Peter Parker gained a whole host of amazing abilities when he was bitten by a radioactive spider - wall crawling, his spider sense, proportional strength and speed, great abs - but one of the most important skills in Spider-Man's formidable arsenal is his wit. Credited to the sardonic joke telling of his dearly departed Uncle Ben, in his various battles with superpowered nemeses Spidey relies just as much on throwing the bad guys off with quips, one-liners and insults that Don Rickles would kill for. It's one of the most important parts of his characters, and one that has blissfully been restored to his cinematic incarnation with Andrew Garfield in the role. Garfield has an interesting take on the character's propensity for wearing down his enemies' psyches along with their bodies, too. In fact, he sees a lot of parallels between Spider-Man and internet trolls. You know, those anonymous jerks who pride themselves on being able to drop into any situation, annoy and insult everybody, and take that as a win. In his day-to-day life, Peter Parker is a put-upon dork who was bullied for his entire adolescence, but when he has the protective layer of anonymity afforded to him by his mask, he feels no compunction about cruelly mocking anybody and everybody. Of course, Spidey's been around since the sixties and the internet is slightly more contemporary, but it's not like trolling is without its precedents. Remember that before emails we had electronic-less mail, and anonymous letters are pretty easy to pen so long as you leave off a return address. And to some degree Spidey's jabs have gotten a little more vicious over the years, so who's to say his more recent quips (prior to the thwipps) don't share some influence with 4chan?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
