Spider-Man fandom is in Tyler Scott Hoover’s blood — but not because he was bitten by an irradiated arachnid. His father had collected Marvel comic books featuring the character since the 1970s.
“He passed down a ton of comics to me,” says Hoover, 32, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. “It kind of makes it almost like a religion. It would have been hard for me not to become a fan of Spider-Man.”
There are legions of fans of Spider-Man, who this month marks 60 years in the vast, imaginative world of comic books, movies and merch. Among those fans are devotees like Hoover, a professional Spider-Man cosplayer and model who doesn’t resemble the longtime “canon” presentation of the character. However, in the cinematic and comics universes, a Black Spider-Man is now reality.
Hoover is biracial — of Black and white ancestry — and stands at 6 feet 2 inches. And the story of
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