Initially, Peter was depicted as 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.

These powers include superhuman strength, speed, agility, 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 builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webs of his own design, which he uses both for fighting and travel, or "web swinging" across the city.

Miles later became a superhero in his own right and was brought into mainstream continuity during the Secret Wars event, where he sometimes works alongside the mainline version of Peter.

As comics historian Greg Theakston recounts, Kirby told Lee about an unpublished character on which he had collaborated with Joe Simon in the 1950s, in which an orphaned boy living with an old couple finds a magic ring that granted him superhuman powers.

"[24]: 14  Ditko claimed in a rare interview with Jonathan Ross that the costume was initially envisioned with an orange and purple color scheme, rather than the recognizable red and blue.

[33] Lee, while claiming credit for the initial idea, had acknowledged Ditko's role, stating, "If Steve wants to be called co-creator, I think he deserves [it]".

[19] A few months after Spider-Man's introduction, publisher Goodman reviewed the sales figures for that issue and was shocked to find it was one of the nascent Marvel's highest-selling comics.

In 1968, Romita would also draw the character's extra-length stories in the comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, a proto-graphic novel designed to appeal to older readers.

However, in 1970, the Nixon administration's Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to publish an anti-drug message in one of Marvel's top-selling titles.

[39] The launch of a fourth monthly title in 1990, the "adjectiveless" Spider-Man (with the storyline "Torment"), written and drawn by popular artist Todd McFarlane, debuted with several different covers, all with the same interior content.

Superior was an enormous commercial success for Marvel,[47] and ran for 31 issues before the real Peter Parker returned in a newly relaunched The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in April 2014.

[49] In Forest Hills, Queens, New York City,[50] Midtown High School student Peter Benjamin Parker is a science-whiz orphan living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

As depicted in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), he is bitten by a radioactive spider (erroneously classified as an insect in the panel) at a science exhibit and "acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid".

[53][54] Spider-Man fights his enemies, including superpowered and non-superpowered supervillains—his archenemy and nemesis Green Goblin and then Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Chameleon, Lizard, Vulture, Kraven the Hunter, Electro, and Mysterio, defeating them one by one[55]—but Peter finds juggling his personal and superhero life difficult.

"[74] Peter publishes a book of Spider-Man photographs called Webs,[75] and returns to his Empire State University graduate studies in biochemistry in #310 (Dec.

[55] Later, however, a resurrected Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) has Mary Jane poisoned, causing premature labor and the death of her and Peter's unborn daughter.

[83] Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski began writing The Amazing Spider-Man, illustrated by John Romita Jr., beginning with volume 2, #30 (#471, June 2001).

In the comic Civil War #2 (June 2006), part of the company-wide crossover arc of that title, the U.S. government's Superhuman Registration Act leads Spider-Man to reveal his true identity publicly.

The controversial[85] storyline "One More Day" rolled back much of the fictional continuity at the behest of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who said, "Peter being single is an intrinsic part of the very foundation of the world of Spider-Man".

[85] It caused unusual public friction between Quesada and writer Straczynski, who "told Joe that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the [story] arc", but was talked out of doing so.

The fact that we had to ask for the story to move back to its original intent understandably made Joe upset and caused some major delays and page increases in the series.

We just couldn't go there....[86]In this new continuity, designed to have very limited repercussions throughout the remainder of the Marvel Universe, Parker returns to work at the Daily Bugle, which has been renamed The DB under a new publisher.

It is later revealed that it is a ruse to coerce Harry into taking the American Son armor, whom Norman had planned to kill, in order to increase public sympathy.

[92] At Loki's suggestion, Norman Osborn creates a rationale to invade Asgard, claiming the world poses a national security threat.

[102] Not long after rescuing Cindy, who went on to adopt her own heroine identity as Silk,[103][104] Spider-Man encounters a contingent of spider-people from all over the Multiverse that banded together to fight the Inheritors, a group of psychic vampires who had begun to hunt down the spider-totems of other realities.

Spider-Man's other powers include superhuman strength, speed, agility, and balance and a precognitive sixth sense referred to as his "spider-sense", which alerts him to danger.

Instead, he is often regarded as having three archenemies:[166] Peter Parker's romantic interests range between his first crush, fellow high-school student Liz Allan,[53] to having his first date with Betty Brant,[175] secretary to the Daily Bugle newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson.

[198] In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a case concerning royalties on a patent for an imitation web shooter.

In 1987, researchers at Loyola University conducted a study into the utility of Spider-Man comics for informing children and parents about issues relating to child abuse.