Remember when Peter Parker was the only Spider-Man? Since Spider-Man hit the scene in the 1960s, Marvel has tried several times to replicate the Wall-Crawler's success. In the 70s, the House of Ideas attempted to fuse Green Lantern and Spider-Man to create a new teenage hero in Nova. Later in the 80s, Marvel went back to the drawing board- with Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, no less- to create Speedball. Even though both characters have devoted fans, neither of them ever came close to matching Spidey's market share, which caused Marvel to keep trying to reproduce the formula once every decade.
However, in the 2010s, Marvel came up with a brilliant solution. Instead of creating a new hero that was vaguely similar to Spider-Man, they would simply create multiple versions of Spider-Man. Enter Miles Morales, Gwen "Ghost Spider" Stacy, Silk, Spider-Punk, and several other characters that are essentially the New Coke to Spider-Man's Coca-Cola classic. And while many like to cite Miles Morales as the first character that truly offered a new spin on Spider-Man, Toei was actually the first company to create the first Spider-Man variant.
In the video linked above, you can check out clips from the live-action Japanese Spider-Man series that are guaranteed to make you smile.
