heroes have shared many adventures and their well-known bickering and insults hide a deep mutual respect and camaraderie. While often dismissed as an annoyance by other costumed heroes, Spider-Man’s alliance with the Avengers at various times in his career sometimes elevates him in the eyes of his fellow champions.

While perhaps far from a friend, J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of New York’s Daily Bugle newspaper, also exists as a prominent figure in Parker’s life. The young man acted as photographer for the Bugle for several years, feeding shots of Spider-Man in action to Jameson, but also providing fuel for the man’s fire in his campaign to rid the city of the wallcrawler’s “menace.” He, too, grew to respect Parker as a person, though his cantankerous attitude would usually serve to drive his employee out of his office more often than not.

Other important figures in Parker’s day-to-day life include former high school bully turned close friend Flash Thompson, Jameson’s right-hand man at the Bugle—and staunch supporter of Parker—Robbie Robertson, hard-hitting investigative reporter Ben Urich, and fellow Spider-Man and eager high school student Miles Morales. Parker met the latter on a sojourn to a parallel Earth, one that has since been wiped from existence but left Morales on Parker’s Earth to continue his costumed career as he learns the ropes from other costumed champions, chief among them the original Spider-Man.

Throughout his high school years, Peter Parker earned enemies and allies alike while he established Spider-Man as a wise-cracking, smart-aleck super hero, everything he was not as himself. As his costumed career progressed, his adventures grew stranger and more intense.

After graduating from Midtown High, Parker’s romance with Gwen Stacy became a big part of his life. A fellow science major at Empire State University, Gwen dated Parker’s friend Harry Osborn after Peter initially rebuffed the girl during a time when May Parker was in the hospital, but the two eventually found each. It seemed to be the love story of a liftetime, but when tragedy struck in the form of Gwen’s father, Captain Stacy, being killed in the middle of a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, Gwen placed all the blame on the webslinger. Not long after, Gwen herself died as a result of the Green Goblin’s hatred for Peter Parker, whom he’d discovered was secretly Spider-Man.

Life continued for Parker. He attended Empire State University, fought his best friend Harry Osborn as a new Green Goblin, clashed with a clone of himself created by one of his professors—who posed as a criminal called the Jackal—and finally graduated from college. A new romance blossomed between Spider-Man and a thief known as the Black Cat, but she only had eyes for her “Spider,” not for Peter Parker. Then, in the middle of the everyday insanity, the wallcrawler found himself kidnapped, along with many of Earth’s other heroes, to fight selected villains on a faraway planet. There, Spider-Man claimed a new costume from a strange device and returned to Earth with it.

In short order, the costume was revealed to be an alien parasite, a “symbiote,” that attempted to attach itself permanently to Parker, but the young hero discovered its weakness to sonic bombardment and divested himself of it. It later bonded with another human and transformed into Venom, one of Spider-Man’s most horrific adversaries. Meanwhile, Parker’s bond with Mary Jane Watson strengthened through hard times and he proposed to her. MJ admitted her knowledge of his Spider-Man identity, and the two were wed, but shortly thereafter, the webslinger’s old enemy Kraven waylaid Spider-Man, buried him alive, and took his place until Parker managed to throw off the death-like state he’d been placed in and take his life back.

Spider-Man became an on-call Avengers reservist, at first believing himself too busy with his own life to be a full-time member, but later accepting a formal place on more than one Avengers team and even financing the group for a brief time. An off-shoot of Venom became a menace dubbed Carnage, who rampaged on several occasions and proved himself even more violent and unpredictable than his “father.” As a married couple, the Parkers muddled through ups and downs, including Mary Jane’s revival of her modeling career and a dark time when her husband believed she’d died in a fiery plane explosion.

Also thought to be dead by Parker, the Jackal’s original clone returned as “Ben Reilly” and took on a costumed career of his own as the Scarlet Spider. This was until Parker believed his days as Spider-Man were over and Reilly accepted the mantle for a brief time, which eventually ended in his supposed death. With renewed vigor, the original wallcrawler made a comeback in the face of new and old challenges, including adopting four new super hero personas upon being accused of murder, the return of Norman Osborn, separation from Mary Jane, learning his Aunt May knew his secret identity, enhanced powers, and full Avengers membership.

A stranger named Ezekiel approached Parker to inform him that his spider powers were also mystical in nature, not just science-based, and that as the spider “totem” of his reality, he’d attract the attention of a totlem-hunter called Morlun. The interdimensional being nearly defeated Spider-Man for good, but the webslinger deduced a way to defeat Morlun, though he’d later return to spread further chaos. Whether Ezekiel’s declaration of Parker’s abilities has any basis in fact is still unclear

Avengers status would also come with a downside for Spider-Man. A so-called “Civil War” between Captain America and Iron Man, after the Superhuman Registration Act passed in the United States, led Parker to reveal his identity on national television, shocking the nation and those closest to him who never knew his secret. To make matters far worse, May Parker was gravely wounded from being shot, and as she lay dying, the demonic Mephisto visited the Parkers and made them an offer: May’s life for Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage. After deep debate, the couple accepted the deal and their wedded union was undone. To all but Peter and Mary Jane, their wedding never occurred and Parker never revealed his identity to the world, and they returned to their separate, individual lives.

Norman Osborn’s machinations after the Super Hero Civil War and an alien Skrull invasion catapulted him to the position of “top cop” in the country and his twisted version of federal law enforcement. Spider-Man and his fellow heroes brought him down eventually, but not without several battles against Osborn’s forces. Later, a dying Doctor Octopus manipulated Parker into a position for the evil genius to switch minds with his enemy, thus granting him Spider-Man’s youthful power and Parker a swift death in a decrepit frame. Octopus became a “superior” Spider-Man for a time, but Parker’s spirit lived on within his mind and fought for dominance once more, ultimately triumphing over his foe. Around this time, the revelation of multiple other Spider-Man-type heroes from parallel universe occurred. This “Spider-Verse” encompasses both male and female versions of the wallcrawler, as well as animal incarnations.

Peter Parker, the perennial loser and penny-pincher, developed not only his own worldwide Fortune 500 industry, but also a respectable fortune. This lasted until the notorious “Parker Luck” kicked in. After a series of unfortunate events, he lost his business and his wealth, and returned to his former hand-to-mouth existence.

Parker currently resides in New York, swinging his webs around as Spider-Man.