Compare And Contrast Batman And Spiderman

Jesus once spoke the words, “‘great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities’” (The Message, Luke 12.48). It is intriguing how similar this statement is to a more modern phrase written by a man who created comic book characters with supernatural abilities. “With great power comes great responsibility” (Raimi, Spider-Man). These infamous words were spoken by an uncle who wanted his nephew to understand that life isn’t always fair, but that it matters what you do with that which is thrust upon you. That nephew, after disregarding the advice and then seeing the grave result of his mistake, then made it his life motto and thus, the superhero Spider-Man was born. This webbed hero is one of the most successful
They also have their own sets of morals that dictate what they do and do not do for the public they are defending. Dubose argues “Batman…remains vigilante proper because he never compromised his crime-fighting methods to satisfy the government” (Dubose 922). In this way, he never allowed himself to be the puppet of those with political power, and therefore his morality remained firm and completely independent of external influence. He did not take into consideration which ‘villains’ the government of Gotham or the country wanted him to take on, but instead he only fought those whom he deemed wrong by his own standards (Dubose 922). Similarly, Spider-Man does not take into consideration which villain his city’s government wants him to fight next. In fact, most of the time, Spider-Man ends up fighting whoever currently has a grudge to hold against him. Because he doesn’t work inside the law, though, he is still portrayed by the fictional media of his city as a vigilante with negative connotations. So then, how is it that today, most of American society would label Spider-Man, not as a vigilante, but as a celebrated and beloved
A hero is most commonly defined as someone with impeccable character and integrity, using their gifts and training to save people in the face of fear. Now compare that definition to Peter Parker as Spider-Man: Peter doesn’t take nights off from being Spider-Man because he knows Spider-Man is needed. He saves lives on almost a day-to-day basis, sometimes by pulling a single person out of the way of a speeding truck (Webb, The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and other times by using his web-lines to keep cars filled with people from falling into the East River (Webb, The Amazing Spider-Man). Peter doesn’t even pick fights he knows he can win. He faces villains and foes that are far stronger than him, and yet, he still tries. For example, one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes is Otto Octavius—better known as Doctor Octopus. Peter meets Octavius early on in his masked career, and at first, he’s the only villain to beat Spider-Man, but when the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch gives an inspiring speech about never giving up, a determined Peter finally triumphs over Octavius (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #3). After being defeated by Spider-Man time and time again over the next few years, Octavius grows tired and creates The Sinister Six, a