28 December: Spider-Man

Stan Lee - creator of Spiderman with Steve Ditko, was born on this date in 1922. 10 things you might not know about Spidey.

1. He first appeared in 1962, in a comic called Amazing Fantasy #15.
2. The character was inspired by a 1930s pulp hero called Richard Wentworth, aka "The Spider", a billionaire who wasn't a mutant, but more of a Batman type character. Another source of inspitation was a fly climbing up a wall at the Marvel Offices. Stan Lee decided his next hero would be able to do that and started scribbling down ideas. At that point, Spiderman could have ended up being called "Stick to Wall Man", "Fly Man" or "Insect Man". The spider idea was rejected at first by the head of Marvel Comics at the time, Martin Goodman, because he didn't think people would take to it - a lot of people hate Spiders, after all.
3. He was brought up by his Aunt May - so what happened to his parents? Richard and Mary Parker were agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. who once saved Wolverine's life, before meeting a sad end in a plane crash caused by Red Skull.
4. Peter Parker got his powers while on a school trip to a science lab where he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Next day, he woke up with his superpowers. He was 15 at the time. His powers include climbing walls, his "spidey-sense" which tells him an enemy is near, and the webs he can shoot from his wrists. The webs are strong enough to restrain the Hulk, but dissolve after an hour. He also has a phenomenally fast reaction time - he is capable of shooting webs at a gun which has been fired and catching the bullet in them. Before he got his powers, Peter Parker was a science nerd plagued by bullies.
5. A famous quote attributed to Stan Lee is "With great power comes great responsibility." This quote is from the Spiderman story. At first, Peter wanted to use his new powers to get revenge on those who killed his Uncle Ben; until he remembers something his uncle used to say to him - the above quote. Those words are what made Spiderman decide to use his powers for good.
6. Spiderman's main love interest is Mary Jane Watson, but he's also had things with Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy (Black Cat) and Betty Brant, a secretary at the Daily Planet, and a schoolboy crush on Liz Allan. The storyline has him marry Mary Jane, but there's a series of the comics where a possible future is explored in which Mary Jane dies of cancer. The disease is triggered by Spiderman's radioactive sperm.
7. The licence for Spiderman is now owned by Sony who bought it after a disastrous Marvel storyline in which Peter Parker was a clone and Mary Jane was pregnant. The story was so unpopular that people stopped buying Marvel Comics in droves and nearly bankrupted the company until Sony bailed them out by buying Spiderman.
8. Tobey Maguire plays Spiderman in the movies, but he might not have done if Michael Jackson had had his way. Michael was a huge Spiderman fan and approached Stan Lee with an offer to buy the film rights so he could play the role himself. Leonardo DiCaprio was also in the running at one point.
9. Spiderman was the first teen superhero to work on his own rather than be someone else's sidekick. The Spiderman comics also developed the concept that superheroes have everyday lives and problems on top of fighting the bad guys.
10. There is a stage musical based on Spiderman. It's called Turn off the Dark. It opened on Broadway in 2011, and at the time was the most expensive musical in Broadway history, costing $1.2 million a week to run the show.

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle