Marvel Icon’s Most Famous Ability Was Created By Bad Writing

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 2 minutes ago

Thanks to the new trailer for Brand New Dayfans are more hyped up for Spider-Man than they have been for a good, long time. It looks like the movie is going to make some major changes to the character, giving him (either temporarily or permanently) organic web shooters. By the end of the movie, he may very well gain new powers and lose others. One power that isn’t going away, though, is his spider-sense, which the latest trailer implies is strong enough (possibly due to the mutating DNA) to keep a villainous telepath out of his mind.

Historically, spider-sense has worked as a kind of ESP, allowing Spider-Man to, say, jump out of the way right before a gun goes off. So, how the heck would an enhanced danger sense be enough to ward off the mind bullets of one of the world’s greatest telepaths? It makes no sense, but that’s only fitting because spider-sense has never made any sense, going all the way back to the beginning. You see, this Marvel icon’s most famous ability was only created because Stan Lee couldn’t figure out how to fix his own sloppy writing!

His Spider-Senses Are Tingling

This story goes back to almost the very beginning of Spider-Man’s Marvel comics history. I say “almost” because the character was first introduced in Amazing Fantasy #15; that comic was already doomed to cancellation, but the introduction of Spider-Man made it one of Marvel’s best-selling issues. Accordingly, the company gave the hero his own comic book, The Amazing Spider-Manwhich quickly became its best-selling series. The first issue fleshed out many of Spider-Man’s fantastic abilities. This included spider-sense, but it was only added due to Stan Lee writing himself into a corner.

Back then, Lee did the writing and editing, and Steve Ditko provided art while still helping with the plot. In that first issue, Spider-Man must fight the Chameleon, someone whose powers make it very easy for him to hide himself. Eventually, Spider-Man tracks down the villain, who had been hiding in a darkened room. When reviewing the comic, though, they noticed a problem. According to Ditko, Lee turned to him and asked, “How, in the darkened room, does (Spider-Man) know where the Chameleon is?” Thinking fast, Ditko drew some squiggles over the hero’s head and said that he had a special “spider-sense” that, as with bats, allowed him to detect hidden things.

The Best Mistake Marvel Ever Made

Stan Lee liked the idea, so they went back through the issue and drew more squiggles and occasional thought bubbles about spider-sense. Since then, this has been one of Spider-Man’s major powers, and it has mostly morphed into a kind of enhanced danger sense. Incidentally, it never stopped morphing, and various writers have tweaked this ability to represent things like Spider-Man’s connection to a multiverval web of life. In other stories, he loses and then regains his spider-sense. Heck, a little over two weeks ago, Marvel changed this ability yet again, giving Spider-Man the anime-esque ability to fight on pure instinct using only his spider-sense.

Long story not very short? Spider-sense was only added to Spider-Man’s ability because of Marvel legend Stan Lee’s sloppy writing. Afterward, decades of writers have continued to tweak this ability, transforming it from a general danger sense to, honestly, whatever the story needs it to be. Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues this trend, with spider-sense being enough to ward off a foe’s insanely powerful psychic attacks. If that foe really is Jean Grey, it’s enough to make you wonder if Spider-Man would be immune to Professor Xavier, someone whose powers are that much stronger.

If not, he’ll have to do what the rest of us do: clutch our noggins and scream, “Get out my head, Charles!” as loudly as possible.