There's a little trick I do at parties (well, not so much parties as whenever anyone asks me). Name a number between 1 and 150, and I'll tell you off the top of my head what happened in the Spider-Man comic that bears the number. # 3? Spider-Man's first battle with Dr. Octopus. # 14? First battle with the Green Goblin, with a guest appearance by the Incredible Hulk. # 68? Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin (first of a three-parter). I remember 'em all, notwithstanding that most are more than 30 years old.

You'll have to take my word for the "off the top of my head" part. But hey, who would make up something like this? It's not the sort of thing you brag about in most social circles. It's like admitting you can name every episode of the original Star Trek series. (Which, by the way, I can also do.)

But I'm not really embarrassed either, and not because the Spider-Man movies are selling so many tickets. It's because Spider-Man — or more precisely, his alter ego, Peter Parker — was my childhood best friend. For a decade, we grew up together and we learned a lot of lessons together.

I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid, and didn't really want many; my experience told me that while adults were kind, kids were cruel and fickle. I greatly preferred the world of superheroes, for all the usual reasons at first: colorful costumes, cool fight scenes, exciting adventures. But when I discovered Spider-Man at age 7, I found someone I could relate to on a different, deeper level — someone who helped me grow up in real life, even while I enjoyed the fantasy stories I still loved.

Up until then, all the superheroes I'd seen were, more or less, perfect: Ultra-competent, ultra-confident. They faked timidity and incompetence in civilian life, but it was all an act; their secret identities played minor supporting roles, but we all knew that Superman, not Clark Kent, was the true identity. Peter Parker was different. He was young (16 at the start), geeky, unpopular, unsure of himself; this was who he really was, not who he pretended to be. He tried to do the right thing, but he didn't always know what that was. His actions as Spider-Man hurt his life as Peter: His romances, friends, family, finances and grades all took a hit, and he was always struggling to find a balance. His life wasn't relentlessly grim, but it wasn't endlessly cheery either.

Even when I was 7, I was getting the idea that this was how life really worked: You win some, you lose some. The wins aren't always clear-cut; at the same time, though, the losses aren't the end of the world. Sometimes they're even funny. Spidey ran into a string of minor irritants, like a costume that shrank in the laundry. He developed an ironic sense of humor about life; following his lead, so did I.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Spidey — or rather, learned along with him — was perseverance. He often wanted to quit his calling, and a couple of times he did, only to realize later on that his powers brought a responsibility he couldn't shirk.

Once (I must've been 8 or 9 at the time) he was buried under tons of debris, after a battle where he'd been trying to recover stolen medicines needed to save the life of his Aunt May. In the classic superhero tradition, he summoned all his strength to lift the debris — and, contrary to the classic superhero tradition, failed. Over and over, he tried and kept failing, succumbing to despair more than once. This went on for page after page (things never took that long in comic books!), until finally, motivated by love for the aunt who raised him like a mother, he slowly, agonizingly lifted the debris, then limped through a series of other ordeals to finally succeed in his mission.

It's still clear in my mind more than three decades later; the impression it left was so strong, I can recall nearly every panel. Who Spider-Man was in that story was who I wanted to be: not someone with the power to move mountains, but someone with the determination to keep fighting the good fight even (no, especially) when I felt I couldn't go on any longer. And because Peter was so human, so fallible, so young — just a few years older than me — I didn't feel that was a distant, unattainable goal. That was who I could start to be then and there, and who I should strive to be (with all the defeats and setbacks that could be expected) for a lifetime.

With the impact Spider-Man made on me, it's been a delight to see two movies — both of them strongly faithful to the comics — that I know must be having a similar impact on other people, ranging from kids the age I was when I became a fan to (I strongly suspect) many people well into adulthood.

The original Spider-Man movie captured it all beautifully: the high school isolation, the unspoken crush on the girl next door (Mary Jane), the exuberant joy of discovering heretofore unimagined powers, the sobering discovery of the burdens the powers bring, the guilt of disregarding a father figure's guidance (Uncle Ben, who dies as a result of Peter's negligence), the sacrifice of romance for duty (Peter can't risk pursuing Mary Jane, even when she finally professes her love for him, lest she fall victim to Spider-Man's dangerous life.)

Spider-Man 2 does the job as well, or even better: Without giving away spoilers for those who haven't gone yet, it mixes the fun (including a variant on the costume-in-the-laundry gag) with the weightier trials, and manages to be seriously touching. Above all, it's got the same messages about duty and perseverance, and the same believable struggles with those issues. Peter, who learned the "with great power comes great responsibility" lesson in the first movie, gradually unlearns it; it takes him a long time, and a series of events, to learn it all over again. And when he does realize he has to take up his calling once more, he finds he can't just pick up where he left off. His emotional state has done damage to his abilities; he's going to have to work his way back into form, with no guarantees he'll succeed. Just like real life.

Neither the old comics nor the movies are specifically Christian, though the movies both have positive Christian allusions. (Aunt May, who in the comics is sweet but dotty, is portrayed as wise in the movies; she prays the Lord's Prayer and discerns God's hand of deliverance when Spider-Man rescues her from danger.) But you can't miss certain parallels to Christian life, intended or not. Like Peter, we don't simply make a decision to be righteous and, once resolved, ride that decision through life. We're always going to have struggles and doubts, we're going to stumble and fall, and we're going to have to keep getting up and trying again — not because we imagine we're earning any merits by doing it, but just because it's right.

I won't say "everything I needed to know, I learned from Spider-Man." Still, I learned a lot, and — again, like Peter — I find I need to keep re-learning it. As one of my favorite quotes says, "Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed": I'm glad Spidey's still around to remind me.