Canadian Politics Today

Poor Peter.  Who is that again ?  Is that his real name ?

Peter Parker is Spiderman. He's the nervous kid who gets yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson at work every day.

In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to come up with a new superhero team. Lee's wife suggested him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.[31][32]

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems.[33] Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters[34] who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, and vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill.

The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created together was the Fantastic Four, based on previous Kirby superhero team Challengers of the Unknown published by DC Comics[35] The team's immediate popularity[36] led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. Again working with Kirby, Lee co-created the Hulk,[37] Thor,[38] Iron Man,[39] and the X-Men;[40] with Bill Everett, Daredevil;[41] and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange[42] and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man,[43] all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe.[44] Lee and Kirby gathered several of their newly created characters together into the team title The Avengers[45] and would revive characters from the 1940s such as the Sub-Mariner[46] and Captain America.[47]

All these characters had crosses to bear.  The man in the Iron Man suit, Tony Stark, is an alcoholic. The Incredible Hulk is, at its core, about a man trying to deal with mental illness. The X-Men is, at its core, about racism and xenophobia.  Daredevil is blind. Thor and Dr Strange are often egotistical, selfish, and thoroughly unlikable... their greatest enemy is often themselves. And Spiderman is about a young man trying to grow into adult responsibilities, be it the taking care of Aunt May type or the "with great power comes great responsibility" type.

 -k