Peter Parker, Postwar NYC Jew: Stan Lee’s Contribution to the Spider-Man Mythos / R. W. Watkins

R. W. Watkins

It’s something that a lot of us have ‘known’ since the beginning — or, if we weren’t around in 1962, at least since we discovered the classic early comics. And we didn’t need a Harvard sociologist or the latest Hollywood heartthrob to point it out to us either.

For us folk, there’s never been any doubt that Peter Parker could be nothing other than Jewish. The Forest Hills address, the doting aunt, the uncle named Ben(jamin), the ‘bookworm’ status, the bullying and rejection by his light-haired WASPish classmates — all obvious earmarks of the stereotypical Jewish youth experience in Twentieth Century USA.

So when titular Amazing Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield recently voiced his convictions about the superhero’s religious affiliation to Time Out London, it seemed a tad bit redundant:

“Spider-Man is neurotic. Peter Parker is not a simple dude. He can’t just switch off. He never feels like he’s doing enough. And Peter suffers from self-doubt. He ums and ahs about his future because he’s neurotic. He’s Jewish. It’s a defining feature.”

Then again, Garfield — a Jew himself (the family surname was originally Garfinkel) — is a young man. For all I know, he may have never seriously perused a comic book of any genre until he began auditioning for the role of Marvel’s webslinger. Whatever the case, a similar observation sounded somewhat less superfluous a few years earlier, when another Jew, Spider-Man film and television producer Avi Arad, went on record with The Times of Israel:

“Well, this is a somewhat controversial statement, perhaps, but to me when Stan Lee, excuse me, Stanley Lieber, puts the family in Forest Hills, this is a first sign. These are practically shtetl Jews living in Queens. You look at Aunt May: She is tough as anything, tough as nails. She is a defender of the family. Uncle Ben thinks he is the protector, but all she needs is ‘You, you go in the basement, sweep out the garbage.’ This is like a shtetl play. [...] Peter Parker, of course — his primary defense is his wit.”

Years before Arad and Garfield made their views be known, English-born Rabbi Simcha Weinstein of Brooklyn published Up, Up and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero (Barricade Books, 2006). In his chapter dedicated to Spider-Man, Weinstein points out the theme of Jewish Guilt inherent in Parker’s inner turmoil over his failure to prevent his Uncle Ben’s murder, and how the orphaned Parker’s situation brings to mind the generations of Jews who lost their ancestors to genocide. The rabbi also makes a connexion between the arachnid element and a rabbinical tradition regarding the early kings of Israel, noting how it was surmised that a spider had spun a web across the mouth of the cave in which David and his army hid, thus convincing King Saul that said cave was abandoned, and saving the future king’s life. Rabbi Weinstein insists that Lee has been thinking along the same lines. “Of all the biblical characters,” Lee told him, “I would have to say Spider-Man most resembles David” (KosherSpirit.com). (Personally, given his parentless origin and ‘adoption’ by his persecutor [J. Jonah Jameson], I’ve always considered Parker more comparable to the biblical Moses.)

Regardless of whether one is a seasoned comics enthusiast or a naive witness to recent media ‘revelations’, this interpretation of the character has a certain implication that everyone seems to be overlooking. Specifically, the Jewish element is synonymous with Stan Lee’s involvement in the portrayal of the character, and serves as an answer to that decades-old contentious question: What — if any — was Stan Lee’s contribution to the creation and development of early Spider-Man?

It’s an issue that refuses to go away. Was Lee truly the writer and editor of Amazing Spider-Man (and virtually all other Silver-Age Marvel titles) as was officially stated? Was he truly the sole creator as was implied? Does Steve Ditko, as many people claim, actually deserve most of the credit for design and development? And where does Jack Kirby fit into all of this? Over the years a backlash developed against Lee’s official status at Marvel, and — as one would expect — reactionaries eventually arose in defense of Smilin’ Stan. As a result, magazines and online forums continue to buzz with convictions and accusations. Somewhere in the midst of all the insults and theories, of course, lies the obscure but still inescapable truth.

For my money, there can be no question of Stan Lee’s hand in the creation and development of Spider-Man and his world. The proof is simply inherent in the Jewish nature of the character, his environment and predicaments. These Jewish overtones, of course, are most detectable in regards to the superhero’s Peter Parker identity — the aforementioned Forest Hills upbringing, the smothering and sometimes guilt-inflicting mother figure (Aunt May), the nerdy ‘bookworm’ status and rejection by his Scottish-American peers (‘Flash’ Thompson, Liz Allan). However, the manner in which his disguised alter-ego interacts with the world at large is not unlike the traditional love-hate relationship between the successful Western Jew and his or her largely Christian environment; I believe this speaks volumes about Lee’s involvement in the comic book.