Revenge of the Nerd: Why the Spider-Man Movies Are so Successful

Being a hardcore fanboy, I always enjoyed comic books as a child. But Spider-Man was the first super-hero that I loved. So I'm very excited about the upcoming Spider-Man #3.

I think the two Spider-Man movies by Sam Raimi are the best adaptation of a comic book ever made. The reason they work so well is the same reason the comic book did when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the character in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1964: Spider-Man is the first super-hero where his alter ego, Peter Parker, is a guy you actually care about.

Before Lee and Ditko's revolutionary idea, the only reason "secret identities" existed in comics at all was to give Superman and Batman something to do when they weren't in costume, which wasn't very interesting. Yeah, Clark Kent was a reporter, and Bruce Wayne was a millionaire, but how did these clowns keep their jobs when they were always rushing off somewhere? I also couldn't figure out why Clark's glasses seemed to work better than plastic surgery, either.

Peter Parker was different, however. He wasn't rich and he sure didn't work at The Daily Planet. He was the goofy skinny kid in high school with the A+ average who was shy, an orphan, had no car, no friends, always broke, bullied by his classmates, couldn't get a date at the prom and knew that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be the coolest guy in the room.

So, every geek, nerd, dummy, fatso, weirdo, bookworm, and loser who felt alone, scared, and hopelessly trapped in the endless nightmare of high school recognized Peter Parker and embraced him whole-heartedly. He was one of us. And, like the comic book did so brilliantly, both Spider-Man movies take the mundane super-hero archetype and joyfully (but not viciously) subvert it.

Unlike other super-heroes, being faster and stronger than normal people didn't make Peter Parker's life any better, it made it worse. Because of J. Jonah Jameson's smear campaign in The Daily Bugle, Spider-Man was hated and feared. To his horror, Peter found out that being Spider-Man was like having the worse job in the world: the pay was lousy, he worked every holiday and weekend, and although he risked his life trying to help people, nobody cared. In spite of being a super-hero, Peter Parker was all too human: sad, angry, lonely, and filled with self-doubt.

But Peter never gave up, because heroes don't. And that's why Spider-Man is important.

No matter how often cynics proclaim that the super-hero genre is dead, they're wrong. Super-heroes don't go away because they're essential mythological icon that our society needs. Whether it's Gotham City or Middle Earth, there have always been heroes protecting the innocent, fighting evildoers, and trying to do the right thing: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, Tarzan, Philip Marlowe, Flash Gordon, The Three Musketeers. As Frank Miller said, "It really doesn't matter if the hero's wearing a cape or a trench coat."

And behind the mask, what we discover is that super-heroes aren't gods, they're human. Their superpowers are metaphors for the incredible things every man and woman can do if they believe in themselves. It is the heroism we see in the real world when a fireman runs inside a burning building, a schoolteacher buys textbooks using her own money, or when Rosa Parks sat down in the "white only" section of the bus.

So, when Peter Parker did win, it was like finally seeing Charlie Brown pitch a perfect game, and it was a victory we could share. And whether it was delivering pizzas to help his Aunt May pay the mortgage or fighting Dr. Octopus on top of a subway train, we knew Peter Parker was a hero.

Sam Raimi (one of the few movie directors in Hollywood who actually reads comics without apologizing for it) remembers why Spider-Man was such an important chapter in the history of comic books. And both of his movies help us remember how it felt to open up those pages years ago when Peter Parker and Spider-Man was new and exciting to us.

I can't wait for Spider-Man #3.

Thanks, Sam.