Editing Marvel Comics (section)

===Spider-Man===
Arguably the most famous Marvel superhero who isn't part of a team full-time, though he often tags along with the Avengers during cosmic events to be the normal-ish guy who gets wowed by all the crazy shit going on. Spider-Man was Stan Lee's attempt to get away from the "kid sidekick" trope, which he loathed, by creating a fully independent teenage superhero - Peter Parker, a brilliant but socially awkward youth from a blue-collar background who gained fantastic spider-like powers after being bitten by an irradiated spider. At first he tries to use his powers to make money, but soon his Uncle Ben is murdered in karmic fashion by a robber that Peter could have stopped but selfishly chose not to. Devastated, Peter vows to live up to his uncle's creed that "with great power, there must also come great responsibility" and strikes out as a costumed vigilante, which tends to fuck up his attempts to live a normal life as a student, scientist and bachelor quite righteously.

Of course, that's just the original article. As one of Marvel's most bankable heroes (only rivaled by the Hulk and the X-Men, at least before the company got some movies that didn't suck under its belt) Spidey has a set of rivals, spin-offs and legacy characters to rival Batman. Here's a ''short'' list:

* '''Spider-Woman''': Once upon a time Marvel brought out a character called Power Man and DC immediately trademarked Power Girl. Stan Lee, realizing this kind of petty dick-waving would be a theme, started pushing "-Woman" versions of all their popular characters. That's the only reason this character exists, so there's been at least six different characters with the name and all of them have throwaway backstories that make minimal sense and are ultimately interchangeable.
* '''Scarlet Spider''': From the infamous Clone Saga comes this asshole. Long story short, there was a clone of Peter Parker created, nobody was sure who was the original at first, and the guy who thought he was a clone went off, dyed his hair blonde, changed his name to Ben Reilly, and created a new identify for himself as the Scarlet Spider. The original plan was for Peter to retire and Ben to replace him, but when the Clone Saga became a punchline he was just sort of there and became a backup Spidey who shows up every so often.
* '''Miles Morales''': The "reimagined for modern audiences" Spider-Man, being black ''and'' Mexican ''and'' from a broken home. Originally the Ultimate series' Spider-Man (where he was bitten by the same spider that bit Ultimate Peter and took up the suit out of guilt when the latter was killed) but made the jump when Marvel blew up the Ultimate universe, as one of its most popular characters. Either you love this guy for being a race-swap that doesn't ''totally'' suck or you hate him for being massively overexposed and having no real personality beyond "the black Spidey".
* '''Spider-Man 2099''': In the [[Cyberpunk]] future of 2099, Alchemax scientist Miguel O'Hara tries to quit his job. In response, his employer doses him with a highly addictive and mutagenic drug they have a monopoly on to force his continued employment. In desperation, Miguel tries to splice his own DNA with a known-good backup, but the procedure is sabotaged with arachnid genes instead of his own. Fortunately, this only gives him spider-powers instead of killing him. After saying he's the historical figure Spider-Man in jest, he realizes taking that identity is actually a good idea. Easily the most successful 2099 series, in large part because he's not the original ''but in the future'', and has his own substantially different powers (venomous fangs and gliding) and costume.

====The Many Loves of Spidey====
Since Spider-Man's core appeal is "unlucky everydude tries and usually fails to successfully juggle real life and crime fighting", of course he's got to have a lovelife as part of that. There's actually been a lot of different ladies who have dated or at least flirted with Peter Parker over the decades, but as far as /tg/ is concerned, there are only three girls who really matter: Gwen Stacey, Felicia Hardy, and Mary Jane Watson.

*'''Gwen Stacey''' was the very first love interest introduced in the series, and most widely remembered for the fact that her death at the hands of Spidey's archenemy the Green Goblin issued in the Bronze Age of Comics. In fact, she's not really remembered for much else! This is because she was introduced at a time when Steve Ditko was writing and, well, Ditko was a hardcore Objectivist, so those early stories about her tended to really, really ''suck'' in so far as portraying her and Peter having any sort of relationship. She did get better after Ditko left and new writers took over, but frankly she never really was handled all that well, and is mostly remembered for being the first and being the one who got killed.
*'''Mary Jane Watson''' was the second girl introduced as Peter's potential love interest, and in fact showed up for the first time whilst Peter was technically dating Gwen Stacey. Her exotic charm, sassy personality and the fact she had much more presentation as somebody with a life outside of being just "Peter's Girlfriend", which was ironically part of an attempt to keep her ''from'' overshadowing Gwen, led to fans vastly preferring her. Once Gwen died, Mary Jane became the defacto love interest, which ultimately was cemented when they got married and even nearly had a kid together. Unfortunately, that was disastrously ended in the much-hated "One More Day" storyline.
*'''Felicia Hardy/Black Cat''' was the third major love interest in Peter's life, and was essentially the "80s bad girl" counterpart to Mary Jane. A wealthy and beautiful heiress turned jewel thief, Felicia was always depicted as the more shallow of the two girls compared to Mary Jane. In particular, being an adrenaline junkie who shunned Peter's guilt-laden moral trappings, she was vastly more interested in the side of him that was Spider-Man - a man of action, confidence and death-defying stunts - than in the insecure, guilt-riddled and somewhat unhinged "Parker side" underneath.

To give you an idea of just how much Mary Jane and Felicia came to overshadow Gwen Stacey; in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon, widely considered the best Spidey animated adaptation, they dropped Gwen Stacey entirely. Instead, Felicia was presented as Peter's first love, a Veronica-esque rich girl that Peter constantly tried to date, but never could get her to take him seriously - she even absorbed Gwen's role of being Peter's excuse for putting off meeting Mary Jane until Aunt May finally sprung her on him and he learned she was actually a hot redhead.