The Bible is full of amazing stories, miraculous events, tales of bravery, sacrifice, strength… and so are superhero legends. Jeff Dunn and Adam Palmer, co-authors of The Soul of Spider-Man: Unexpected Spiritual Insights from the Legendary Superhero, examine such similarities between Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and the characters and principles found in God’s Word. Dunn recently sat down with Crosswalk to talk about great power, great responsibility, and great role models. Crosswalk.com: Jeff, in this book, you and Adam Palmer focus mostly on the most recent three Spider-Man films? Jeff Dunn: Right, we look at the three where Tobey Maguire plays Spider-Man. CW: The line from those films, “With great power comes great responsibility” is now burned into all of our brains. Is this a Christian principle, and how so? JD: Yes, it is. And the verse that comes to mind with me is, “To whom much is given, much will be required.” So, with great power comes great responsibility. Also, then we look in James where James tells us, Hey, don’t get too excited to be a teacher or a leader because those who are leaders, there is more required of them. So when we are given much, much is required of us.  Peter Parker was given this great power, and thus he had a responsibility. Of course, that line was given after he failed to exercise that responsibility. And look what happened after he failed to exercise that responsibility—his uncle was shot and killed. CW: Is it just or fair that — I mean, Peter is still a teenager – he gets such power and, therefore, such responsibility at an age that he may or may not be able to handle it? What do we do when that happens to us? JD: King David — most scholars would say he was no more than sixteen, probably more like twelve or thirteen when Samuel came along and anointed him to be King of Israel. Look at Mary. She was, what, maybe thirteen or fourteen when the angel visited her and said, “Guess what? You are going to carry the Son of God.” You know, in ways, I think that it is better for teens to get this power because they don’t know what they don’t know yet. They don’t know what they cannot do. They don’t know what they are not supposed to do. They don’t know what they are not allowed to do. They just do it. I have a son who just turned seventeen this week. He was at a Christian camp two weeks ago, and I went to pick him up. When I got him, we were talking, and he said, “You know David is one of my heroes.” I said, “Really, why?” He said, “He wrestled with lions.” Yeah, he did. And that was one of the things that stood out to him. David was a teenager when he was wrestling with lions. I would not wrestle with a lion! I am smart enough now not to wrestle with lions. He was not smart enough to not wrestle with lions back then. So, yeah, I think that Peter did not go looking for this superpower. It came upon him. And now he has it [along with] all the awkwardness of teens [and] all the teen angst that is explored in these movies.  CW: Was that your target audience with the book? JD: Yes and no. We wrote it at a level that teen viewers of the movies could really enjoy and would be able to appreciate. But honestly, I have talked to more adults who have read it, who love the movies and say, “Oh yeah, boy, that reminded me. I went back and watched it and, yes, I see what you were talking about.” So I think that really we go from teens to all the way up. CW: We actually ran an article a couple of years ago on Crosswalk where the author compared Peter Parker to Joseph, the son of Jacob. And you just brought up David and Mary. Is there a biblical character who you think parallels Peter’s story most? JD: Well, I look at David. I think of David a lot. But certainly, Joseph would fit right in there too. Joseph is a cocky teenager. He thinks he knows it all, or at least that is kind of the feel that we get from reading his early story. And then things happen to him that are out of his control. And then he becomes faithful, and God sees him through. So I certainly could see Joseph in here too, but David is who I had in mind. Honestly, I do not know who [my co-author] Adam had in mind. That is a good question. I am going to ask him. CW: We know that, being a teenager and someone who is wronged as Peter was, he struggled greatly with revenge. What do we take from that? What can Christians glean from the thirst for vengeance? JD: We all get angry whether it is over someone cutting us off in traffic, or somebody stealing a valuable something from us, or who knows, but it just seems that, most of the time, our first thought is, “How can I get even?” So in a way, we kind of look at Peter Parker, and we see this attitude in him, and we say, “Gosh, yeah, I can relate.” For me, it is holding a mirror up to me, and I say, “Oh yeah. You know what? I had that same attitude last week when somebody did this to me.” When I look in the mirror, I do not always see good things. That is necessary at times. We don’t sugarcoat what Peter Parker does in here. CW: One of the things I enjoyed was that you and Adam go deeper than just standard one-to-one analogies. You even write, “Don’t take us to task on this; we are not making a total one-to-one correspondence” to the Bible. But Jeff… when you compare the rise of the Sandman to the resurrection of Jesus, well, can you elaborate on that comparison for us? JD: It is okay that we see glimpses of God in things, and that they do not totally carry all the way out. No, the Sandman is not Jesus. We are not saying that the [...]