Shortly before the start of the Marvel Era of comic books, Journey Into Mystery #73 published “Where will you be, when… The Spider Strikes!” In it, a common household spider was doused with radioactive rays. Instead of biting an unsuspecting high school student named Peter Parker, the spider instead began to develop the intelligence of a human being and grow to massive proportions. Able to speak and even shoot his own web fluid, this man-spider of sorts was killed by the story’s end, just in time for the so-called “Marvel Age of Comics” to begin.

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