The Spiderman - Verse of Adaptations: Analysis Of Adaptation

Introduction

The famous superhero Spiderman has appeared in many different ways over the past 50 years. Since his first appearance in the Amazing Fantasy #15, he has appeared in many forms of entertainment. Spiderman has been a child’s favorite since 1962 and has been adapted many times. Two notable adaptations of him are: His original appearance, and his newest feature film titled Spiderman Far from Home. This report will analyze and compare these two showings of the character and determine if Far from Home lives up to the standards of the original.

Origins of Spiderman

Spiderman was originally a small comic book character in the anthology of Amazing Fantasy. Created by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko, Spiderman was quite a detour from the types of superheroes of this time. A hero like him would normally be subjected to sidekick duty for a more powerful hero, but after talking about it for a while, they decided to leave him be as the teenage superhero he is. This boded well for Stan and Steve as Amazing Fantasy #15 became their most read comic book. This cemented Spiderman as a teens favorite superhero. As you can see from the (Source 1), the original Spiderman comic has Spiderman

Plot and characters of the original

The plot of the original Spiderman was simple, a nerdy boy called Peter Parker from Midtown high, is on a school science trip to a science lab that hosts a radiation collider. He is watching the demonstration of how the collider works when a spider is shot by an extreme blast of radiation. Knowing it was going to die, the spider leaped at the nearest person which was Peter, and bit him. This ingested Peter with a lot of radiation which gave him super strength, speed, agility and the ability to cling to walls. At first, Peter used his powers to get money to care for his Aunt May, he wrestled to do so, beating Crusher Hogan (not Happy Hogan) in a wrestling match. In Backstage after the match, Peter saw a person trying to rob the place. Spiderman captures him but eventually lets him go. This would prove to be a fatal mistake for him later though as when his Uncle Ben was coming home from work that night, he is mugged and as Peter clenches his Uncle and takes off his mask, his Uncle says to him that ‘With great power come great responsibility’ he then dies in Peter’s arms. Peter goes out looking for the man who killed his Uncle only to find out that it was the same man that he let get away from the backstage room. Peter is crushed to know that he could have prevented his Uncle’s death. This is when Peter becomes a full-fledged hero.

The character of Spiderman evolves across the comic from being a young boy who cared about his aunt and his fame to a young superhero who cares for others with all his heart and will do what it takes to save the day.

Analysis of adaptation

Just after the tragic events of Avengers Endgame, MCU fans across the globe were looking for what happens next in the story of their favourite superheros. On July the first 2019, Spiderman far from home hits theatres in Australia and shows us what comes next in a spectacular way.

The plot of Far from Home is simple; Peter Parker and his friends, after just blipping out for 5 years, go on a school planned vacation all across Europe. Meanwhile, strange creatures start appearing around the world and an unknown entity keeps defeating them. Nick Fury and Maria Hill recruit this entity to their new organisation and hijack Peter’s school trip to make him help defeat the creatures. They learn that this entity is Quinten Beck, a human from a different earth; who has mystical powers. One by one, Peter and Beck start defeating the elementals with each of them becoming stronger and stronger until they are all defeated. Peter then gives the E.D.I.T.H glasses to Beck; in a local bar. When Peter is gone Quinten reveals himself to the audience to the attacks being orchestrated by him and that they were just illusions created by Beck to make it look like he was a superhero with mystical powers when in fact, he is just a man out for revenge on Tony Stark. Peter, feeling content with himself, goes to a nice spot to confess his love for one of his classmates that he had a crush on. After she says that she knows that he is Spiderman, she reveals that a part of one of the ‘elementals’ had fallen off during one of the battles, they then discover that Beck is a fraud and peter goes to confront him. He goes with what looks like Fury and Hill but when Beck appears, they turn out to be illusions and Beck fights Spiderman, Beck eventually wins only after tricking Spiderman by pretending to be Nick Fury just after Beck is shown to be shot by Fury, of course this was an illusion to lure Peter onto the train tracks to be hit by the train. After Peter wakes up, he calls Happy Hogan who gives a special message to Fury. He picks Peter up who makes a new suit using stark tech (See source 2) they fly to London where Peter defeats Beck.

Throughout the film, Peter is gullible and trusts Beck until he finds out that he’s a fraud, Peter’s origin story is skipped in this film because of the mass amount of times that it has been shown. This movie had some slight focus on the events of what happened after endgame and Tony’s death was sprinkled throughout to make you feel bad and disgusted for the petty revenge that Beck wants on such a great man. This movie was for those who wanted to see what came next in the M.C.U, Spiderman lovers and for teens who want a cool superhero movie to watch.