What is your Spider-Man?

[HAVOK78]

I grew up on 86-88 Spider-Man, but what really caught me was the Mcfarlane / Larsen era, I was 12-15 during that time.SPIDEY2.jpg

[Frontier]

I grew up with the 90's cartoon and Spectacular, as well as the Raimi films, so those all kind of coalesce into my ideal vision of Peter Parker and Spider-Man .

[Celgress]

Pretty much a tie for me between 1980s' 616 Spider-Man comic wise and Spectacular Spider-Man animated series wise. I'm still sad they canceled the series just as it was truly coming into its own.

[Scott Taylor]

Its the Ross Andru Spider-Man of the 1970s for art, and the Bendis Spider-Man for writing. He just nailed things in a way not seen since Lee. But more modern and better than Lee.

[normanosborn]

It's Otto Octavius, the Superior Spider-Man. A superhero with another secret identity on top of his secret identity. A bad guy doing the right thing with the wrong methods. High stakes and big surprises and changes in every issue.

The meta aspect, with how die-hard Peter fanboys saw Otto as "a menace", just like JJJ, was awesome too. The online drama was hilarious, except for the death threats. Those weren't cool.

Such a shame that he had to die just because Sony put out a bad film. However, I'm glad that Otto got a definite arc with a clear beginning, middle and end.

[oldschool]

Its the Ross Andru Spider-Man of the 1970s for art, and the Bendis Spider-Man for writing. He just nailed things in a way not seen since Lee. But more modern and better than Lee.

That's a unique take---but one that I can totally agree with! Still wish Bendis would write Peter in ASM someday soon...

[charliehustle415]

Bendis' Peter is definitely mine. I grew up with the Raimi films and casually watched a few cartoons, but read the Ultimate comics last year and now "my" Peter Parker is forever Bendis' take on him. As far as art goes, I LOVED David Lafuente's run on the series so either him or David Marquez.

This is exactly how I feel, his Ultimate Spidey will forever by my Peter Parker. I loved his characterization, the art, and the fitting conclusion. What an achievement of greatness, no reboots, no deals with the devils, no weird status quo changes, everything just fit and meshed so well together.

[Moral_Gutpunch]

I grew up with the 90's cartoon and Spectacular, as well as the Raimi films, so those all kind of coalesce into my ideal vision of Peter Parker and Spider-Man .

These are mine too, with a dash of 90's Spider-Man--not the EXTREME!!! versions, but the one where he's an adult and acting like one and having adult problems.

[JGC]

So many to choose from! While I agree with a few already mentioned, I'll throw out the PAD/Rich Buckler run from PP:SSM #'s 103-136. As a kid in the 80's, those Spidey stories were intense and beautiful to look at as I was just getting into comics.

[oldschool]

So many to choose from! While I agree with a few already mentioned, I'll throw out the PAD/Rich Buckler run from PP:SSM #'s 103-136. As a kid in the 80's, those Spidey stories were intense and beautiful to look at as I was just getting into comics.

One of my favorite eras! I wasn't quite a kid then (more like college age) but that was a run that had me excited for each and every issue and was also different enough from the main title to truly have it's own identity. That run still holds up very, very well.

[SuperiorIronman]

I figure this is more referring to Peter Parker as he is sort of the default spider-man, but I grew up with Ben Reilly. Despite movies and even the 90's cartoon, Ben is whom I generally think of when I think about Spider-man. Despite all the crap the Clone Saga got, it wasn't that bad. It could have ended much sooner but there is a lot of good that came out of that era. Ben as Spider-man was just awesome for me even with all of the 90's cheese.

[JBatmanFan05]

My Spidey is basically 3 writers: Stan Lee (first and foremost), Gerry Conway, and Roger Stern. My Spidey writer holy trinity of classic Spidey.

[comicscollector]

Still the Spider Man written by Stan Lee.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

Pretty much any pre-OMD version works for me. They all had their charm.

[Dangerous]

I don't have one definitive version, more like several different interpretations that really clicked with me and define Spider-Man...

-'The Spider-Man 5000' & 'Amazing Friends' cartoon shows from the 1980's were my introduction to Spidey and were kinda magical.
PP/SM's playful personality in those shows, the bright red & blue Romita SR styled costume, the voice actors, the fun villains, it just all clicked.

-The Lee/Ditko/Romita/Conway/Kane eras of ASM. In the truest sense this is Spider-Man. There have been great writers on Spidey over the years, but essentially Stan Lee is still the best. Someone once said Peter Parker is basically Stan Lee personality wise back in the 1960's, and once Lee/Romita got into their groove and you had the Coffee Bean gang of Pete, Gwen, MJ, Flash, Harry, that's golden era of Spidey comics. That stuff still stands up today as being the best era imo.

-The Stern/JRJR era was amazing because it was like an improvement on the Stan Lee era in a sense,- a 100% accurate portrayal of Peter Parker, but with smarter storylines, new villains after two decades of spamming the 1960's villains and JRJR's beautiful classic art style.

-The McFarlane/Larsen era of the late 80's early 90's. Those guys revolutionised/updated the aesthetics for a new era and just blew people's minds. Plus the intro and early apps of Venom, the way they drew MJ etc, all that stuff was amazing.

-Other than that Sal Buscema & Humberto Ramos both deserve a shoutout for being genius artists who really brought a style all their own to the character.

EDIT- I also love the darker storylines such as 'The death of Jean Dewolff', 'Kraven's Last Hunt' & 'Torment'.
That's another one of the things I love about Spidey- you can have him in really dark stories, or much lighter one's and neither seem out of place.
I can't think of another character where that's the case.

EDIT EDIT- Props to The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon too, that was a great show!