Stan Lee came up with the idea of Spider-Man while watching a fly

The prototype of Spider-Man's friendly neighbor was an ordinary fly on the wall. After the successful launch of the Fantastic Four in 1961, Stan Lee spent the next year thinking about a new bright character. And an ordinary fly that flew into the office helped him with this.

Watching a winged insect crawling along the walls of the office, the legend of comics clearly understood what Marvel needed - a guy who can move on a vertical surface. The first nicknames for the new character were Insect Man, Fly Man and Mosquito Man, until Stan Lee once again dawned on Spider-Man. After that, he instructed Steve Ditko to quickly draw a costume design for a minor hero with spider abilities, and presented it to the head of Marvel Martin Goodman, whose answer was: "This is the worst idea I've ever heard." The rest, as they say, is history.