Editor's note: If you haven't had a chance to get caught up, here's links to the rest of the list:
Click here to read #5
Click here to read #4


#3: Spider-Man/Peter Parker

  With a screen name like mine, it surely was a given that Spider-Man would appear somewhere on this list. And one can be forgiven for the assumption that he would take the gold because of that. It's not like there aren't plenty of things there to make him worthy of the opportunity. I mean, he did make BusinessWeek magazine's list of 10 smartest superheroes. But even for me, this list has proven to be anything but predictable.
  Science geek Peter Parker obtained his spider-like abilities as a result of being bitten by a radioactive spider. Once he realized what he was capable of and had fully acclimated himself to that, he began to put his new powers to work. Unfortunately, the beginning of that was far from a selfless endeavor.
  After devising a prototypical version of the familiar red and white costume he's known for today to conceal his identity, he became a professional wrestler. It was during this time he was dubbed "The Spider-Man". Eventually he ended up on tv demonstrating his powers. His fame consumed more and more of him, until one tragic act of self-absorption exacted the steepest price, body-slamming him into the reality that would define the rest of his life.
  A thief had robbed the studio and was getting away. Spider-Man had the opportunity to stop him but did nothing, reasoning that it was the cops' job and not his. Later that evening, he arrives home to find that his uncle--Peter was living with him and his aunt because his parents were dead--had been killed. He got wind of the killer being cornered in an abandoned warehouse and rushed to the scene as Spider-Man.
  Upon arriving at(and sneaking into) the warehouse, he confronts the killer and discovers, to his horror, that it was the same man whom he had let go earlier. Sick with grief, regret and anger, Spider-Man considers killing him. But words from his Uncle Ben grasped him for the first of many times to come, the words that began and shaped his crime-fighting destiny: "With great power comes great responsibility." Spider-Man then relinquished his captive to police custody and retreated under cover of darkness.
  It was from this dark place that the web-swinger slowly became imbued with his core Essential qualities. He never allowed himself to become immune to the pain and the guilt, but at the same time it never prevented him from doing what he felt was his duty. All too often a Christian allows his/her feelings of unworthiness to keep them on the sidelines of service. The Spider-Man way at least sounds simple: know your guilt, take your freedom, and then learn your role. But a fickle public made this far from easy.
  He was called a menace and subjected to a never-ending media smear campaign at the hands of Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. He was alternately lauded, and then hated, by a populace who consistently misunderstood and failed to appreciate him. However, he never let this get in the way of doing the good he felt chosen to do. Time and time again he saved their lives, repeatedly he worked to keep their(and his) city from peril at the hands of the latest superpowered bad guy. He even saved Jameson himself from danger on several occasions, only to be rewarded with more hot-off-the-presses slander afterward. No good deed ever went unpunished for the wallcrawler.
  Spider-Man's story reminds me in ways of the obstacles Jesus faced during his ministry years, from the response of an ungrateful public(John 1:11) to the struggle of carrying his appointed burden(Luke 22:42). In spite of the power he holds and the freedom it gives him that no one else could possibly imagine, he never lost the core of who he is: an awkward, shy youth named Peter Parker, who struggles to make ends meet and can't get enough of Aunt May's scrumptious wheatcakes.
  The Parker/Spider-Man duality isn't one of darkness versus light, or sin versus righteousness. It's more of a check-and-balance affair; the geeky kid reminds the powerful hero of his fallibility, the hero reminds the kid of his need to stand tall and confident. The tireless mantra given by Uncle Ben was even more brilliantly spoken by the Author of all truth in Luke 12:48: "...For unto whom much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." This is what makes Spider-Man someone of Essential stock...not for what he can do, but because of the unflinching gaze of accountability which drives him to do it.