Although, he's my favourite super guy, I think if he was real he'd creep me out. I mean they way crawls up walls and flips around is quite weird. I could imagine looking up and he's their hanging upside down off a lamp post or something looking down at me.

Nightcrawler would be the same too but I'd probably see more of Spider-Man's exploits on the news than Nightcrawlers.

Sorry, just randomly musing.

 

Like many others, Spidey is supposed to appear unsettling and dangerous. It not only gives him an edge in a fight, but it is a way for us in the audience to appropriate the symbols and imagery that frightens us and turn it to good. We like being frightened a little, but we also like feeling like the coolest guy in the fight is on our side, however off-putting he might seem should we meet him on the street. 

Ditko’s original version definitely has a “creepy” factor, but I can totally see Romita’s clean revision (particularly the brighter red-and-blue version, which quickly became codified after Ditko stopped spotting the blacks) serving as a flashy showbiz costume. 

We like being frightened a little, but we also like feeling like the coolest guy in the fight is on our side, however off-putting he might seem should we meet him on the street. 

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This has served Batman well for decades! The bat motif is inherently scary (plus, it and the cape also brings to mind Dracula), but Batman is on our side.

Of course, even Superman floating nearby, knowing that he could snap your neck or burn you to death with his heat vision in an instant and there's NOTHING you could do to stop him--I wouldn't be too comfortable around him either.

Which raises the question of how good Spidey's costume would have looked on TV in the first place. His eyes would stand out, no problem, and as long as he skittered across light-colored background surfaces, he would be easily seen, but how well would black and white televisions of 1961 pick up the details in the webbing or differentiate the deep values of the red and black in the costume? 

Remember, Geo. Reeves had to wear a costume of gray and brown for it to "read" onscreen as red and blue. An actual costume of red and blue would have muddied together into a dark gray. 

Once color TV's became the thing, Spidey's costume would play better, but I wonder how well viewers at home in 1961 would have been able to "read" Spidey on their immense, combo liquor cabinet, B & W televisions. 

Of course, even Superman floating nearby, knowing that he could snap your neck or burn you to death with his heat vision in an instant and there's NOTHING you could do to stop him--I wouldn't be too comfortable around him either.

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That's a scary though! I was going to make a post about whether we'd trust superheroes if they were real. I guess we'd have to based on their actions. I think I'd personally trust Superman. I just couldn't imagine him going rogue. I could also see the US using him (via propaganda, at least) as deterrent in case any other country got ideas beyond their station.

I lean toward the streamlined Romita look, which still retains a mysterious aspect. He's one of those rare heroes whose face is completely covered, and, besides the over-sized angular, blank, shark-belly-white eyes, has virtually no facial features whatsoever. Even with Iron Man, you could sometimes see his eyes and the suggestion of where the mouth would be (and, for a time, the nose).  But there's something very....alien...about Spider-Man's look. Even though Supeman is an actual alien...he doesn't have that other-worldly appearance. 

Spider-man is closer to Zorro than to... let's say the movie(s) The Fly and others of the same kind.