By Keith Walsh
In just three days, SpiderMan: No Way Home has shattered box office records around the globe, bringing in $500 million while entertaining hundreds of millions of fans. As most anyone you talk to knows, the film introduces the live action Multiverse as the Marvel MCU enters Phase 4.
Funny thing is, this wild success story started with a typo. Spiderman was first introduced in the comic Amazing Fantasy #15, way back in August of 1962, with the story of high school nerd Peter Parker gaining super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. It was a huge hit, and Spidey soon got his own comic book, Amazing Spiderman #1, in March of the following year.
Yet due to an oversight, the book, written by legend Stan Lee, calls Spidey’s alter-ego “Peter Palmer” throughout. As the story goes, Stan Lee liked to give his characters alliterative names so he could remember them easily: hence “Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, etc. And while still rather young in 1963, the 41-year-old storytelling genius made this goof. The error was quickly corrected in the next issue, and Peter Parker’s character has enjoyed a phenomenal 6 decades run so far in several different Spiderman titles.
Makes you wonder: in other universes, was Parker called “Palmer” there as well? Or was it due to a glitch in the Multiverse that Peter Palmer slipped into our reality for just one issue?
The Amazing Spiderman #1 On Marvel.com
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Excelsior!
Interesting but it was just a typo. There was no conception of a multiverse for years to come and it was an idea borrowed from DC Comics who in turn borrowed it from Science Fiction pulp magazines.