I thought I’d take a break from my non-stop playing of the incredibly fun Spider-Man game on PlayStation 4 to bring you some fun web-slingin’ trivia! Give your Aunt May a hug, snag a sandwich and let’s find out some things you may not have known…
1. One thing that confuses people is why Spider-Man has a hyphen. You see so many heroes with ‘Man’ in their name but usually they’re all one word or two words. So, why does Spider-Man have a hyphen? Stan Lee explains that, when Spider-Man was being conceived as a story, he wanted to make sure that Spidey wasn’t confused with DC’s Superman. You’ll notice that Marvel tends to go hard with the hyphens and two word titles rather than one ala Batman, Superman, etc. Consider this a lovely trademark clarity between DC and Marvel proper!
2. In the original first run of comic books, they list Peter Parker’s home address which is a legitimate real life address. Sure, sure, that’s not too interesting but what IS interesting is that a family lives there and their last name? Parker. Want to go a step further? Across the street lived another family with the last name Osborne. Crazy, right?
3. Back in 1974 on the Children’s Television Workshop series The Electric Company there was a recurring segment called ‘Spidey Super Stories’ in which a voiceless Spider-Man dealt with usually five-minute long scenarios and usually thwarts a simple villain. Played by Danny Seagren, he was the first live-action iteration of Spider-Man ever! While he never spoke, due to the suit having no ability to show a moving mouth, Spidey would speak to the kids via comic book text bubbles. Check out this clip which, for even more mind-bending, is narrarated by Morgan Freeman! Yes. MORGAN. FREEMAN. No joke.
4. When you see the first glimpse of Spider-Man in the MCU’s Civil War film, it is based on the original design from the early comic books even down to the emotion in the eye-slits! This was a design decision to make sure that Spidey wouldn’t look completely emotionless with his mask on ala Black Panther and Ant-Man who also wear masks when in full costume.
5. Spider-Man Homecoming is the first in the Spider-Man series of films (and animation) to not mention Peter’s Uncle Ben even once.
6. Peter Parker has always been an independent thinker! Of the teenage superheroes, he’s the first to not actually have a mentor-character that teaches him the ropes or guides him through his missions. There’s a lot of parental figures, sure, but of people who teach him how to be a superhero — he is alone. While Peter may have a lot of people he looks up to, he ultimately trusts himself with what he is capable of and acts alone.
(Marvel, Disney)
7. While Spider-Man, for the most part, has always had technology that gives him his web shooters — there is one story arc in which Peter’s web is organic and comes from his body after emerging from a large spider-beast. This is the only time, within the comics, that they are purely organic and from his body. The first trilogy of films would toy with this concept and make his webbing organic as well but thankfully they moved away from that and came back to the technological aspect of Peter building his own gear!
8. The most famous quote “With great power comes great responsibility” was actually “With great power there must also come great responsibility.” It was not spoken by Uncle Ben originally, but narrated in an original story panel during the death of Ben sequence. To include the quote in the first Spider-Man film for fans, they attributed it to Uncle Ben in order to use it and give the character of Peter’s uncle far more gravity for the hero pivot on.
9. In Marvel and Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man video game, dialogue was recorded twice for Peter Parker. Yuri Lowenthal had to record his lines twice, once relaxed and once exerted, so that audio dialogue would be seamless no matter if he was standing still or traversing the skylines and cityscapes of New York. Talk about attention to detail, right?
(Marvel, Insomniac Games, Sony)
10. It’s important to note that Insomniac Games made sure that their Spider-Man title has absolutely no connection to any film, comic book or animated series storylines whatsoever. So, if you’re grasping at story arcs to find where this video game comes from, you’ll find it is a complete original! FINALLY! We get some new Spider-Man content with a fantastic timeline for Peter!
