Spider-Man (comics)
Like costume heroes? Confidentially, we in the comic mag business refer to them as "long underwear characters"! And, as you know, they're a dime a dozen! But, we think you may find our Spider-Man just a bit... different!
History
First appearing in the pages of Amazing Fantasy issue 15 
in 1962, Peter Parker was just an ordinary high school student, until he was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained the proportionate strength, speed, and agility of an arachnid! After facing a great personal tragedy, he learns that with great power must come great responsibility, and protects New York City as the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man!
Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man was an incredibly influential character, blending the traditional feats of super heroics with melodramatic soapy elements to create a flawed and fallible hero with everyday problems, changing the face of comic books forever. Over a sixty year history, Spidey would go on to have an amazing web of spectacular titles to his name.
You've heard of Spider-Man. None of this is new ground. So what is he doing here?
Spider-Man appeared in the robot universe in The Transformers (U.S.) issue 3, which was written by Jim Salicrup (who also wrote issue 4, and scripted issue 2 from a plot by Bill Mantlo). Salicrup was then editor of Marvel's Spider-Man lines, and suggested the guest appearance of Spidey in The Transformers as a sales booster. Hasbro were reluctant to use Spider-Man in their toy-selling comic, seeing it as free publicity for Mattel and their toy-selling comic, so a compromise was reached: rather than feature Spider-Man in his classic red-and-blue outfit, which was readily available as an action figure, The Transformers would feature him in his black symbiote outfit, which he had already ditched in The Amazing Spider-Man issue 258 two months prior. (Although the suit kept comic back to haunt him in the comics, and Mattel eventually made a black redeco of their figure... que sera, sera.)
Spider-Man stories in TFUK
Spider-Man is an unusual part of TFUK; his first appearance was in a Transformers story, his second was a Spider-Man story rebranded to focus on Iron Man 2020, and his third was produced in-house and given away as a public service announcement in collaboration with the Home Office.
