Spider-Man

Spider-Man was a fictional superhero with the ability to scale buildings by crawling along their sides, not unlike a spider. (EDA: To the Slaughter) Ca. 2005, the Ninth Doctor tried to sell a number of mint-condition issues of Spider-Man from the 1960s and 1970s. The owner of the comic book shop refused to buy them because he suspected that they were reprints. A few weeks later Gustavo Lugo reported this incident on Clive Finch's website. (WEB: Defending the Earth!) The Seventh Doctor once stated that "with great power, comes great responsibility", a quote he thought came from Marvel Comics. (NA: Timewyrm: Genesys)

Completing the argument that Jason was making about fictional character's immortality, the Seventh Doctor said that if Spider-Man aged, he would be collecting his pension. (NA: Conundrum) During an attack on the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS, a Spider-Man cartoon show was playing on the scanner screen, shortly before the screen's destruction. (DWM: The Stockbridge Horror)

In 1977, Billy Wilkins, finding the Eighth Doctor's methods of dealing with the Morg ineffectual, claimed that Spider-Man would've finished it off by now. (DWM: Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game)

Behind the scenes

 * Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and debuted in Amazing Fantasy Issue 15, with Andy Yanchus colouring the comic. The quote about power and responsibility comes from this first story. The first of Dr Who's Time Tales was reprinted from this same issue.
 * The 1967 cartoon show can be recognised by the quoted line from its theme song. Technically, it isn't possible to tell in The Stockbridge Horror whether this is a cartoon with a song or if someone is warning him about the coming of the Spider-Man.
 * Marvel Comics usually reprints comics with different covers so that they can't be mistaken for the original.
 * Spider-Man and other Marvel characters introduced in the 1960s have aged little more than a decade in the last fifty years. Current policy is to shift their timelines forward.
 * Death's Head's frequent travels between universes have placed him in at least two parallel universes where Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is a real individual. By travelling back in time, he would've been able to meet the Spider-Man of Primax 185.12 Gamma (Earth 120185), Marvel UK's Transformers universe, and the Spider-Man of Earth-616, the mainstream Marvel Comics universe.
 * One idea for The Lazarus Experiment was a mad scientistworking on developing invulnerable synthetic skin, it was dropped because Davies feared that this might be part of the plot of the movie Spider-Man 3, which was due for release around the same time that Greenhorn's episode would likely air.