Summary:
The primary signature character for Marvel Comics, "Spider-Man," is the alter-ego of Peter Parker, science student at a New York City university. While witnessing a radiology experiment on one fateful day, Peter is bitten on his hand by a spider exposed to the radioactive field generated by the experiment and later finds that he has acquired the spider's wall-scaling, leaping, and extra-sensory abilities, in addition to increased endurance and strength. Peter knits for himself a red-and-blue costume and mask and produces a web-spinning fluid enabling him to swing from building to building above the streets of Manhattan. Peter's Uncle Ben is murdered by a burglar, a criminal who earlier ran past Peter at a television studio to which Peter had come to exhibit his spider-abilities. Peter selfishly declined to help the police to stop the fleeing malefactor and is to a significant extent responsible for the death of his uncle. Peter, in his Spiderman guise, finds, punches, and webs the murderer. Now aware that he has received his powers for a higher purpose than exhibition for monetary gain, Peter accepts his duty as a costumed fighter of crime, a responsibility that he vows never again to fail. To financially support his Aunt May, Ben's widow, Peter becomes a freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle newspaper as an aside to his continued studies and his responsibility as Spiderman to the good people of New York City. Peter does not allow anyone, not even his aunt, to know that he is Spiderman. The Daily Bugle publisher, a cigar-smoking, self-righteous, blustery chauvinist named J. Jonah Jameson, has a jaundiced view of Spiderman's heroism and wields considerable influence with the city government and police force. So, Spidey must constantly be wary of the police whom he is helping, usually retaining the villains that he catches in a web for police to apprehend after he has left the capture scene, and attaching a note with an appropriate pun in regard to the crook and which says that the capture was courtesy of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman". Peter often uses his intimate involvement with his alter-ego's pursuit of villains to obtain exclusive photographs of the criminals, their evil deeds, and their capture, and provides the photographs to an incredulous Jameson, who, though he prints the pictures, usually manages to negatively spin-doctor Spiderman's involvement and magnify his own importance, much to Spidey's good-natured annoyance and the...
