I love superheroes. This is pretty much a given in our day and age, as comic book movies consistently break the box office. We all love heroes. Over the past couple of years my passion for superheroes has only grown as I’ve spent hours upon hours lost in the world of comic books. With everything superhero related I’ve watched and read, one thing has always remained the same since I was a kid: my adoration for Spider-Man. In my opinion, he is far and away the best of the best when it comes to our super powered role models.

There’s something to be said for heroes like Superman and Captain America. They stand for something. They represent hope and goodness and honor – all the things for which we strive. They are heroes we can always look up to and admire. But sometimes this is too much. We can always look up to them, but in many ways we can never relate to them. They are better than us, and in many ways better than we ever could be. They are almost too perfect. Granted, as you delve deeper into each of their histories you may find some flaws, but overall they just stand far above us. There’s practically nothing wrong with them. They are too idealistic. I’ve never felt this way with our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Sure, web-swinging and climbing up walls might be a little out of my league, but there’s just something about his character that’s relatable. He is, at his core, just a regular guy dealing with a lot of regular guy issues. Beneath the fights with Doc-Ock and his day to day dealings with the Avengers is this nerdy high school student who gets bullied as he deals with tight money situations and strained relationships – two things we can all relate to. We constantly get to see inside the head of an insecure teenager as he tries to figure out how to talk to a girl he likes. He worries constantly about what people think of him and how he will be received. It’s normal. It’s relatable. It brings this superhero close to home in a way most other heroes can’t. It reminds us that these problems we have aren’t weird – even our heroes struggle with them.

Peter Parker is far from perfect. While he definitely maintains that basic “goodness” we look for in our heroes, the flaws still break through time after time. In a lot of circumstances, Spidey struggles with anger and pride. Throughout high school, Peter is severely bullied by a future friend of his, Flash Thompson. We can see the anger boiling up as he deals with Flash’s crap day in and day out. It takes everything within him to hold back his anger, knowing that with his newly acquired spider powers he could break Flash like a twig. Yet he (mostly) holds back. Even when Flash is gone, Peter finds himself living within the grasp of another bully, his boss, J. Jonah Jameson.  Again, Peter must fight his anger. Now consider pride. This is most clearly seen in the death of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. As she is thrown off of a bridge by the villainous Green Goblin, Spidey shoots his webs after her to catch her. As he catches her, he calls out, “Spider powers, I love you! Not only am I the most dashing hero on two legs…I’m easily the most versatile. Who else could save a falling girl from certain dea—.” He is stopped short as he realizes that perhaps he isn’t as great a hero as he thought he was. He didn’t save his girlfriend. Despite his best efforts, Gwen was dead. Suddenly, Peter Parker found himself on his knees and in tears, suffering perhaps the greatest loss he ever would experience. It was a striking lesson in pride that he would never forget. The mistakes don’t stop there. Peter’s uncle is even killed as a result of his selfish, “look-out-for-number-one” attitude. It’s something with which he never stops struggling. It haunts him, and it gives him that drive to be a true hero. It serves as a constant reminder that, “With great power comes great responsibility”. It’s out of this tragic death that Spider-Man was born.

There’s even more depth to this hero. Another thing that’s great about Spider-Man is that, despite all of his many hardships, he still holds on to that fun-loving personality and quick-wit we all know and love. He lost his parents when he was just a kid, lost his only male role model in Uncle Ben, lost his true love Gwen Stacy because he couldn’t keep her safe, and suffered through the self-destruction/death of his best friend. By the time Peter graduated college, he’d been through more than most of us will go through in a lifetime. Despite that, the jokes keep coming. The smile may get buried underneath his brokenness for a while, but it’s never gone for good. Our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man remains just that: friendly. It’s this very fun-loving nature that we all need in our lives.

A good story always has a lesson. Not some cheesy over-the-top in your face kind of lesson. Just a good hidden lesson creatively woven within the story. Spider-Man, in line with this, teaches us tons of great lessons. First, he teaches us how to take even the hardships of life with a smile. Throughout the comics, Peter has something he refers to as the “Parker Luck”, which basically means everything goes exactly how he did not want them to go. The pictures he was trying to capture for his job come out blurry, his Spider-Man duties interfered with a date, and his closet was randomly turned into the negative zone portal (courtesy of Johnny Storm). Yet Peter is still able to smile, laugh, and move on. Most of the problems we face in life just aren’t worth being upset over. It’s not the end of the world. Sure, there are some things that truly wound us, and in those times it’s okay to mourn. We should mourn, as Peter did at the death of Gwen. But the other things – the little bumps in the road – just take them with a smile. If you do, life will be a whole lot better. Don’t take yourself too seriously. A second lesson we can learn from the Web-Head is that doing good is not about getting other people to like you; it’s just about doing what is right. Every time. No matter the consequences. He understands that “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you” (Peter Parker, Captain America: Civil War). So he steps in to help at every opportunity. Not for the glory, but because it’s the right thing to do. And if you just stand aside and do nothing when you have the chance to stop something terrible from happening, you are really no better than the bad guy.

To me, Spider-Man represents all of the things we love about superheroes. He is an honorable character who always puts those he loves first. Time after time he puts his life on the line for people who actively hate him (see: J. Jonah Jameson). He continues to fight for good, despite never getting recognition for it. In fact, the public usually fears and hates him, seeing him as a terrible villain. But he keeps on fighting the good fight. For Spidey, it’s not about the glory or the fame. It’s about doing what’s right. It’s about saving lives. It’s about others. As Spidey works through all of his struggles and frustrations, that is the thing that keeps on shining through. He’s someone we can look up to. Someone we can strive to be like. But he’s also someone who just reminds us of ourselves. He’s relatable, and that makes him so much more loveable. There’s a lot to like about Batman, Iron Man, the Flash, and Daredevil. Maybe you like some of these other heroes better.

But personally, I stand by the words of Captain America himself: “You [Spider-Man] took a bullet without even hesitating. When you grow up, you’re going to be the greatest of us all.”