Spider-Man has been selling comics, posters, lunchboxes and questionable baggy Halloween costumes since the ’60s. You’ve seen Peter Parker swinging across New York City on the big screen played by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland. Some fans even remember the trippy 1978 Japanese Spider-Man and his giant robot. Yet there’s one live-action version of Spider-Man that even the character’s own co-creator, Stan Lee, wished he could have erased from history forever.
Back in September 1977, CBS launched The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker. It pulled strong ratings right away. Families gathered around their giant wooden TV boxes, amazed at a guy climbing buildings without the wires showing. But one man wasn’t cheering along with Marvel fans. Marvel boss Stan Lee actually hated it.
In a 2004 Television Academy interview, Stan said he was “very unhappy” with the show. He believed the producers forgot the secret sauce that made the hero special in the first place. “Very often, people will take a novel, let’s say, and bring it to the screen […] and they will leave out the one element, the one quality that made the novel a best-seller.” For him, that one element was Peter Parker being a relatable, struggling young guy, trying to get the girl, pay the rent and avoid Aunt May’s guilt trips. “They left out the humor,” he explained. “They left out the human interest and personality and playing up characterizations and personal problems.”
Lee voiced his disappointment before the show even aired. In 1978, he told Marvel’s own Pizzazz magazine that the TV series was “too juvenile.” Same year, chatting to The Atlanta Constitution, he doubled down: “The whole appeal of the character is the contrast and conflict between his private life as Peter Parker and his life as Spider-Man. The comic book version is more adult and sophisticated than the TV version.”
Imagine how awkward it must be when the guy who literally invented Spider-Man keeps publicly complaining about your live-action take of the character.
Producer Daniel R. Goodman had a very different mission. He pushed hard for the show to appeal to a general audience instead of comic fans. His idea was fewer supervillains, more everyday crooks. So instead of duking it out with Green Goblin, Hammond’s Spider-Man chased shady businessmen and corrupt politicians. New York City also looked suspiciously like Los Angeles.
Despite the frustration, Stan did toss one compliment their way. “On a technical level, I think they did a good job,” he admitted, praising shots of Spidey climbing walls in a pre-CGI era.
The show ended in 1979 after only 13 episodes. There were big plans for a TV movie crossover with Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk (who some believe could show up in Avengers: Doomsday), and yes, fans would have lost their minds. But it never happened.
Stan Lee always protected what made his characters special. When something felt off, he said so. Loudly. “I felt the people who did the live-action series left out the very elements that made the comic book popular.” Even decades later, he hadn’t changed his mind. Perhaps it’s the reason why Nicholas Hammond’s Spider-Man hasn’t appeared in the crossover Marvel films like No Way Home and the Spider-Verse films.
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