According to Stan Lee, the founder of Marvel Comics gave him three reasons why Spider-Man would never succeed as a superhero, including the fact that “people hate spiders,” but Lee insisted on including the character in Amazing Fantasy #15, changing the trajectory of comic book history forever, and proving his boss wrong.
Comic Book Artist #2, a magazine devoted to the comic industry, included a fascinating piece entitled “A Conversation Between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas,” two all-time Marvel greats.
The pair conducted a wide-ranging interview about Stan’s tenure with Marvel, during which he elaborated on the fact that the publisher nearly shot Spider-Man down.
Stan Lee Faced Pushback From Marvel’s Founder On His Spider-Man Pitch, But He Perservered To Create An Icon
As Stan Recounted In Comic Book Artist #2
Martin Goodman founded Timely Comics, which eventually evolved into Marvel. Stan Lee, a relative of Goodman’s, started working for the company during the Timely era, and in the early 1960s, he was assigned the task of reinvigorating Marvel’s superhero comics. Of course, he did this to a degree far beyond either of them could’ve anticipated, including his creation of Spider-Man.
Except he initially ran into one roadblock with the Webslinger. Goodman hated the idea, giving Lee multiple reasons why the author’s pitch for Peter Parker, and his superheroic alter ego, was a bad idea. As Stan Lee later recounted to Roy Thomas:
He said three things that I will never forget: He said people hate spiders, so you can’t call a hero “Spider-Man”; then when I told him I wanted the hero to be a teenager, as he was in the beginning, Martin said that a teenager can’t be a hero, but only be a sidekick; and then when I said I wanted him not to be too popular with girls, and not great-looking or a strong, macho-looking guy, but just a thin, pimply high school student, and Martin said, “Don’t you understand what a hero is?” At the same time, I also said that I wanted him to have a lot of problems, like that he doesn’t have enough money and he’d get an allergy attack while he was fighting. Martin just wouldn’t let me do the book. Normally, I’d have forgotten about it, but when we were doing the last issue of Amazing Fantasy, I put it in there. So I must have felt that he was important somehow, or I wouldn’t have bothered.
In other words, everything that made Spider-Man an immediate hit, Marvel resoundingly rejected at first.
However, as fate would have it, Stan Lee decided not to take “no” for an answer, and included the character in the anthology comic Amazing Fantasy #15. The rest, as they say, is history. At every turn, Lee and the character’s success proved Martin Goodman’s initial reaction wrong, highlighting Lee’s status as an innovative and outside-the-box thinker.
“Spider-Man” Was Stan Lee’s Big Swing, And It Paid Off Beyond Marvel’s Wildest Dreams
It Is Impossible To Imagine Marvel Without Spidey
Amazing Fantasy #15 was published at the start of the summer of 1962, and Spider-Man’s popularity was immediately evident; within just a few months, by the end of the summer, The Amazing Spider-Man #1 was on shelves, written by Stan Lee. It became an instant centerpiece of Marvel’s burgeoning roster of superheroes.
Publisher Martin Goodman wasn’t saying anything outrageous by being skeptical of Stan Lee’s concept for Spider-Man, but…if he’d had his way, Marvel Comics, and comics in general, would look radically different today
In the sixty-plus years since, Spider-Man has never faltered in that leading role; the character continues to rank among the most recognizable, most iconic, and most beloved superheroes in the medium’s history, and as one of Marvel’s unofficial mascots. All of that was the result of Stan Lee believing in his vision for the character.
Speaking for the prevailing wisdom of the time, Marvel founder and publisher Martin Goodman wasn’t saying anything outrageous by being skeptical of Stan Lee’s concept for Spider-Man, but ultimately, if he’d had his way, Marvel Comics, and comics in general, would look radically different today, and not for the better.
Source: Comic Book Artist #2, “A Conversation Between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas”
- First Appearance
-
Amazing Fantasy
- Alias
-
Peter Parker, Ben Reilly, Otto Octavius, Yu Komori, Kaine Parker, Pavitr Prabhakar, William Braddock, Miles Morales, Kurt Wagner
- Alliance
-
Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Secret Defenders, Future Foundation, Heroes for Hire, Mighty Avengers, New Avengers, Web-Warriors
- Race
-
Human
