Every week at Female First, we're taking a look back at some of the things of the past that have brought us joy and entertained us for countless hours. Happy Throwback Thursday!
Today, we'll be taking a look back at the web-slinging high school student turned superhero, Spider-Man! Whilst he's very much still a part of popular culture, we wanted to turn back the clock and delve into exactly where it all started for the Friendly Neighbourhood Hero.
The three men responsible for Spider-Man
When Stan Lee decided that a new Marvel hero should be an "ordinary" teenager, he took the idea to his head artist at the time, Jack Kirby. A meeting led to Kirby drawing out the character and a few scenes for a potential debut, and he would come back with a hero he called the Silver Spider, complete with a web gun.
Kirby and Lee's working relationship would soon come to a close however, with Lee saying that Kirby's creation was too "heroic". Lee would then bring the idea of a young teenage hero with spider powers to the late Steve Ditko, who'd transform the concept into one of his own.
He stripped away Kirby's web gun and instead put in wrist-mounted web shooters, which we still see Spider-Man use to this day. He also came up with the original red and blue costume that's instantly-recognisable in the modern day.
In the years that followed, Spider-Man would go through a variety of different changes thanks to different writers, following a feud between Lee and Ditko. Details are scarce when it comes to the reasoning behind their falling out, but it led to Ditko leaving Marvel Comics entirely in 1966.
Spider-Man's first appearance
On February 18th, 2016, a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 sold at Heritage Auctions in Dallas for $454,100. Why so much? Because it was a near-mint copy of Spider-Man's first comic book appearance, originally purchased for $1,200, 35 years before the 2016 sale.
The Silver Age comic book changed Marvel forever, introducing readers to a teenage hero who would become one of the most celebrated faces of the company. Sales for the book proved to be one of Marvel's highest at the time, leading to the debut of series The Amazing Spider-Man seven months later.
The books would eventually become the company's top-selling series, with fans falling head over heels for the webslinger because of how relatable Peter Parker could be.
Nowadays, we have Spider-Man video games, movies and television shows alongside the comic books, as well as a slew of merchandise decorating the bedrooms of children (and many adults) across the globe. Spider-Man has cemented a place in history, and is without a doubt one of the greatest superheroes of all time.
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