A look at the Spider-Man costumes over the years
In 1962, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko took to creating a story for what would be the final issue of a soon to be cancelled comic, and in it they created one of the biggest pop culture juggernauts ever: Spider-Man. That classic look has stayed with the character throughout his 50+ years of consistent publication, and as iconic as it may be there have been some alterations to the Spider-Man costumes over the years.
With the reveal of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the Captain America: Civil War trailer, we wanted to go back and look at the many Spider-Man costumes over the years! Peter Parker being the thrifty science-nerd that he is, we can’t include every version of the wall crawler that has appeared in Marvel comics as some only make single issue appearances (though we did include some of those). Starting from Peter’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 to the Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales and every major version of the webslinger in-between, check out the gallery below for a look at the Spider-Man costumes.
Let us know which one of the Spider-Man costumes is your favorite in the comments!
Spider-Man Costumes
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The Wrestler (1962)
After Peter Parker gained his incredible abilities, he thought about all the different things he could do with those powers. Soon after that he saw a sign offering $100 to any man that can stay in the ring with “Crusher Hogan." When he showed up in this outfit, he was laughed at and the wrestler refers to him as “Masked Marvel."
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The Spider-Man (1962)
After his adventure in the ring, Peter ran home to design a better outfit. In a short amount of time, he put together his very first outfit (and web shooters) and proudly proclaimed, “Here comes the Spider-Man!”
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The Classic Costume
Following Steve Ditko's run on the character, artist John Romita Sr. replaced him. Ditko's original design had webbings under Spider-Man's arms, which Romita initially included, but eventually the webs got smaller until they went away entirely, and the iconic costume was born.
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Six-Armed Spider-Man (1971)
It's not easy being Spider-Man, and at one point Peter Parker became so fed up with everything that had happened in his life he wanted to quit. Not just quit though, Peter developed a serum to get rid of his powers. The morning after taking it, however, Peter awoke to find he'd become even more Spider-like and grown four extra arms.
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The Black Suit (1984)
While the regular suit is his most familiar, the black suit is definitely Spider-Man's most popular! Spidey first got the suit on another planet in the midst of the first “Secret Wars." His original suit damaged, he entered a machine and unbeknownst to him bonded with the alien symbiote that took the form of the black suit. Peter took a shine to this suit, because it could be morphed into any other clothing he liked and generated a near endless supply of webbing.
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The Amazing Bag-Man (1984)
As we all know now, the black suit was actually the alien symbiote that turned to be not the friendliest alien in the universe. After ditching the symbiote in a bell tower, Spider-Man quickly went to the Fantastic Four to help out with his lack of clothing. Johnny Storm couldn't resist dressing Parker this way. Though Peter only wears the outfit for a few panels, "Bag-Man" has become a fan-favorite alternative.
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The Tuxedo (1987)
Though he did manage to fight a few bad guys in the costume, the crux of this issue dealt with the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Peter took off the mask for a little bit to put on this tuxedo. This is the only suit on the list to be wiped from continuity as well. In the 'One More Day' storyline, Peter sacrifices his marriage with MJ to save his Aunt May.
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Cosmic Spider-Man (1989)
Much like his green ally the Hulk, Peter once had a lab accident himself. When the Enigma Force bonded with Peter in an accident, he transformed into Captain Universe and was given even more enhanced powers along with the ability to shoot off energy blasts and to morph his webs into any shape he pleased.
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Cyborg Spider-Man (1992)
Injured in a fight with Solo, Spider-Man woke up to find that he had a cybernetic arm. Unfortunately, the cyborg arm was only in place to help Spider-Man heal and didn't make it into the next issue.
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Spider-Man 2099 (1992)
Taking place long after the current Marvel heroes have been gone, there was a scientist named Miguel O'Hara. Miguel worked in a laboratory where they were trying to create super soldiers with powers and he was particularly inspired by records of Spider-Man. Through some black mail and trickery, O'Hara accidentally has half of his genes replaced with that of a spider. He then decided to take up the mantel of his hero.
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Spider-Armor Mark I (1993)
This suit was created by Peter specifically to fight off a group known as the 'New Enforcers.' It appears only once, in the pages of Web of Spider-Man #100, but it has since gone on to become a fan-favorite.
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Scarlet Spider (1994)
Though Peter eventually would wear the costume himself, it wasn't his to start. Peter's clone Ben Reilly (long story) took up the name and this suit in New York for some time, even fighting alongside Peter at some points.
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Octo-Spider (1995)
Though it also only appeared in one issue, Spider-Man: Funeral for an Octopus #2, Spider-Man did at one point put on Doctor Octopus' tentacles for a brief time in fighting the Sinister Six.
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Ben Reilly Spider-Man (1996)
When Peter Parker briefly retired, Ben Reilly took up the mantle of Spider-Man and did so with a brand-new costume. He had a hard time choosing but eventually settled on a design that stuck.
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Identity Crisis: Ricochet (1998)
Spider-Man was framed for murder during this time and had to assume the identity of a few different 'heroes' before he could come back as Spider-Man. The first was Ricochet, who posed as a criminal for hire in an effort to bring down many bad guys. Each of the identities was taken up later by another character.
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Identity Crisis: The Hornet (1998)
The second identity that Peter took on was The Hornet. Peter used a jetpack, Scarlet Spider's sedative stingers, and his super strength. He couldn't fool the Vulture, who figured out he was Spider-Man, but the Human Torch didn't catch this, warning him to stay away from Spider-Man.
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Identity Crisis: Dusk (1998)
Peter took this costume from the Negative Zone and used it to blend into the shadows and become practically invisible. With this costume, Spider-Man could also glide around.
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Identity Crisis: Prodigy (1998)
This costume was created and designed entirely by Mary Jane. He was described as a “typical good guy” hero with bulletproof armor, super strength, and the ability to leap from building to building. He quickly became much more popular and received a lot more notoriety than Spider-Man did.
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Spider-Man Unlimited (2000)
In the pages of Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #13, Spider-Man was briefly given a new costume that was supposed to resemble his outfit from the Spider-Man Unlimited animated series.
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Ultimate Spider-Man (2000)
The Ultimates line was launched to serve as a pseudo-reboot for Marvel. They wanted to take their characters and modernize them. What made this version of the character so unique is unlike his counterpart, he was just a kid when he became the wall crawler, and stayed that way for the entirety of his run.
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Spider-Man (2002)
The first incarnation of Spider-Man as seen on the big screen, albeit the "wrestling" version of his costume.
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Spider-Man (2002)
Sam Raimi's films were heavily influenced by the original series of comics and it shows, except for the lack of webbing under the arms in the costume.
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The Final Costume (2003)
In The Amazing Spider-Man #500, Peter has a vision of the beginning and the potential end of his career as Spider-Man. This possible future has Spider-Man simply in a mask, gloves, and reversible jacket. Two issues later he receives this very outfit from Leo Zelinsky, the Super-Hero Tailor.
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The Iron Spider (2006)
This suit was given to Peter by Iron Man himself Tony Stark. The suit features a lot of different modifications from the typical costume. In addition to the mechanical spider-arms, the suit has gliding capabilities, built in emergency scanner, audio/visual amplifiers, a cloaking device, and much more.
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Spider-Man 3 (2007)
There weren't any changes made to the suit between the first two movies, but in the final film in the series Peter got a hold of the fan-favorite black suit.
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Spider-Man Noir (2009)
Within an alternate universe and set in the Great Depression era wherein a young Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and given some spider-like abilities from a Spider god. The primary difference in this Spider-Man and the regular one is he is unable to climb walls and carries a gun.
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Big Time Spider-Man (2011)
This costume that Peter developed at his job at Horizon Labs is specially modified to make him invisible to various things depending on the inside color. The green lights mean he is invisible from audio and visual recordings and the red cancels out all sonic-based attacks. This is also considered "Spider-Armor Mark II."
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Future Foundation (2011)
Though the Foundation's origins are much longer, Spider-Man's inclusion are rather simple. Believed to be dead, Johnny Storm's will asked Peter to join the Future Foundation in his place and he was given a new costume just for the occasion. The best part about it? It never gets dirty.
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Another Ultimate Spider-Man (2011)
Peter Parker tragically met his end in the Ultimate Universe, but it wasn't long after his death that an all new Spider-Man showed up. His name is Miles Morales and he developed his powers in an eerily similar way to Peter Parker. He even met up with the 'real' Peter Parker in a mini-series titled Spider-Men and now lives in the main Marvel Universe alongside him.
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Another Scarlet Spider (2012)
Another of Spider-Man's clones, Kaine was created by the villain The Jackal and would later assume the mantel of the Scarlet Spider after Ben Reilly's death (and with a new costume).
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Spider-Armor Mark III (2012)
This particular costume was created by Peter for the sole purpose of fighting off the Sinister Six. He used tech and equipment from several other pieces to create a very resilient costume that allowed him to defeat Doc Ock, Electro, Mysterio, Rhino, Chameleon, and Sandman.
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Rather than doing a fourth film in Sam Raimi's series of Spider-Man films, it was decided that a reboot was going to be pursued instead. This film starred Andrew Garfield as the wall crawler and a few modifications were made to the suit for the film, the most noticeable of which are the eyes.
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The Superior Spider-Man (2013)
In one of the most unique storylines in recent history, Spider-Man's great enemy Doctor Octopus actually swapped bodies with the hero as he was dying. He took it upon himself to become a better version of the hero and added some adjustments to the color of the suit, some claws, and (as expected) tentacles.
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
In the 2014 sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, the suit was altered to more resemble the comic book counterpart, most notably the return of the white eyes.
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Spider-Gwen (2015)
In preparation for the epic storyline "Spider-Verse," a series was released called Edge of Spider-Verse with each issue focusing an alternate version of Spider-Man. In one of those issues, Peter wasn't Spider-Man at all and his long-time love interest Gwen Stacy was instead.
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Spider-Armor Mark IV (2015)
Though it may not look that different from his traditional costume, Peter developed the fourth version of his Spider-Armor which includes voice activated web shooters (along with multiple versions of the webbing), but is also heat resistant and bullet-proof among many other features.
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Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Tom Holland is set to play the webslinger in Captain America: Civil War this summer, before moving on to his own solo movie in 2017, and we got our first look at the new version of the character in the first trailer!
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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
This summer's Spider-Man: Homecoming not only brought back the suit from Captain America: Civil War but after Tony takes it back we get to see Peter swinging around in his original “homemade” costume (pictured here in Hot Toy form).
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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
In the closing minutes of the film Tony offers Peter not only a position on The Avengers but a brand new Spider-Man suit, both of which he turns down. Though with Tom Holland set to appear in Avengers Infinity War we imagine that suit will get some use soon.
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Superior Octopus
Also in the pages of Marvel comics came the Secret Empire event, wherein it was revealed that Hydra had secretly taken over SHIELD and soon the world. One of the many fighting alongside SHEILD was a clone of Otto Octavius and Peter Parker with a Hydra themed variant of the “Superior Spider-Man” suit.
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Spider-Man (2018)
The upcoming Spider-Man game from Insomniac Games will swing in in 2018 and feature an entirely new costume for the wallcrawler.
