10 Most Ridiculous Things Spider-Man Has Survived

8. Reliving His Parents' Death - Lifetheft

Spider-Man Peter Parker Spider Monster
Marvel Comics

The nineties was a tough time for Spider-Man - and his readers - because, well, because clones. But before the Clone Saga really kicked into gear, Peter Parker had his emotions played with in the most cruel of ways.

When The Amazing Spider-Man #365 concluded, we had the jaw-dropping panel depicting Peter's mother Mary and father Richard alive and well. Until then, Spidey had been led to believe that his parents had been killed 20 years prior, but now we were informed that they'd instead been held as prisoners of Russia.

Mary and Richard spent the next 20 issues getting to know their son, yet Aunt May soon began to suspect that something wasn't quite right. While May had a private investigator looking into this situation, Peter did the unthinkable and revealed to his resurrected parents that he and Spider-Man were indeed one and the same.

The endgame of this was that Mary and Richard were merely androids created by the Chameleon as a way to decipher the real identity of the wall-crawler. After the Mary-bot took out her 'husband' as a way to protect Spidey's secret, the Vulture then killed off Peter's 'mother' - meaning Peter Parker again had to come to terms with the fact that his parents really had been dead for two decades.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.