In August of 1962, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko released the comic Amazing Fantasy #15, debuting one of Marvel’s most famous and beloved characters, as well as one of the most famous superheroes: Spider-Man. A boy named Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, given superpowers, and forced to learn responsibility so that he can be the best hero he can be. Fast-forward fifty-six years, and Spider-Man is still well-known to this day.
Throughout the years, Spider-Man has has gone through many different shapes and sizes. Specifically, he has had many different faces on the big and small screens. In total, Spider-Man has been in eleven movies (two of which have yet to be released), ten shows, and about twenty-three video games. Some are good, some are great, and some are absolutely terrible, such as Spider-Man 3 and Disney’s Spider-Man 2017. For now, the focus will be on the live-action ones because determining the best out of all of them would be impossible. As a way to celebrate the seemingly non-stop positive reviews and oscar for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, let’s take a look at the best live-action Spider-Man.
Just about everyone knows of the very first Spider-Man show from 1967 (it’s where most of the Spider-Man memes and the famous theme song come from), and there were a few other shows after that. However, Spider-Man first got the live-action treatment in the mid-1970s with The Amazing Spider-Man. Stan Lee sold the rights to produce the show to CBS, and it had a thirteen-episode run, but boy was it bad. Not only was it boring and made everyone in it look as stupid as possible, but Stan Lee himself hated it. In his own words, the icon stated, “They left out the humor. They left out the human interest and personality and playing up characterizations and personal problems.” Meanwhile, Japan decided to make their own Spider-Man show in 1978. It was about Peter Parker, an extremely confident racecar driver who is given powers by an alien from “Planet Spider,” and a high-tech car that docks into a giant robot. So, basically it’s Power Rangers with Spider-Man, violent-but-censored murder, and child abuse in every episode. Essentially, this series became so much of a meme that it has been featured multiple times in Spider-Verse comics.
Spider-Man was then stuck in animation-only limbo throughout the ‘80s and ‘90’s until Sam Raimi made the first of three of his well-known films in 2002 with, simply, Spider-Man. The role of Peter Parker was given to Tobey Maguire, who actually did a good job, and the movie was very successful. This allowed Raimi to produce two sequels, which, honestly, got worse as time went on. Especially Spider-Man 3, the worst of the three, which had a laughably unbearable scene where Maguire dressed as an emo teen and danced like an idiot. In addition, it was very cheesy, and a little repetitive of the last two films. Thankfully, The Spectacular Spider-Man took everything that was bad about the trilogy, and made it beautiful, but it didn’t include the previously mentioned scene. Even Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse made fun of the entire trilogy in both the very first scene and throughout the entire movie.
Welcome to 2012! The Avengers just premiered and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is truly climbing in strides! Surely, we’ll see Spider-Man team up with the Earth’s mightiest heroes, right? Wrong. See, since Sony produced the original Raimi trilogy, they still had the rights to the character, prohibiting Marvel Studios from using him. So, Sony decided to try and make their own cinematic universe entirely revolving around the wall-crawler with The Amazing Spider-Man. This time, Andrew Garfield plays the part of Peter Parker, also doing a good job, and the movie did well enough to produce a sequel. However, the main problem that everyone has with these two films is that they tried more to create their own film series instead of working with and being happy with what they already had; a great character with real problems that people can relate to.
At this point in time, Spider-Man is merely a footnote in the expanding MCU. Disney had officially bought Marvel and added it to their monopoly of franchises, so there wasn’t a show like The Spectacular Spider-Man, which had been prematurely cancelled due to the purchase, to save the character. In fact, Disney was producing its own Spider-Man cartoons (they aren’t good), which only made the situation worse. Then, in 2016, Disney had decided to exercise its power over Marvel, and bought some of the rights to Spider-Man back. This allowed him to officially debut in the MCU alongside Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War. Marvel fans were losing their minds, and absolutely loved Tom Holland as the newest incarnation of the webhead. Even Stan Lee himself tweeted “I think @TomHolland1996 is a great Spider-Man,”. The positive reception allowed Holland to have his own movie as the 15-year-old Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming. He later starred in the currently fourth highest-grossing film of all time; Avengers: Infinity War, where (spoilers) the beloved character had the saddest death scene at the end of the movie due to Tom Holland going off-script. However, Marvel had already announced the current production of Spider-Man: Far from Home, which put many of the still crying fans, such as myself , at least a little at ease.
Over the years, we’ve had three great live-action Spider-men. Say what you will about the Japanese version, but he will never compare to Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland. However, this begs the question: which of the three is the best? Most of the debates pair Maguire against Holland as the best, but everyone completely ignores Garfield. That’s mainly due to people liking the Raimi trilogy and the MCU interpretations more than Sony’s. So, that only narrows it down to Maguire and Holland. Another main factor in this discussion is that Maguire starred in the first Spider-Man movie, so many people are biassed towards that. However, Maguire’s overall portrayal was of an older Peter Parker: one who is out of highschool, out of his Aunt May’s house, and mainly trying to balance his work life with his career as Spider-Man. This is only somewhat related to the original comics. In the comics, Peter had to balance school, his part time job, and hero duty, which is more closely related to Holland’s version. Not to mention, Holland’s version of Peter is closer to the same age as the overall comic portrayal. In the MCU, Peter is a fifteen year-old sophomore, just like the comics. In addition, Holland’s Spider-Man wasn’t constantly angsty like Maguire’s. Holland made quips, and acted more like Spider-Man rather than an emo-teen version of Batman. Under those standards, Tobey Maguire is out, and Tom Holland has secured the rank of the best live-action Spider-Man! His edition of the beloved character was faithful to the comics, and still added its own creative spin on the superhero in a huge franchise of other successful superhero movies. Here’s to the best of the amazing, the spectacular, the one and only, Spider-Man!
Over the years, we’ve had three great live-action Spider-men. Say what you will about the Japanese version, but he will never compare to Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland. However, this begs the question: which of the three is the best? Most of the debates pair Maguire against Holland as the best, but everyone completely ignores Garfield. That’s mainly due to people liking the Raimi trilogy and the MCU interpretations more than Sony’s. So, that only narrows it down to Maguire and Holland. Another main factor in this discussion is that Maguire starred in the first Spider-Man movie, so many people are biassed towards that. However, Maguire’s overall portrayal was of an older Peter Parker: one who is out of highschool, out of his Aunt May’s house, and mainly trying to balance his work life with his career as Spider-Man. This is only somewhat related to the original comics. In the comics, Peter had to balance school, his part time job, and hero duty, which is more closely related to Holland’s version. Not to mention, Holland’s version of Peter is closer to the same age as the overall comic portrayal. In the MCU, Peter is a fifteen year-old sophomore, just like the comics. In addition, Holland’s Spider-Man wasn’t constantly angsty like Maguire’s. Holland made quips, and acted more like Spider-Man rather than an emo-teen version of Batman. Under those standards, Tobey Maguire is out, and Tom Holland has secured the rank of the best live-action Spider-Man! His edition of the beloved character was faithful to the comics, and still added its own creative spin on the superhero in a huge franchise of other successful superhero movies. Here’s to the best of the amazing, the spectacular, the one and only, Spider-Man!
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