365 Days of Power and Responsibility, Day 365: 🎵It's been a long road, getting from there to here 🎵

Ahem! Excuse me, but I'm just gonna toot my own horn for a second: I finally finished this feature, after starting...uh...on January 1, 2019. Well, I never said 365 Days in a row.

At some point I even lost COUNT, because 2020 was a Leap Year, and...well, the extra day is in there somewhere. Don't ask me to point to it.

Say Mary Jane's Aunt Anna, what do you like about Peter?


from Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives graphic novel (Marvel, May 1989), script by Gerry Conway, pencils by Alex Saviuk, inks by Andy Mushynsky, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by Rick Parker



Fact is, through some very bad times these past few years I've tried to keep the Mantra of Peter Parker™ in my mind and heart as much as I can. If people need help, and we have the ability to help them…well, we should. And yes, that's not all fun 'n' games.


from Spider-Man (Columbia Pictures/Marvel Enterprises, 2002), starring Tobey Maguire, screenplay by David Koepp, directed by Sam Raimi
I think that "With great power, there must also come great responsibility" is SO important not just to our favorite hobby but to our lives: that it's worth remembering and trying to live up to it each day. Like Spidey, we don't always succeed. But we oughta always try.


from Amazing Spider-Man (1963 series) #3 (July 1963), art by Steve Ditko
I think it's very important that a recent thorough history of the Marvel Universe not only introduces Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, with the motto that makes him a hero...



from History of the Marvel Universe #3 (Marvel, November 2019), script by Mark Waid, pencils by Javier Rodríguez, inks by Álvaro López, colors by Javier Rodríguez, letters by Joe Caramagna
...it also ends the whole miniseries with all the heroes framed with those nine words. It is, in summary, the single most important precept of the Marvel Universe, and the way by which true heroes live.

from History of the Marvel Universe #6 (Marvel, February 2020), script by Mark Waid, pencils by Javier Rodríguez, inks by Álvaro López, colors by Javier Rodríguez, letters by Joe Caramagna
(Click top picture to universe-size)
It's a good creed to live by.


Thanks, Uncle Ben. Thanks, Peter. Thank you, Stan Lee.