Art by Paco Medina
- Name: Peter Palmer
- Code Names: Spider Man
- First Appearance: X-Men #35 (Aug ‘67)
- Powers: Does whatever a spider can
- Teams Affiliation: The Amazing Friends
About
With great power comes great merchandising potential. There are more toys, wrapping paper tubes, sippy cups, and bags of confetti with the Spider Man logo on it than all other superheroes combined. Turns out kids love a man in a skin tight red jumper. Pete’s sweet uncle Ben getting killed might have been the best thing for him because now he gets all that good good synergy. And you know the only thing more synergistic than a movie/comic/toy/cartoon universe? Tying all of that in with the X-Men.
Portrayed by Tobey Maguire
Peter was a loner who was a bit of a jerk to literally everyone. They didn’t care about science or wheat cakes or sweater vests and were therefore beneath him. He got bit by a spider, got spider powers, and did whatevery teen would do, become a professional wrestler. Spidey, finally having a reason for being so arrogant, decided not to stop a robber because he just didn’t feel like it. That robber ended up vaporizing his sweet, perfect angel of an Uncle Ben and Spider Man decided he would commit his life to doing what Ben would have wanted, helping support his very poor Aunt who loved him and raised him dressing like a spider and punching animal and/or goblin themed bad guys.
Art by Joe Quinones, Joe Rivera, and Rico Renzi
He gained a motley crew of supporting characters like his best friend with stupid cornrows, his best friend’s evil dad, the perfect blonde woman who was secretly in love with his best friend’s evil dad, the red head who the internet just needs to get over, and the most perfect character in the world, John Jonah Jameson Jr. He met up with the WASP-iest mutants of them all, the original X-Men but they didn’t get along because Uncle Ben never taught him what consent was.
Art by Gil Kane and Steve Mitchell
When the SJW got ahold of the X-Men and made them “diverse”, Spider Man viewed Arcade abduct someone and decided to call the X-Men so they could handle it. He was tired of these illegals not pulling their own weight (and don’t try and tell me that the commie Colossus had a visa, he was just over here stealing our superhero jobs). They hung out a couple more times and Peter decided they couldn’t be trusted when they tried to help an old Holocaust victim survive on Battleworld. He stopped returning their phone calls, probably because Spider Man was just too busy teaching the Beyonder how to poop.
Art by Al Milgrom, Steve Leialoah, and M. Hands
Spider Man stopped doing stuff with the X-Men but X-Force was a whole other ball game. They decided to team up alongside two of the Image founders for a fun little jaunt where they didn’t stop the Juggernaut from destroying one of the World Trade Center towers in a story that is retroactively super insensitive. He spent the rest of the 90’s getting cloned and being upset that the X-Men were beating him in sales.
Art by The Rob
Spider Man avoided the X-Men as much as he could but as the 90’s ended he reclaimed his sales titles. As revenge, Teen Jean swapped Sinkt Bub’s mind with the human spider but wasn’t ready for all the nonconsensual actions Wolverine would take. Spider Man continued his bigotry towards mutants after that.
Art by Mark Bagley, Scott Hanna, and J.D. Smith
There was one mutant he respected, Wolverine. Wolverine was the only X-Men popular enough to sustain a solo ongoing and the two bonded when Brian Michael Bendis decided that the Avengers just needed to stop trying to make Wonder Man happen and only focus on the cool and interesting characters. Spidey grew to love Logan’s rough demeanor and Logan loved that fact the Peter never counted the cash in his wallet. The two became fast friends.
Art by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, and Chris Chuckry
In a last-ditch effort to boost sales, Marvel killed off Wolverine, leaving a vacancy at his school. Instead of filling it with any of the X-Men on this list who weren’t being used, they decided that Spider Man should go to Westchester and teach these minority students. He decided to use this opportunity to take the students on dangerous trips to fight dinosaur men with bad intentions instead of, you know, math. Since then he has become a highly successful CEO and decided not to donate any of that money to the M-Pox crisis.
Art by Marco Failla and Ian Herring
Must Read
This is easy, One More Day is the touching story about a man sacrificing everything to protect the woman he loves. Spider Man goes to the depths of hell to save his sickly, geriatric aunt, giving up almost twenty years of character development so that she could have a few more months on this Earth. You can find it on Marvel Unlimited or at the end of several longboxes whose owners decided it was the perfect ending to their Spider Man collection.
Ranking
Spider Man is loved by babies everywhere. thinks things he is great and that one movies wasn’t so bad. He was a neat teacher and did some cool stuff I guess. I think the joke of this article has gotten stale and we can all accept that ranking him isn’t going actually happen so Happy April Fool’s and keep on swinging.
Spider-Man (who, yes, I know has a hyphen in his name nerds) was requested by /u/KookyGuy and /u/temporal712 from the /r/comicbooks Discord server. They are jerks and no one should be friends with them. If you have a request for someone who is actually related to the X-Men how about you send it below? If you want to cut to the front of the line, we have a Patreon you can support for just $1 to get a line cutting reward.
Make sure you check out Legion Quest a new podcast where me and Newsarama reviewer Matt Sibley talk about the FX show Legion. You can follow the show at any of these sources (iTunes | Google Play | Sticher | RSS).
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Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
