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The origin of Spider-man is not one that most people don’t know off hand – Peter Parker the nerdy un-cool kid at school gets bitten by altered spider and this spider somehow manages to pass on some of its genes to him, in essence turning him into a ‘Spider-Man’. With this, Peter then takes advantage of these new powers using them for selfish benefits, ultimately leading to the tragic murder of his beloved Uncle Ben, and it is the event that leads Peter to truly understand and live by the code that ‘With great power, comes great responsibility’.
However, having recently purchased and read the comic ‘Amazing Fantasy 15’, the original and true origin of Peter Parker, I found that many of my beliefs that had been portrayed in the films with Tobey Maguire and the most recent film with Andrew Garfield to be scewed from the truth. So today, I will be discussing the true origin of Spider-man and which of the two Spider-man films origins stories hold strongest to the original, published right back in 1962. Now, before I start I just want to clarify, this is not going to be done in great depth, I am merely going to be covering the aspects of the very first comic and how they are dealt with in the films, not other ideas and issues such as the first villains he fights and later stories that the films cover etc.. That will come at a later date if the response to this post is positive.
Let’s start with how the two films actually have Peter Parker being bitten by the Spider. In the 2002 Tobey Maguire film, Peter is on a school trip to a genetics Laboratory at Columbia University, where he is later bitten on the hand by one of the genetically altered ‘super spiders’ that has managed to escape from its display case – this all happening while he is taking of photo of his high school crush Mary-Jane Watson. This is greatly different to the 2012 Andrew Garfield film, where in Peter Parker sneaks into a science internship at Oscorp tower (with sole intensions of finding out more information about his Father). During this visit he bumps into an employee of Norman Osborn, causing him to drop his folder showing papers to Peter with symbols on them that he recognised from some of his recently discovered papers of his Fathers. This causes him to follow this gentleman into a restricted area of the building, and he eventually finds himself in a room of genetically altered Spiders (spiders which we later discover were created by his own father). Peter then plucks on one of the Spiders webs and it causes the mechanism in which they are on to stop and hundreds (slight exaggeration but hey) of spiders fall onto Peter. Peter then hurriedly leaves this area and goes back to the intern group he was with, at which point Gwen Stacy, knowing he isn’t officially an intern tells him to leave so he doesn’t get her into any more trouble. In this film, it is at this point that the spider bites Peter in the back of the neck. Neither of these storylines are in fact that accurate to the original comic. In fact in the original comic, Peter is attending a science exhibit on radioactivity and a Spider just so happens to hang down behind one of the experiments and get hit by the radioactivity. It then it its last moments of life jumps to the first person it can find (being Peter) and bites him, on the hand. So all in all, you can see clearly that about the only point one of these two films stuck too other than the part of Parker getting bitten by a Spider was the 2002 film, as it had the Spider biting Peter in the hand. So, if it was to go to either, round one would have to go to the Tobey Maguire film.
The second point I feel is necessary to discuss in the origin of Peter Parker is the death of Uncle Ben. In the 2002 film, Parker goes to a cage fight in order to win some money to buy a new car to impress MJ. However, after winning the cage fight the organiser of the show, does not pay Peter the amount that he read on the advertisement as Peter had in fact defeated the opponent in under 3 minutes - the advertised prize money was for surviving three minutes in the ring. Moments after Peter has left a burglar comes in and steals all the money from the event organiser, it is at this point that Peter see’s this happening, but out of spite after feeling like he had been cheated of his prize money, he lets the burglar go. We are then led to believe that this burglar went outside and shot down Uncle Ben for his car to use in his getaway. (We’ll not go on to discuss how they ridiculously in the third film then try and imply that it was in fact the Sandman who gunned down Uncle Ben). In the Andrew Garfield film however, Parker has a falling out with his Uncle after forgetting to pick up his Aunt May from work. He then proceeds to storm out of the house, after which he eventually goes into a grocery store to buy milk. It turns out that he is two cents short and the store clerk is extremely sarcastic and rude when he denies Peter the purchase. When Peter is exiting the store a burglar comes in and holds up the cashier, and throws Peter the milk he had just tried to buy. Out on the street the cashier is chasing the burglar and asks Parker for help, but again because of previous circumstances that have led Parker to be angry, he chooses not to do anything. The burglar then runs up the street where Uncle Ben (while out looking for Peter) gets into a tussle with him and eventually the burglars gun goes off and kills Uncle Ben. Again in this case neither of these story lines are in fact that close to the truth when compared to the original comic. Yes in the original comic Parker does go to a wrestling match like in the Maguire film, but nothing comes of this, he just gets asked to appear on a television show. In fact in the comic, it is upon leaving his first appearance on said show that a security guard calls for help when chasing a burglar, and out of no reason but pure selfishness, Peter chooses not to help. So as you can see, in the movies they have tried to justify Parkers reasoning for not helping with some sort of event leading Peter to feel reluctant to help out of spite and anger, something which did not occur in the comic book. In my opinion it is the films way to try and justify the whole experience, however I feel that this takes away from the story, asit is the fact that Parker did not help through his own selfishness that truly forces him in the comics to live by his life code that ‘With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility’. So again in this case, both of the films have stuck to the general idea of the story again, but neither has done so that accurately. However, due to the fact that the Maguire film did in fact include the wrestling scene, I am again inclined to give this round to it again. Thus point only being if we discard the third film from the Maguire trilogy in which they make the Sandman the actual murderer of Uncle Ben (potentially being the most ridiculous story line ever).
The final point I wish to discuss, is how Peter Parker actually becomes Spider-man (the making of his suit, and his webs etc.). First things first in the Maguire film I feel we need to discuss how they ridiculously gave Parker organic webbing produced from his own body. This has, and hopefully, never will be a part of the comic book story. However, in terms of Parker hand sewing and making his own spidey suit, the Maguire film was pretty much accurate to the comic. However, in the Garfield film, it is never actually made clear whether or not Peter in fact buys his suits online and then modifies them with dye in order to have his spidey emblems and such on them or whether or not he gets his ideas online and then himself makes the suit. However, in terms of his webs this film is far more accurate, to an extent. Again, this film does not make it all too clear whether or not Parkers web cartridges are made by him or whether or not he just buys lots of this new found alloy webbing used to make planes and other strong metal structures. However in this film Parker does clearly develop his own web shooters, a point which I feel is most important in him becoming Spider-man – as in the comics he is constantly updating and upgrading his web-shooters to help him against his vast array of new super-villains that he finds himself fighting. So on this point here, I would in all honesty struggle to state which film was most accurate as they both have aspects true and not true to the original comic. However, due to the fact that they had the ridiculous idea of giving Parker organic webbing in the Maguire films, I am going to give victory to the Garfield film.
In conclusion, I know that I may have rambled on a bit, but this post was done in a hurry as I am cram packed with stuff from Uni and Work to do at the moment. But I hope that I have helped to give you a broader understanding of the original origin story of Spider-man and the ways in which it has been altered to make these films. And, just in case you were wanting my final verdict, on the whole, although the Maguire film was technically more accurate on the number of points it won, I would choose the Amazing Spider-Man film of 2012 with Andrew Garfield every time as the best Spider-man. Due to the fact that as a whole, it just gives over the greatest, and in my opinion most accurate feel, to that of what you get when you are reading the comics first handed yourself.
Ps. On a quick side-note, from now until June (when my term and exams end) I will not be posting regularly on Sundays, as I just don’t have the time at the moment. I will just be posting whenever I can find the time to get in the research and writing hours needed to make these posts. This is also going to be the same for Ysabelle. Hope you all understand, and as always,
#LovefromSteve
