Who am I?
Are you sure you want to know?
If someone told you I was just your average kid, not a care in the world?
Somebody lied.
I first donned the red and blue tights of Spider-Man when I was a teenager.
The year was 2004, and for the first time in my life, I had a city to protect.
Sure, I’d occasionally swung around in the past, but now, I had a responsibility.
I had muggings to stop.
People to save.
Balloons to rescue.
I spent hours and hours trawling around the city, visiting every skyscraper, righting
wrongs and doing good.
And with Bruce Campbell’s disembodied voice to keep me company, I felt like I was genuinely
making a difference.
I Defeated Doctor Octopus.
I bopped Mysterio on the head.
I flirted with the Black Cat, and even did battle against The Shocker.
And, I delivered pizzas.
I took part in races.
I whizzed around, trying desperately to impress Mary Jane.
I did everything a spider could.
I continued my service as Spider-Man even as the architecture changed around me.
I swung through bright, colourful, cel shaded buildings, fighting the enormous Venom.
I even tried my hand at the black suit symbiote myself, but this didn’t really feel right.
I was a hero, and not a monster.
But, then, I had to hang up my suit.
It happens to all of us eventually.
It was while chasing The Lizard that I ultimately decided to retire.
I couldn’t help but feel like the experience of being Spider-Man was no longer as rewarding
as it had once been.
Mary Jane’s constant desire to swing higher or lower during our dates made everything
feel a lot less enjoyable.
Perhaps this was the wrong reason to give up, but nevertheless, I threw in the towel.
I was Spider-Man no more.
Years went by.
Opportunities were missed.
I watched from a distance as my younger brother took on the mantle, wearing a dark, noir suit
in place of my own more colourful costume.
But then, I heard the call again.
The city needed me.
It was crying out for rescue.
They said that a hero could save us.
I wasn’t going to stand there and wait.
And so, after many years out of the game, I returned.
I came out of retirement.
As I pulled on my suit for the first time in years, as orchestral strings swelled in
the background, I got choked up.
A tear came to my eye.
This was it.
I was back!
This feeling; this rush, this excitement, was everything I’d been missing for years!
I enthusiastically leapt out of my window, following a helicopter amond the city skyscrapers.
I let out web after web, swinging through the city, and…
Hmm.
Why didn’t this feel right?
Was web swinging always this slow?
Was I that badly out of shape?
I was clearly not capable of the same web swinging that had once come so naturally to
me.
Part of the reason was that I was trying to do this the oldschool way.
Muscle memory was taking over, but the rules had changed.
Web shooter technology has evolved over the past decade.
These new shooters did a lot of the hard work for me, and I needed to adjust to the new
method of control.
Or, indeed, ceding control to the shooters, and just trusting them to take me to the right
place.
As I came to blows with thugs and mobsters, I felt the same feeling of being very much
out of shape.
Too often, I’d get clocked over the head, or trampled by an enormous foe.
I was out of practice.
Older, less naturally sure of myself.
For a time, I worried.
Was I ever going to get back into the swing of things?
But, this city needed me.
I had to keep striving to help them.
And so, I kept practicing.
I was rising up, back on the street.
Did my time, took my chances.
Went the distance, now I was was back on my feet, just a Spider-Man and his will to survive.
It’s the eye of the Spider.
It’s the thrill of the fight.
With every botched crime bust, I got better.
Every time I took a punch to the face, I learned to be that little bit quicker.
It turned out that these web shooters were actually pretty useful when put into action
in the right way.
A lot of the new gadgets, such as the web bomb, took a lot of the pressure off the act
of tangling with a room full of baddies.
Sure, I miss webbing a guy to a lamppost, but never mind.
The important thing was that I was getting my mojo back.
Slowly, but surely, I worked off my extra flab.
My reflexes quickened; my web swinging finesse returned.
I was moving just as fast and as fluidly as ever.
I was back.
And now, I continue to serve the people of New York City.
I continue to swing through the streets, doing my bit to make friendly neighbourhood safer.
This is my gift.
My curse.
Who am I?
I’m Spider-Man.