The Death of Spider-Man (And My Childhood)

Ten years ago, I had just begun middle school.  I was tall, skinny, had just begun wearing glasses and was about to have my teeth (and social life) imprisoned by the metal bars of braces.

Suffice to say, middle school wasn't great for me.

But for my 12th birthday, my parents got me a subscription to Ultimate Spider-Man. As pathetic as it may sound, Peter Parker was someone I could relate to.  My brother and I would religiously watch Batman on TV, but how was I supposed to empathize with the Dark Knight?  He was everything I wasn't at the time: calm, capable and fearless.  Peter Parker, on the other hand, was bookish (read: nerdy), skinny, and had very few friends.  Now that was something I could understand.

I stopped reading Spider-Man around issue 70.  I was a different person when I made it to high school -- I was confident.  But Spider-Man has always held a soft spot in my heart for getting me through those hard years.  So, when I heard that he was going to be killed off in my childhood series, I knew I had an obligation to read it.

His death wasn't like the death of many other superheroes.  When Superman died in the 90s, it only lasted a few months.  Moreover, Superman is an all-powerful deity; Spider-Man is just a kid from Queens who feels obligated to use his (meager) powers for good.  There's something much more compelling about that, I think.

As you can guess, the web-slinger meets his end at the hands of a group of his enemies, protecting the ones he loves.  And it looks like the mantle of Spider-Man is going to be taken up by Miles Morales, an African American and Latino teenager, which is upsetting Lou Dobbs.  Apparently Dobbs isn't only worried about Latino's taking American jobs, he's also worried about them taking our crime fighting gigs.

So after 10 years, the Peter Parker I grew up with is gone.  But at least for me, he fulfilled an important purpose.  I still have all those old comic books in my parent's house in Kentucky.  As my younger foster brother nears 9, I think I know what I'm going to do with the books. I just hope they can help him through a tough few years like they did for me.