I’m not even going to pretend that the kid in the photo is supposed to be me.
When Spider-Man came out 20 years ago in 2002, I was already a grown-up nerd. And the movie just blew me away.
Seeing Tobey Maguire (or probably his stunt double) swing through New York City was so exhilarating. It wasn’t like Superman flying gracefully above the clouds or Batman slipping in and out of the shadows in Gotham. It was broad daylight, arms and legs flailing, weaving around skyscrapers and swinging dangerously close to traffic. Spider-Man was a barely mastered roller coaster ride.
There were scenes, characters, and poses that I had previously only seen on paper come to life before my eyes. The words I was only reading now were spoken by real humans (not at a comic book convention).
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Shit, it still sends shivers down my spine.
Oh, and then there’s that kiss. You know this one.
More than any other film that came before it, Spider-Man was an animated comic.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Spider-Man has always been the people’s superhero. Superman is too perfect. A too platonic ideal. Batman is cool, but he’s too brooding. And too rich to be truly relatable. But Spidey, you can relate – a geeky kid who gets bullied at school and is in love with the sexy girl. He’s what all comic book nerds wish they were.
Loading
It really is a coming of age story. Spider-Man is about a child exploring his newfound strength and freedom and learning to deal with the consequences of his actions.
And if Peter Parker wakes up to find he can now shoot a sticky white liquid isn’t an analogy for a boy going through puberty, I don’t know what is.
There was also the New York City element. Spidey has always been tied to the city in the comics, but with the film’s release less than a year after 9/11, that connection grounded the film in time, place, and mood.
There’s a scene where the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) forces Spider-Man to choose between saving the love of his life or a cable car full of children. And as they fight, we see a crowd of people on the bridge throwing things at the green goblin and defending their man.
“You take one of us, you take all of us.”
Sounds corny now, but it affects.
The start of something big
2002 was a different time in pop culture. Superheroes were still a niche. Only kids (and the adults you were legally allowed to make fun of) were supposed to like comics. Some have even resorted to calling them graphic novels just to give us some credence (not me though – they’ll always be comics to me).
These days, we never have to wait more than a few weeks for a new comic book movie or a new streaming show. The highest-grossing movies of the past five years are all based on comic books.
But if you want to know how it all started, Spider-Man is a good place to start.
To put it into perspective, only 25 live-action English-language superhero movies were released in the 20 years before Spider-Man. Over the next 20 years, we’ve had 95. Recent examples include strange doctor and Mrs. Wonder.
Do not mistake yourself. It’s not that these new movies aren’t good. For the most part, they are fun and are obviously still very popular.
Loading
But I don’t think I can watch a superhero movie in 2022 with the same sense of awe and wonder I had watching Spider-Man in 2002. We’ve just seen it all before.
How many more origin stories can we take? They’re all basically the same – someone loses a parent figure, then a miraculous event gives them superpowers and they start fighting a big bad bad guy. Rinse and repeat.
And how high can we raise the physical stakes without getting diminishing returns on the emotional stakes? We destroyed cities, countries, planets, multiverses, killed half the world’s population and then brought them back.
To paraphrase my dear Uncle Ben (rest in peace):
“With great intellectual property comes great responsibility.”
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but sometimes I miss seeing superheroes saving a baby from a burning building.
The good with the bad
Seeing Spider-Man again, you really see how far special effects have come in 20 years. The green screen work has aged poorly, though the Spidey and Green Goblin flight scenes still hold up.
And one of the benefits of having so many comic book movies is that it allows for more culturally diverse representation in both talent and storytelling in the genre. Notable examples are Black Panther (2018) and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), or even Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018).
Looking at all the Spidey movies, I wouldn’t even say Spider-Man is the best. I would put its sequel, Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) slightly ahead.
But it remains the purest experience of the character, as well as a turning point in the history of cinema. For better or for worse, the world (and my world) would never be the same.
That kid in the picture isn’t me. But he’s how the movie made me feel in that dark cinema in 2002.
Christian Harimanow is the Supervising Video Producer and Occasional Writer at ABC Everyday. He’s a radioactive spider bite away from being a superhero too.
ABC Everyday in your inbox
Get our newsletter for the best of ABC Everyday every week
Job , updated
#years #SpiderMan #reached #peak #superhero #ABC #everyday