What Happened To Everyone Who Became Spider-Man?

8. Peter Parker

Spider-Man Nick Spencer
Marvel Comics/Ryan Ottley

First Appearance As Spider-Man: Amazing Fantasy #15

Peter Parker is the original, definitive and arguably greatest incarnation of Spider-Man going, so it kind of goes without saying that he's been doing it the longest. Nephew to Ben and May Parker, and friendly neighbourhood vigilante to Queens, this version of Spider-Man has been through the wringer enough times that it would make Daredevil blush. But let's try going over them anyway.

As Spider-Man, Peter Parker fought against Marvel's greatest enemies, saw his true love murdered at the hands of Green Goblin, got transported to a far-flung planet for the amusement of a celestial; got a symbiotic alien costume from that same storyline, got married to childhood sweetheart Mary Jane Watson, found out he was a clone, and then that he wasn't a clone, had some weird things happen with his powers; revealed his identity to the public in the superhero Civil War, had that same event wiped from public memory along with his marriage, and then all sorts of other stuff we'll get to later.

Point being, Peter's been through a lot. Currently, though, he's back to being the Spider-Man we all know and love. That sense of the familiar may have managed to stunt the character's development though, with each successive series seeming to take one step forward, only to then take several backward by retreading familiar ground.

Whatever your thoughts, Peter is currently the web-slinger. Just maybe not the one he should be after almost 60 years' worth of material.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.