Spiderman

“It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Ubermensch!”  Sorry, I seem to have confused and fused vintage American comic catchphrases with 19th century German philosophy; not to mention, this post is supposed to be about Spiderman, not Superman.  Spiderman would be, in a more streamlined, distilled sense, a truer ‘Ubermensch’ as defined by the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, since he was a metamerism of human achievement, though not necessarily his own, in the sense that he capitulated the strength, intellect, speed, and superlatives in many other categories that would define him as super-human.  Superman, or Clark Kent, on the other hand, was, after all, an alien and a stark juxtaposing contrast to our human weakness.  He did not embody the attributes of a super-human, but revealed the inherent weaknesses and flaws of humans, again, by contrast.  Spiderman, or Peter Parker, arose from the ashes of human weakness and incapacity like a brilliant phoenix emerging in all of its splendor from the ash heap.  He had embraced weakness and rejection (particularly, rejection of the female variety), and yet emerged triumphant to combat evil in its many forms, whether explosive-laden maniacal goblins, mechanical octopi, molecularly altered sandmen, or extraterrestrial venom.  Spiderman epitomized Nietzsche’s ‘Ubermensch’ – not to mention, he was genetically altered as well, which further exemplifies Nietzsche’s dream of genetic progression towards a super-human (when in fact, quite the reverse is true, that is, genetic digression in the human race; yet somehow in our chronological snobbery and pride we have bitten the hook, line and sinker of the stereotypical evolutionary chart which shows genetic progression and the race becoming better, faster, and stronger throughout time; even if we rejected the basic premise of macro-evolution, we have somehow still been hoodwinked by this idea.)  In essence, our web-slinging friend encapsulates all that our German philosopher would have wanted him to, as long as he was not too genetically distinct and could still interbreed and pass on his genes.  It also makes one wonder why there was such a fascination with superheroes in the early and mid portion of the 20th century…everyone is looking for, and even wants to be like their hero.  I suppose the weakness, as I highlighted earlier, with Spiderman was that all of his super-human abilities were not necessarily of his own doing, but of a curious genetic-mutant spider.  It makes one wonder what they’ll think of next…mutant turtles that practice martial arts?!