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The origin of Peter Parker is a Cinderella story baked into American culture at this point. A bespectacled wallflower of a boy gets bit by a radioactive spider and transforms into a man with superhuman strength, fantastic abilities, and a hefty sense of responsibility. In 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee knew what they were doing when they crafted the backstory of Marvel Comics' most popular superhero today. But what does this story mean to us as audiences in 2025?

And yet, Spidey's new Disney+ series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, reveals the web-crawler at a crossroads halfway through this decade. The show features artist Steve Ditko's original design for Peter Parker with his worried eyebrows, collared shirts, and large, circular glasses. With this extremely '60s look for Peter, we're supposed to accept that he's a nerd - ignoring how retro eyeglasses became trendy again during the 2010s, and a myriad of other changes that have happened since 1962. By committing to such a '60s aesthetic for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the show glosses over how Spider-Man's origin fundamentally doesn't work when it's transplanted decades later into the 21st century. It's a choice that feels regressive and utterly at odds with Marvel's storied history of representing 'the world outside your window.'

Let's take a step back and consider Peter Parker as he appeared in 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15  - his first appearance in comic books. Peter was a vessel where artist Steve Ditko could represent himself, a skinny and bookish guy with glasses, as a hero. This was an approach that made Spider-Man a pioneering superhero. This was postwar America after all, where the continental United States had emerged from the war victorious and without the battle scars of their European allies. In this environment, young men like Peter Parker were encouraged to drink milk, grow strong bones, play football, watch John Wayne movies, and embody a hearty sense of American masculinity. America was strong, and so were its young men! 

But of course, not everyone wanted to or even could conform to this ideal. Guys like Matt Murdock or Steve Ditko would rather stay home reading or drawing than play baseball. For us today, we might not bat an eye at this type of behavior, but to mainstream American society back in the '60s, it was laughable. And this is why heroes like Spider-Man and Daredevil were born in the first place. They expanded a notion of the heroic to include guys who weren't John Wayne. 

With all this in mind, Peter Parker's characterization in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is ludicrous. The show is set at an indeterminable time in the 21st century, where kids who look like Peter Parker are seen as nerdy even if they listen to alt-j (do teenagers even listen to alt-j still in 2025?). Our hero has apparently never learned the "knowledge is power" lesson because he feels inadequate on the dating scene for not being an athlete. And then he is surprised when a football star he's paired up with for a project is actually smart - ignoring the competitive reality and high-achieving culture that was certainly present in the New York City that I grew up in. What are we doing here? This series is being released into a world where Jack Quaid and Bob Odenkirk are legitimate Hollywood action stars. Why are we pretending that New York City, of all places, is still mired in retrograde ideals? 

Spider-Man was groundbreaking in the '60s because he proved that anyone, including you, could become a hero. His nerdy personality was a way to establish a universality to his story among Marvel readers at the time. But in today's world, where just about everyone including scholar athletes loves Spider-Man, his 1962 characterization just isn't going to cut it. It's because of stories like Silver Age Spider-Man that we've evolved beyond looking at each other in such simplistic terms. Isn't it time we honor that instead of pretending that we haven't changed at all?

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