Total Nerd Explains Spider-Man Costumes

Spider-Man is one of the most enduring and visible representations

of the American superhero. His iconic red and blue spiderweb pattern costume

has been a key distinguishing factor in his success. But what if there was a secret origin

to this seemingly simple fact? An origin that might cast a shadow

across Spider-Man's entire legacy. I'm Dave Baker, and today on Total Nerd

we're going to be explaining the mystery behind the origin of the friendly neighborhood wall crawlers trademark

underoos and attempt to answer the question of who really created Spider-Man's costume

Spider-Man is Marvel's flagship character, period. If viewing in 1962 in the pages of Amazing Fantasy 15

Peter Parker has gone on to become an international film icon and a beloved comic book character

Spider-Man was created by two men, artist and writer Steve Ditko and writer editor Stan Lee

The public version of the story that fans have been hearing over the last 50 years is that Stan approached Marvel publisher Martin Goodman with an idea to do a teenage superhero, one that would have problems and superpowers gained from a radioactive spider bite

Goodman shut this idea down due to the entrenched dogma at the time that superheroes had to be adults

It's just where did Stan Lee get the harebrained idea to make this highly beloved superhero

I've told this story so often it might even be true. Although sometimes it's hard even for me to believe it

You know, for all I know, it might even be true. I was sitting and I saw a fly crawling on the wall

And I saw a fly crawling on the wall. And I thought, gee, wouldn't there be something

Suppose a person had the power to stick to a wall. If we had a hero who could crawl on walls like a fly

Man, that would be cool. Is this true? Is this where the idea actually came from

Kind of seems like best case scenario, Stan is hiding something, right

Why is he so concerned with nonchalantly telling you that he's lying? Well, worst case scenario, I guess he's out and out lying

There had been a pulp magazine a million years ago. I read it when I was 10 years old, and it was called The Spider

And underneath it, there was the, I think there was a tagline, Master of Men

Well, when you're a 10-year-old kid and you read The Spider, Master of Men

that name always stuck with me. Interesting. Huh. Is this wrinkle about the long-forgotten pulp character, The Spider

an aspect of Spider-Man's creation that Stan is obviously just uncomfortable with

and doesn't want to talk? Is this the secret origin? I hate taking anything somebody else did, even though it was a name from a million years ago

Then I thought, why not Spider-Man? That sounds like a deeply Freudian slip to me but let see Spider co Steve Ditko was born on November 28 1927 in Johnstown Pennsylvania He renowned for being simultaneously one of the most iconic comic book artists of all time

and a notorious recluse. In fact, there's only four or five photos of him that are known to exist

Ditko is responsible for creating a raft of characters over his career

including Mr. A, Blue Beetle, Squirrel Girl, Doctor Strange, Captain Adam, Hawk, and Dove, The Question, and my favorite, The Creeper

After leaving Marvel in 1966, Ditko would fight for credit for his iconic co-creation

which he would never fully receive. But just for the sake of clarity, let's walk through the steps of how Spider-Man was created

Stan Lee was the primary writer at Marvel during this time period. He wrote all of the comics by utilizing what he referred to as the Marvel method

meaning he would come up with a name, a brief summary of the story, which consisted of a plot line and key details

And then the artist would get assigned to the story. And this artist would create a fully finished, completely intact comic

Everything. And then Stan would come in and massage things later. The process for Spider-Man specifically started when one of the Marvel anthology books

Amazing Fantasy, was about to go under. Stan Lee decided to utilize the idea that he'd been rattling around with for a long time

The idea named Spider-Man. Remember, that's Spider-Man. The initial artist that Lee approached with his idea for Spider-Man was, in fact, not

Steve Ditko, though. It was Jack Kirby, the artist he had co-created the Hulk, The Desert Four, and numerous other books with

However, Jack Kirby's design and the pages that he generated for the character were not necessarily what Stan had envisioned

When campaigning for co-creator credit later in life, Steve Ditko made a comic about his experiences with this process

They described what Jack had produced, a more Captain America-esque character, and what Ditko's finished Spider-Man costume had ultimately evolved into

In this comic, Ditko also outlines a key issue, The notion that the creator is someone who comes up with an idea, not someone who directly implements the execution of the idea

Obviously, at a certain juncture, Stan was not pleased with the direction that Spider-Man was taking

So, he took it away from Jack and gave it to our boy Steve Ditko

The question is, where did the now iconic Spider-Man costume come from

Did Ditko introduce it whole cloth? No pun intended. Or was it something that had an earlier origin

In 2006, John Camino, an East Coast toy dealer and comic book seller, paid $500 for a small

collection. Within the collection, he discovered a 1960s Ben Cooper Halloween costume. He couldn't

find anything about it on the internet. Turns out, there was an even earlier version of this Ben

Cooper costume. However, this costume wasn't red and blue like the comic book character. It was

yellow. Were they related? How did this exist? When was this yellow Spider-Man costume created

It turns out it was first released in 1954 a full eight years prior to the existence of the famous wall crawler The costume is even strangely similar It a webbed suit the mask has webbing that converges on a centralized point on the face

and even the eyes are kind of similar. They're obviously very different, but they kind of evoke a similar feeling

So I guess the question is, was this yellow Spider-Man costume some sort of ancestral predecessor to the Ditko one

So, did anyone ask Ditko about this costume? Did he draw inspiration from it

The answer is yes, John Camino asked him. He sent Didco photos, and point blank just asked him

Would a Didco reply? The burden of proof is on the person who makes the assertion, claim, or charge

Some clippings, etc. are not rational proof of anything, but some clippings

This is where things get even more interesting. Ben Cooper released both the yellow Spider-Man and the comic book Spider-Man costumes

So how did this happen? Ben Cooper and Marvel struck a deal in 1963, just months after the release of Amazing Fantasy 15

The details of this deal are as yet unknown because the Ben Cooper files were destroyed in a fire in 1989

But logically, it would appear that Ben Cooper went to Martin Goodman, publisher of Marvel, and Stan Lee and said

your character has the same name and looks a heck of a lot like my costume

Understandably, Goodman must have cut up a sweetheart deal on licenses in order to generate costumes based on the Marvel Comics characters

In order to prevent a lawsuit, Ben Cooper would go on to produce costumes for many iconic properties

And that's the end of it, right? A murky, gray soup of, did this beloved character start as a ripoff

That's not actually where it ends. Remember Jack Kirby? Well, sporadically throughout his life, he claimed that he created Spider-Man

In a Comics Journal interview from the 90s, when asked about creating Spider-Man, Jack Kirby responded

I created Spider-Man. We decided to give it to Steve Ditko. I drew the first Spider-Man cover

I created the character. I created the costume. I created all those books, but I couldn't do them all

We decided to give the book to Steve Ditko, who was the right man for the job

He did a wonderful job on that. If you look closely at the cover to Amazing Fantasy 15, it's very apparent that Jack Kirby

penciled the cover. The barrel chest of Spider-Man, the face of the criminal. Obviously, Steve Ditko inked the cover, so it's not fully Kirby, but his DNA is there

Obviously, Spider-Man was my idea. Yes. Even gave it to Jack first, didn't want it, then gave it to Steve

Steve feels, since he drew it and gave it life, so to speak, that he created it as much as I did

The question is, was this actually what Kirby was talking about? Kirby would later draw Spider-Man number eight, which Dick Coe would ink

Was he confused? Was this what he was describing? No In the 1950s Kirby supposedly worked at Ben Cooper as an artist and designer briefly Is it possible that he was one of the people behind the Ben Cooper Spider costume

Is it possible that he made the iconic Spider-Man design by ripping himself off

Well, there's substantial evidence that when Kirby and Joe Simon were working together in the 1940s and early 1950s

they had a character also named Spider-Man in the file cabinet. This character never quite ended up being produced, but it's possible that this is where Stan Lee, who was Kirby and Simon's assistant at the age of 18, got the idea

Is this why Stan is always making disclaimers about being truthful? To sum it up, creation is execution dependent

Who created Spider-Man's costume? Who knows? Everyone involved has a different answer. Except Ditko, I guess

At this point, it's just not a cut and dry thing. My gut says Ditko was substantially involved because it's just such a weird idiosyncratic design

However, I'm not even 100% sure on that. The only concrete fact in this whole story is that Ditko's legacy as Spider-Man's co-creator was completely overshadowed by Stan

If the official story is Stan and Steve are creators, then Steve should be fully recognized as a co-creator

Steve feels that the person who physically gives it life is the co-creator

Otherwise, all I had was an idea which was nothing solid. But do you yourself believe that he co-created it

I'm willing to say so. That's not what I'm asking you. No, and that's the best answer I can give you

Creation is execution dependent. You cannot copyright an idea, only the implementation of an idea

And if Ditko created this work, which even if he didn't do the initial story

he did every other issue of the first few years of Amazing Spider-Man

He broke the story down, he co-wrote the issues, and he wrote rough dialogue for all the characters

Sometimes Stan changed things significantly, like deciding that Green Goblin should be Norman Osborn

Harry Osborn's father, a decision that Steve Ditko hated. All I'm attempting to illustrate is that Stan had a part to play in Spider-Man's creation

but saying he created it whole cloth is just inaccurate. Is this what Stan seems to be always attempting to skirt with his obviously guilt-ridden explanations of Spider-Man's origin

or is it that he was someone in the process of willfully omitting the truth

I don't really know. We probably never will because everyone has passed away now

But one thing we can say for sure is that the folks at Marvel knew something was off about Spider-Man and they chose to spell it Spider-Man

You've never really thought about it before, have you? Spider-Man is just the way it's spelled

There can't be any malice or alternative intention behind it, right? Or is this hyphen a dead giveaway that there's an original sin

lurking in the annals of Marvel that nobody wants to talk about