“With great power, comes great responsibility.” Spider-man is the comic book hero who most clearly mirrors the personality of America. Many people think first of Superman, and his famous line about “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” The problem is that Superman is nearly invulnerable. He has a single weakness – kryptonite – and it takes a being of nearly supreme power to actually threaten him. However, Superman seldom doubts the rightness of his actions. Superman, therefore, is not the best analogy for America, with its self-critical nature and opposing political factions. However, Superman probably is the best analogy for how the rest of the world views America. This is why so many nations are angered by our actions; they feel if we would simply help them, all would be well.
There are many more clear parallels between America and Spider-man - a character who does his best, but is clearly human, flawed, and limited in his abilities. And as Aunt May famously said to a young Peter Parker: “You’re not Superman, you know.” Like Spidey, America is sometimes selfish and unwilling to help. Other times, again like Spider-man, we are unable to help in spite of our best efforts. And still other times, our best intentions may make matters worse. In Sam Raimi’s 2002 blockbuster Spider-man, we see a young, naïve Peter Parker, who by accident is the recipient of super-powers. While he is a pleasant enough young man, he is at first simply content to use his new strength for his own benefit. He just wants to make some money. However, Peter does nothing to stop a robbery in progress, feeling that it is not “his problem.” In the course of the next scene, that same robber murders Peter’s Uncle Ben. From this traumatic experience, Spider-man is formed. Spidey becomes the embodiment of Uncle Ben’s admonition, that “with great power, comes great responsibility.”
Raimi often visually associates Spider-man with the American flag, and other symbols of this nation. The parallels are easily drawn. By geographic coincidence, America became an industrial – and therefore military – superpower. During both World Wars we learned, through traumatic experience, that isolationism was no guarantee against attack. This lesson led us into fifty years of the Cold War. Of course, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States was much like Spider-man without Doctor Octopus or the Green Goblin; we felt that there was no one worthy of fighting. (Sure, America led the first Gulf War, and we intervened in Bosnia, but from the fall of the Berlin Wall until the events of 9/11, the military might of the United States of America was largely stagnant). We didn’t go so far as to relapse into isolationism, but it was beginning to seem more and more attractive. Why should American troops be involved in situations which did not directly threaten America or her interests?
And then came September 11, 2001. Suddenly, once again, isolationism was dead. American military might was mobilized, and a series of conflicts began in the following months, of which we still have not seen the end. But like Spider-man, we suddenly have come to realize that if we do not openly engage the forces bent upon doing ill, they will attack us where we are most vulnerable.
The clearest moral resonance between Spider-man and America is in Spidey’s reluctance and doubt. While Spider-man finds a certain joy in his powerful abilities – like America does in its technological and military might – he does not really want to be a superhero. It harms his relationships. It estranges him from his friends. It forces him into conflict with those who are crueler and more reckless than himself. It sometimes forces him to take lives. It forces him to lie. And as the result of all of this, Spider-man is wracked with self-doubt, and sometimes guilt and remorse. What makes Spider-man such a popular character is not that he can defeat villains like the Green Goblin or the Sandman; rather it is that he retains his essential humanity even though he possesses superhuman power. Some of the most powerful scenes in Raimi’s three Spider-man films are the moments when Peter Parker expresses his own inner turmoil: his confession to Aunt May that he could have saved Uncle Ben’s life; his loss of his power in Spider-man 2, as the result of his desire to lead a normal life; his tortured friendship with Harry Osborne, whose father Spider-man killed.
These internal conflicts of Peter Parker all resonate in the American public psyche. While we as a nation take a certain pride or even joy in our ability to hold our own in a fight with even the most powerful adversary, America also worries about losing those qualities which we most value – and that which we most value is not our power. The current uproar over water-boarding and treatment of prisoners is an apropos example. While it has been confirmed that American intelligence agents have only water-boarded three of the most heinous terrorists currently in custody, still America is convulsed with doubt about our own moral rectitude. While we are fighting a war against terror, we are constantly on guard that we do not become terrorists ourselves. Like Spider-man, while we possess immense power, it is our restraint in using that power which defines us. The same American electorate that twice elected George W. Bush also elected Barack Obama; we possess both aggressiveness and restraint. And perhaps both are equally necessary.
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