10 Essential Spider-Man Stories For New Readers
All you need to understand what the webhead's all about.
Marvel ComicsOne of the main things that's made your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man such a roaring success is his accessibility. Superman's practically a god, Batman's whole schtick is built upon mental trauma most of us (hopefully) haven't been through, and besides scene kids, nobody wears purple trousers as much as the Hulk. Your average person just can't relate to 99% of the superheroes out there. Sure, we enjoy the Avengers, but we could never imagine what it's like to be Captain America, or even Hawkeye. Therein lies the secret to Spider-Man's popularity: for all his amazing powers, he's just a regular guy, like your or us. He has bills to pay, he has girlfriend trouble, he sometimes ruins his clothes in the wash. He's relatable. What's slightly less accessible are the comic books he appears in. Did you know that the Spider-Man character has been around since 1962? That means there have been Spidey titles published consistently for over fifty years. And we do mean consistently, as he's never fallen out of favour the way other superheroes do, and has frequently had more than one series on the go at the same time. Which means there's a frankly staggering amount of material starring the webhead out there. Again, another reason that he's such a popular character, and why the five proper movies, handful of TV shows and endless video games he's appeared in have managed to - mostly - not retread the same ground over and again. It does make it a little daunting if you've come to Spider-Man from any of those other sources, mind, hoping to get up to speed with his four-colour exploits. Well friends, Uncle WhatCulture is here, and we're the cool sort of uncle that rides a motorbike and gives you boxes full of old comics. And hopefully doesn't get shot by a burglar, but there's still time. We're going to take you through the basics, the key issues and collections you need to read to get a good idea of what the wall crawler is in comics. Here are ten essential Spider-Man stories for new readers.