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Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He has been featured in comic books, television shows, films, video games, novels, and plays.

Spider-Man's secret identity is Peter Parker, a teenage high school student and an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and his enemies such as the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Venom. In his origin story, Spider-Man gets his superhuman spider-powers and abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider; these include superhuman strength, speed, agility, jump, reflexes, stamina, durability, coordination and balance, clinging to surfaces and ceilings like a spider, and detecting danger with his precognition ability called "spider-sense." He also builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webs of his own design that were used for fighting his enemies and web-swinging across the city. Peter Parker originally used his powers for his own personal gain, but after his Uncle Ben was killed by a thief that Peter didn't stop, Peter begins to use his spider-powers to fight crime by becoming the superhero known as Spider-Man.

When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man comic series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens, New York, as Spider-Man's secret identity, whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" were issues to which young readers could relate.[8] While Spider-Man had all the makings of a sidekick, unlike previous teen heroes such as Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he had learn the lesson for himself that "with great power comes great responsibility" — a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man's origin story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, his late Uncle Ben Parker.