North American Popular Culture- Spiderman Essay
...Written as a last-ditch effort by Stan Lee to get the character off his chest, Spider-Man made his entry into the Marvel Universe through Amazing Fantasy #15, in 1962. Since it was Amazing Fantasy's last issue, the Spider-Man story was meant to be a throwaway , but due to overwhelming mail and sales figures, the character was given his own solo title, which proved to be one of Marvel Comics' most successful and popular titles. To this date, the character's comics sell consistently in the top 20, and movies and cartoons of the character have been wildly successful and profitable. What makes Spider-Man, as a character, different from the various superheroes published by both Marvel Comics and DC Comics over the past decades, and how does this translate into him being such a popular and important icon? What was the target audience of the original story, which introduced the character, and how did the comic read to this target audience? What was different about the character and the comic he starred in which catapulted the character into competition with comic stalwarts Batman and Superman, and attained icon status alongside those two characters? How did Spider-Man remain popular and fresh to a whole new generation of readers, and does he still maintain his popularity with the readership that has followed him for over three decades? What makes the character durable and easy to relate to?
The Origin of the Spider-Man character
One of the keys to Spider-Man's popularity as both a character and as a franchise has been the ability of the reader to identify and relate to the character. When Stan Lee first conceived the character in 1962, the comic book landscape was far different from the modern one. There were two primary comic book publishers when it came to super hero comics, DC Comics and Timely Comics. Up until that point, the focus of many comics was on the...
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