By
Doug Trueman
design by Ethan O'Brien
Of all the comic book
characters in the world, the most famous one might surprise you.
It's not Archie, Spawn, Superman, Batman, or Asterix. It's your
friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Created in August of 1962, Spider-Man
was an effort by comic gurus Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to replace
the dying Amazing Fantasy series. There was considerable debate
as to the merits of a superhero that actually had a social life
on top of his crime-fighting duties, but Lee and Ditko stuck to
their guns, confident that comic readers had matured to the point
where they would welcome a multifaceted hero. They were right. Spider-Man
is now the icon of the entire Marvel corporation and can be seen
swinging his way in the upper left-hand corner of almost every Marvel
title. There are several animated television
shows, a horrible live-action low-budget "film" that's
available on video, a handful of comic series with "Spider-Man"
in the title, and a 1970s theme song that people around the world
instantly recognize (and I can't get it out of my head for the life
of me - if you too want it to rattle around in your head, click
here spiderman theme song.wav).
The legal battles surrounding the creation of a new feature film
based on the wall crawler have been epic, but cameras are finally
ready to roll. We figured the time was right to take a look back
at some of Spidey's video-game incarnations.
Special thanks to Sam
Ruby, Lee Richards, Scott Haley, Chris Jenni, George Skalba, Magnus Larsson, and Brad Shoemaker.
Now show me Spidey in early starring roles.
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