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Felipe Oliveira
Marion Bruner
English 120-01
5 February 2014
The World Needs Spider-Man
Spider-Man has always been my favorite super-hero and since I was a little kid I
believed he was the best super-hero (and still do, even though I know super heroes don’t exist).
Web-slinging in New York City, climbing walls, fighting super-villains and saving the city
every day, what could possibly be cooler than that? In my opinion, there isn’t a lot better than
that, and that’s why I believe Spider-Man is the best super-hero.
I became a fan very young, influenced by my father, who is also a Spider-Man fan. We
would watch cartoons and pretend we were characters in the story, and as a child, that was
amazing. Everyone in the family knew I loved Spider-Man, so I knew that holiday season meant
a lot of Spider-Man presents: Costumes, action figures and many toy gadgets like web-shooters;
I even got a professional painting on my bedroom wall.
Spider-Man and my belief that he was the best super-hero was manifested trough my
entire childhood: Everything related to Spider-Man was a huge deal to me, sometimes annoying
my parents. When the first Spider-Man movies came out on the early 2000’s, my parents bought
me all the action figures from the movies, and I still have them at home and I intend to keep
them and pass them to my children. I definitely had a happy childhood and back in the day,
anything was possible, even being a super-hero from a comic book. As seen in the Last Lecture,
in our childhoods “anything is possible, and we should never lose that spirit.”(Pausch, Randy).
In my opinion, we enjoy the little things in life better when we’re kids, not worrying about
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anything and when we become older, we often forget to do that. We don’t realize what we
missed until something unexpected happens.
My interest for Spider-Man is still manifested on my daily life, of course, not as present
as it was in my childhood. I still enjoy watching the movies and I have many items related to it,
such as my toothbrush (yes, it’s for children). I even got a Spider-Man cup for Christmas from
one of my roommates. I try to keep the child inside me alive by surrounding myself with people
I like, “people of high quality” (Berns, Sam).
But why is Spider-Man the best super-hero?
To me, it’s not only because of his cool looking costume or the ability to climb walls and
shoot web. Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man) always looked way more realistic than an alien
coming from a distant planet that got his strength from the sun (for those who doesn’t know, this
is Superman) or a multi-billionaire orphan afraid of bats with the coolest gadgets in the world
(and that’s Batman). Peter Parker is just a “typical nerdy, awkward teenage high schooler who is
just trying to survive the growing pains of life” (Green, Robbie). So, “Be Cool To The Pizza
Dude”(Adams, Sarah) because who knows? He could be the guy saving the day.
Spider-Man’s journey also integrates strong moral and ethical values: The ethical dilemmas
faced by superheroes can be easily be put in a more realistic perspective, relating them to everyday dilemmas faced by any ordinary person.
I believe that people can learn from Peter Parker’s story, just how I did. One of the most
well known quotes in the superhero world “With great power there must also come – great
responsibility” (Amazing Fantasy) was said by Parker’s uncle before his death, and it represents
much more than just “super powers”. In my opinion, it can be applied in our daily lives and in
the lives of people surrounding us. It’s a way to show people that “we’re all weak and human in
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our ways, but we all have something great to offer the world and the people around us.” (Green,
Robbie).
It amazes me how we can see things from different perspectives according to the stage of
our lives: Comic books, cartoons, are nothing more than pure entertainment when we’re kids but
sometimes when we grow older, we understand a more broad and “real” perspective of the same
“fictional” stories that were only fantasy when we were kids.
I believe Spider-Man represents the every-day life of an ordinary person and how we
have the “power” to make ourselves, the world and the people around us, better. The fact that
Peter Parker looks just like any other person, in my opinion, made it easier to relate it to my own
life.
I believe we all have a superhero inside of us, and that we all have the power to change
things and make our lives better, it’s up to ourselves to embrace this unique power, step up and
contribute to a better world. People often forget how amazing and unique life is and in my
opinion, whether you are five years old or sixty years old, superheroes always can remind us of
that.
The world is full of superheroes: Ordinary people, like us, that wake-up every morning
decided to make something that will change the world to a better place so our future children are
able to have their own childhood dreams.
Spider-Man taught me a lesson that goes far beyond superpowers and climbing walls: It
taught me values that I carry with me in my daily life and that I believe everyone should have in
their lives. We should be the superheroes of our childhood dreams and believe that anything is
possible - This is why I believe in Spider-Man.
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Works Cited
Adams, Sarah. "Be Cool To The Pizza Dude." This I Believe. This I Believe, Inc., 16 May 2005.
Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Green, Robbie. "Why I Relate to Peter Parker." Four Letter Nerd. N.p., 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 24
Jan. 2014.
Lee, Stan. "Amazing Fantasy #15." Comic strip. Vol. 1. New York City: Marvel, 1962.Web. 24
Jan.2014.
"My Philosophy for a Happy Life: Sam Berns at TEDxMidAtlantic 2013." YouTube. YouTube,
13 Dec. 2013. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
"Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Dec.
2007. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
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Reflection Letter
The hardest part of writing this writing assignment definitely was transforming my belief
in something I could translate in a way people would understand. I think relating some aspects
of the paper with the “Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch and Sam Berns’ talk on TED were very
useful when writing this paper.
The best part of my paper, in my opinion is the final part towards the conclusion. It took
me longer to write the last two paragraphs than the rest of the paper. I think in some parts of my
paper there’s a lack of creativity that I intend to fix for my next papers. I had a problem with the
flow of the essay last year and I think I have improved but I still think there is room for more
improvement. One of the hardest parts of the writing this essay to me was try not to use “we”
and talk more about myself, using the first person. In my opinion, it is harder to write a personal
essay. I feel more comfortable writing a research essay with more facts other than impressions
and opinions.
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I expect to improve the flow of my essays and work on my grammar and vocabulary
form the next essays. Being able to write every week in the form of Informals and daily entries
helped me a lot last semester and I believe it will continue helping this semester. I look forward
to the next assignments so I can fix some weaknesses based on the feedback of previous papers.
Practice is been helping me improving my writing skills, helping me not only in English but in
all of my classes.
I have already improved a lot since last semester but I always think there’s room for
improvement. I want to be able to put more of my thoughts on the essay, because sometimes my
thoughts get lost and sometimes I can’t put them in words on the paper.