Spider-Man turns 60: Marvel comics superhero debuted on this day in 1962

nypost.com:

a Black Spider-Man is now reality.Hoover is biracial — of Black and white ancestry — and stands at 6 feet 2 inches. And the story of his fandom illustrates an important point about New York City’s favorite super-powered wall-crawler: The appeal of the character long ago transcended its original iteration as a white, unimposing, orphaned teenager.The Spider-Man character’s classic costume, complete with wide-eyed and web-patterned mask, is a key ingredient to the character’s appeal across race, gender and nationality.

Almost anyone can imagine themselves behind it as this everyman — an underestimated smartypants who, after a quick change into head-to-toe spandex, becomes a force for good.“The older I got, slowly but surely, I saw how relatable the character was,” Hoover says. “He had to work through his struggles while still maintaining a secret identity and doing good for the people.

That kind of moral compass is powerful, especially for an impressionable mind.”More importantly, Hoover says, it’s Spider-Man’s struggle to protect his hometown that makes the character more believable than superheroes whose origin stories include wealth and influence.

No coincidence, surely, that he refers to himself as “your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”Created by the late Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man appeared in comics as early as June 1962, although the canon date of his debut is Aug.