What Makes a Hero

Spider-Man is my favorite super hero. Superman is too perfect, too powerful, too everything. Batman is too aristocratic, and his villains are just goofy. Of all the well-known comic book series to generate major spin-off movies and television series over the years, Spider-Man is by far the best, for one simple reason: The characters actually have some dramatic depth. Spider-Man is the most human. All his powers are limited. He always seems to be the underdog in every major fight he gets into, but his primary asset is just his resilience. He has pluck and determination. He constantly gets smashed against a brick wall a few times before he finally seems to pick himself up, as if to say, “Hey, I’m Spider-Man, gosh darn it! I’m better than this!” Spider-Man has regrets. He makes mistakes. He is in love. He is a good person torn to pieces by a secret identity, an awesome responsibility too big for his shoulders. We love him for all of these reasons.

He is not perfect, but Peter Parker is a good-hearted person. He is humble and loyal. This is my biggest grip with the new Spider-Man 3 movie: The dark side of Peter Parker / Spider-Man is anger and revenge, perhaps a touch of envy—not vanity. See, he can fight crime all day and still never bring his uncle back. He is misunderstood, and that hurts. His relationship with Mary Jane constantly suffers, not because he is too self-absorbed to pay attention to her, but really for the opposite reason. He is simply too busy with the responsibility of his double life as a crime fighter to pay attention to his own love life. The dark Spidey in this new movie is too dumb. The alien suit is supposed to be powerful, not petty. The scene where Peter Parker dances in the jazz bar to get revenge on Mary Jane is not just painfully over-the-top, it totally misses the point. Peter Parker would never act that way, dark side or not. He is just not vain. The suit was supposed to make him more aggressive, not a laughable jackass.

Thankfully, the movie begins to redeem itself shortly after its most painfully stupid sequence. A more believable dark side comes out when Peter unleashes his anger at the bouncer, and in a berserk fit of ‘roid rage, indiscriminately knocks Mary Jane to the floor before finally coming back to his senses and realizing the horror of what he has become. The real Spider-Man steps forth. Some may rightly criticize that the movie had too much going on to do any of it well. The first half of the movie was plodding and unconvincing. But the final battle, with good Spider-Man and good-turned-bad-turned-good-again Harry Osborne teamed up against the evil twin of Spider-Man and the misunderstood criminal-cum-flying pile of sand, made it all seem worth it. It was a satisfying conclusion to a movie that fell well short of what it might have been. And I love how the re-found Peter Parker finally forgives the man who shot his father. This is what Spider-Man is really about: character in the face of adversity—not some cheesy American flag waving in the background as Spider-Man comes flying to the rescue.