On one innocent field trip, mild manner Peter Parker was transformed into the Spectacular Spiderman.  After his uncle was murdered by a robber he inadvertently aided, Peter fights for justice and protects those in need from the scum of New York.  Squaring up against the likes of the Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter, the Rhino, the Sandman, Doc Oc, and countless others, Spiderman upholds the last piece of wisdom bestowed upon him by his uncle Ben who said "With great power comes great responsibility."  None of those villians could compare, however, to the amazing power of Venom.  Venom, previously Eddie Brock, was created once the symbiote suit Spiderman had worn and removed made its way onto Eddie one night.  Due to the time the suit had spent with Spidey, it was familiar with, and able to mimic, all of his abilities and moves.  The most dangerous of Venom's abilities is that he is virtually invisible to Spiderman's spider sense making him unpredictable.  Combine this with his already unstable state of mind and Venom becomes a powerhouse the likes of which no hero can/should take lightly.

Over the years, Spiderman has donned many suits. There's the classic red and blue, the black symbiote and the black stitched suit(made by the black cat to keep spidey looking stylish), but there have also been many revisions to the story of Spiderman in order to make the hero more compatible with the current markets. He has been launched into space in the series Spider-man Unlimitedas he chases Venom and Carnage to a New York themed city on the moon. The premise was smart, but it was a very short lived series, most likely due to the poor story lines and the odd-ball costume Spidey was running around in. More recently, the comic series Ultimate Spider-man was written in order to modernize the story, making it more graphic and edgy in comparison with the original story lines of the 60's. The basic origin story still remains the same. It is in the villains and in Peter himself that we see the change. Peter, though he is still an awkward genius, becomes much more of a relatable character for teens as we see him struggling to grow through adolescence while balancing his relationship with Mary Jane, among others(like Kitty Pryde), and caring for his sweet aunt May by working at the Daily Bugle as a website technician. His villains become much more deadly, stopping at nothing to ensure that Spiderman pays for interfering in their affairs. It is truly a series worth reading. Since the latest Ultimatum fiasco, however, the Ultimate Spider-man series has since ended. But the stories will soon be continued in a new series on its way to market very soon.

Marvel has really cashed in on the Spider-man franchise with the release of three full length features to this date. Tobey McGuire has done an excellent job portraying the wall crawler and creating two very distinct characters, mild-mannered Peter Parker and the wise-cracking Spider-man. The first Spiderman flick, one of the highest grossing movies in history, unites a star-studded cast into a very well written story following the creation of Spider-man and his first villain. This movie does a great job of introducing the difficulty Peter finds in juggling all aspects of his life and how he sacrifices his own happiness for the greater good. Overall, this great performance really show cases one of Stan Lee's most iconic characters. It was soon followed by Spider-man 2, a film featuring the incredibly insane mind of Dr. Octopus. This, too, was a very good movie, but it is entirely too long and there is way too much time spent on Peter and M.J.'s relationship. Once you look past that, you see amazing fight scenes between Spidey and the Doc, and we get a glimpse into the shattered remnants of Harry Osbornes' psyche. Finally, the third and final film, at this current date, was easily the worst of the three. They force the Sandman and Venom into the same movie, but waste so much time on Peter's transformation with the suit that Venom, one of the greatest villains of all time, is left with only half an hour of screen time. Then, instead of leaving room for him to return in another film for more of a Venom and Spidey feud, they kill him off essentially ruining the reputation of Spider-man's most dreaded foe. To top this off, we see a very poor performance by Toby McGuire as the "evil" Spidey. Truthfully, I think him pretending to be bad was worse than listening to Topher Grace whining in the bell tower about Peter Parker ruining his life.  Plus, they treated the symbiote as if it was a piece of clothing when its main resistance in the comics comes from its inability to be removed with ease.  If this trend continues in any future Spidey flics, it can be assumed that it will only be going downhill from here.