Perhaps the most famous creation of Stan Lee was Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man. Only the barest hints of his genealogy have ever been revealed, though.
One thing I notice in going through his family tree...Farmer talks about the "magnetic moment", that facility for making outrageous odds reasonable and attainable, for Lord Greystoke. In that sense, Peter Parker and Lord Greystoke are almost opposites. Or perhaps one might think of Larry Niven's Teela Brown, the lady who was bred for luck....in reverse. Again and again, in the Parker family tree, you see examples of people with horrible luck.
The oldest member of the Parker family in the direct line of descent I've been able to discover is Navel Commander Parker, an Englishman who directed the Pope's small navy of ships. His daughter married Carle Vernet, and thus he is an ancestor of Sherlock Holmes. A son immigrated to America. The Commander's grandson was named Richard Parker--- which was also the first name of the father of Peter. This Richard Parker was a sailor out of Nantucket, who sailed with Arthur Gordon Pym. (See THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, by Edgar Allen Poe.)
Unfortunately, this Richard Parker, after a long stint without food when the ship was lost at sea, suggested the sailors cannibalize each other, based on a lucky draw.
Word to the wise to Parkers: never depend on luck.
Richard Parker served as the first and only meal the sailors made of each other.
"The ol' Parker luck strikes again," is something Peter said more than once.... ironically.
The first Richard Parker left behind a wife and children in Nantucket. The NARRATIVE was published in 1838, describing a voyage of several years before. Richard Parker was born around 1800. He married one of the American Hornblowers, (one of which was a representative for New Jersey) who were related to Horatio Hornblower, the English navel hero. (Like Peter would be, he was brown-haired, brown-eyed, with a modest and unassuming facade, which often belied a more decisive self within.) Richard's wife was the granddaughter of Josiah Hornblower, New Jersey reprentative, mentioned in the biography of Horatio Hornblower.
Interestingly enough, her mother was named... Joanna Yossarian. It makes one wonder if she was a great-several-times-removed aunt to John Yossarian,who was the hero---or antihero---of Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 and CLOSING TIME, a World War II pilot and bombardier. John Yossarian was to war heroes what Spider-Man was to super-heroes or John Dortmunder (see below) was to master thieves.
After some of the details of the voyage got out, to escape the shame of Richard's proposed cannibalism, his wife and children moved to New York City, closer to her relatives.
One of her sons was Josiah Cuthbert Parker. Josiah became a pharmacist and part-time inventor in New York City.
Josiah Parker married Alice Quatermain, the daughter of an English missionary who married an American (descended from Anna Cooke and Henry Burlingame of John Barth's SOT-WEED FACTOR). She was a cousin of Allan Quatermain, hero of many of H.Rider Haggard's novels. Humble and yet wise, this brown-haired and brown-eyed hunter had many adventures in South Africa.
Josiah Parker died of a spiderbite that got infected, which led to pneumonia, aggravated by his mixing his own medicines while feverish, and miscalculating the dosage.
Josiah Cuthbert Parker's eldest son was Douglas Parker. Douglas become a policeman in NYC. Eventually he left because of a scandal....a scandal that wasn't his fault....after his sons were grown. He had been accused of taking a bribe, which in turn was a frame-up by his higher-ups who were afraid he was getting too close to discovering the kickbacks they were taking. That came out a few years afterwards, but Douglas had already relocated. In his old age, he left NYC and became a police chief of a small town...
...The town that Philip Wylie called Indian Springs in GLADIATOR...and Jerry Siegel, among others, called Smallville. The town where the young Hugo Danner/Clark Kent grew up in. As readers of the first SUPERBOY series know, Douglas Parker was the elder police chief of that town. The SUPERBOY stories are 99% fictional---he didn't assume a costumed identity until long after he grew up...but a few details were true, and young Hugo/Clark often observed the painstaking ways the police chief would use big city methods to run down small town crimes. He had learned them as a cop on the beat in New York City. He appeared in his late fifties or early sixties when Clark/Hugo was a teenager, which meant, since Hugo Danner fought in World War I, he was born around 1850.
Douglas Parker was married to a woman named Leah Pontmercy, younger daughter of Marius Potmercy and Cosette Valjean, daughter of Jean Valjean, whose struggle was immortalized in Victor Hugo's LES MISERABLES.(See the Legion of Super-Heroes' first published encounter with Mordru for the first name of Douglas Parker's wife.) Like his descendent, oftentimes Peter Parker would be relentlessly hunted and misunderstood. Her older sister Jeanne married into the Vincents of Ohio, who were ancestors of Bruce Banner.
Douglas was accused of taking a bribe to let his younger brother John escape, for unfortunately his younger brother John became a common criminal. He ran off with a woman whose grandfather had been hanged for thievery in England, Joanne Fagin.
John and Joanne had three children, Golda, Steven, and Heather.
One, Golda Parker, married a minor businessman of Irish descent named O'Brien. They had a son named Alan O'Brien, but they died when he was ten. He tried to work hard, but the pushiness of the rest of the world drove him to crime. He got the nickname "Eel" O'Brien.
One night, during a robbery, he was shot in the shoulder by the police and collided by a vat of powerful acids. The rest of his gang ran on, leaving him behind. The strange, experimental acids entered the wound.
Later he would find he could stretch himself like a rubber band, like Reed Richards would do later. He adopted a disguise, and then called himself Plastic Man, and used his criminal alter ego to get tips on what criminals were up to. J. Edgar Hoover made Plastic Man an FBI agent, and he was the wartime All-Star Squardon's FBI contact.
Like Peter Parker, his style of fighting crime was never straightforward and often involved humorous comments and actions.
"Eel" O'Brien had another famous, or infamous relative. Norman Osborn was the son of an O'Brien, "Eel's" aunt. One can just look at the portrait above of "Eel" as he naturally looked, before he altered his features to Plastic Man's... and this, of crooked industrialist Norman Osborn and his son Harry---to see the resemblence. Save for the hair color, they are very similar in looks.
"Eel" was a crook who turned into a good guy---Norman Osborn was a respected businessman who, after an explosion had altered his mind, became a criminal, the ghoulishly grinning Green Goblin, and became Spider-Man's greatest foe, and the only one to discover his identity. His son, Harry, after Osborn's death, or assumed death--- assumed the mantle for a while, going a little mad in his own way too. Norman Osborn and Peter Parker were not directly related, but considering his importance in Peter's life, I think it's worth mentioning.
Steven Parker married a Marge Zuckerman (great-aunt to the Nathan Zuckerman, the writer who Philip Roth would in turn write about, starting in THE GHOST WRITER.) and had one child, Hannah.
Hannah Parker had an affair with an alleged underworld killer named Cliff Marsland. (Actually, Marsland, far from being a killer, was an agent of the Shadow in the underworld.) Their child was the Parker whom Donald Westlake (under his pen name of Richard Stark) chronicled. Unlike many of the Parkers, he was a master of efficiency, perhaps due to the influence of his natural father, in his chosen profession---which was that of a master thief in the New York area. He first appeared in THE HUNTER, in 1967.
Another sister of Steven and Golda, Heather Parker, had an affair with Bunny Manders, Raffles' chronicler, a well-bred man who became a thief---albeit an inept one, only saved by the brillance of his friend, Raffles.
Their daughter, Joyce, married a man named Dortmunder, and their son, John Dortmunder, first appeared in THE HOT ROCK by Donald Westlake, in 1970. He inherited Bunny Manders' larcenous instincts---and ineptitude---with a vengeance! What Spider-Man is to super-heroes, and John Yossarian was to war heroes, John Dortmunder is to master thieves...a constant bumbler with unexpected things always happening to him and his gang. He is almost the antithesis of his cousin, the masterthief Parker.
Douglas Parker had at least three sons. The older brother (born while Douglas was only 17) became a cival engineer and emigrated to England, marrying an Englishwoman. That was Charles Knightly Chetwode Parker. He had three sons. To quote the CASEBOOK OF SOLAR PONS:
"Parker, (Cuthbert)Lyndon b. Ramsgate, Kent. 3rd son of Charles
Knightly Chetwode Parker, Civil Engineer and Florence Mary Agatha
Ramsden, dau. of Rev Dorance Simgrove Ramsden Perpetual Vicar of
Shapcote Monachorum, Kent.
"In 1910 Parker married Louisa Skelton of New York whose family had
been in New York state since before the Revolution.
Louisia Parker perished on the Titanic."
Lyndon evidently came back to visit his American relatives, the New York City Parkers. Lyndon, like Peter, although a smart man, was not a whiz at solving mysteries, unlike his friend, Solar Pons, who modelled himself on Sherlock Holmes. Parker naturally fell into the role of a Watson-like companion. Lyndon would have had to have been born in 1890 at the latest.
Also note "The ol' Parker luck" at work. As Peter lost Gwen Stacy, Lyndon Parker lost his wife to the unlucky sinking of the Titanic.
Since he was the third son, there had to be two older sons. Both of them died during the First World War. One of them was newly-married and had a daughter named Rose. She in turn returned to America and married a man in the poorer parts of NYC named Matt Gordon.
Matt Gordon and Rose Parker Gordon had two children, Charles and Norma. Young Charlie was born in 1926, and was mentally retarded. As an adult, he had an IQ of 68. On March 3, 1958, Charlie joined the research program of Professor Harold Nemur, who was working to increase intelligence. The project had spectacular, but unfortunately short-lived success, turning Charlie into a genius of previously unheard-of ability. Like Peter Parker, he was changed as the result of an experiment, and like Peter...suffered tragic things thereby. By November of that year, Charlie had not only returned to his previous low IQ, but had died as a result of the experiment. His tragic story was told in Daniel Keyes' FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON.
I'm also investigating the possibility that "Penny" Parker of THE SAINT IN LONDON is related to the English Parkers...
I suggest also that Lyndon Parker wasn't the last son, because Peter Wimsey's brother-in-law, also named Charles Parker, was a young police inspector when we first saw him. He had a habit of reading theology in his leisure time, which would be easily explainable given his grandfather being the Rev. Ramsden. Charles married Mary Wimsey, Lord Peter's sister, and had at least two children...Mary and Peter Parker. This Peter Parker was a distant relation of our Peter Parker, of course. The story of Charles Parker, Mary Wimsey, and Lord Peter Wimsey was chronicled by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Charles Parker often referred to himself as a "commoner" compared to the Wimseys. Certainly he would fit into the Parker family tree as outlined so far. Charles and Lyndon would have been first cousins of Benjamin and Richard Parker. Ben and Richard were the sons of Charles Knightly Chetwode Parker's younger brother, Gene Parker.
Gene Parker stayed in New York City after his father left, becoming a photographer for the police department, for crime scenes, lineups, etc. He married Dawn Ling Hex, a half-Chinese woman from the West. She had been raised by her mother, Mei Ling Hex. Mei Ling had left her husband with one young baby with her and...unknown to her or her husband at the time...pregnant with another.
Dawn Ling Hex's father was the notorious yet tragic Western bountyhunter, Jonah Woodson Hex. He was sold by his alchoholic father, Woodson Hex (his mother was named Ginny) to American Indians--Apaches--- as a young boy. He was later mutilated horribly in the face due to a misunderstanding in that same tribe. (Interestingly enough, like his great-grandson, Peter Parker, Hex fought someone who called himself The Chameleon---in Hex's case, an ex-actor whose face had also been scarred. )
Richard Parker, Peter's father, had a middle initial, L. It stood for Ling, his grandmother's maiden name. He never knew Jonah Hex, his grandfather, at all.
There was another brother to Charles and Gene, Henry George Parker. He became a lawyer. (He married a Matilda Bech, who seems to have been an aunt to the writer Henry Bech, whose life has been chronicled several times by his friend, John Updike. Note in "Bech Noir", with a sidekick, albeit a beautiful woman, called Robin, the seventy-four-year-old Bech becomes an avenging "hero" against all critics, a sort of Bechman rather than a Batman.) His son was Nathaniel Parker, Nero Wolfe's lawyer. Middle-aged in Wolfe's cases (meaning he was born at least by 1900) 6 foot 4 inches tall, with nothing but leathery-looking skin to protect him from the elements. Nathaniel was married, but whether he had any children is unknown.
Charles, Gene, and Henry George had one sister, Denielle Parker. She married a man named Nat Colt. He was the son of Blaine "Kid" Colt, the Western gunfighter, and grandson of Dan Colt, rancher. (Dan Colt was a first cousin to Samuel Colt (1814-1862) who made the first repeating pistol, and whose company produced the six-shooters that the West was famous for.) "Kid Colt" was constantly on the run from the law, and had his own share of tragedy in his life. Kid Colt married an Ella Zuckerman, a sister of the Marge Zuckerman who married Steven Parker, but his outlaw status caused him to have to leave her. She moved back to Newark with her child, Nat, who married Denielle.
Their son, Dennis Colt (or "Denny") grew up to become a criminologist who worked directly with the police. Trying to stop a madman from poisoning the city's water supply, he fell into the chemical himself, and was pronounced dead. Instead, he revived from the deathlike coma he was in, and let the world keep on thinking Denny Colt was dead, while he fought crime as...the Spirit.
The Spirit, like Spider-Man, was a very unusual crimefighter. He didn't always win. He didn't always take his job ultra-seriously. He had no super-powers, and his only costume was a small mask.
Some have speculated that Denny Colt may have had a son by one of his numerous femme fatales such as P'Gell. Art Bollman suggested that his son might be Vic Sage, raised in an orphanage in East St. Louis, who grew up to be a hard-hitting and uncompromising broadcaster and a follower in his father's footsteps...as the mysterious Question, originally chronicled by Steve Ditko.
Gene had two sons, spaced quite a few years apart. Ben followed in his father's footsteps concerning photography, and ran a camera/photography store. He married May Reily.
His much younger brother Richard L. Parker (by about fifteen years) was a war hero during World War II. He had worked with Reed Richards in the O.S.S., among others. Later he became a somewhat mysterious businessman who took a lot of trips...but in the early fifties, he and his wife died in a plane crash---and it came out that he was supposedly a spy for foreign interests.
It was only years later that Peter could prove that Richard and his wife had actually been American intelligence agents---and that they were investigating one of several claimants to being the Red Skull, after the Skull disappeared in the last days of World War II.
Ben and May, of course, had raised the child Peter as their own.
Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter of Will Fitzpatrick is Peter's mother, who died while Peter was still very young.
After Mary's father died (her mother died very young), Mary used her schooling and father's connections to obtain work as a "data analyst" (not for computers, although she had some training in crytography---just evaluating the reports of the field agents) and translator at the Agency (Probably the CIA, not S.H.I.E.L.D., despite what some have said, given the timing). However, Mary longed to get into some "real fieldwork" (i.e. some good 'ol secret agent stuff!). Her chance arose when she met Richard after he joined the Agency. Although he was initially apprehensive about it, Mary persuaded him to let her join him in fieldwork, and she loved it!
Mary and Richard continued to work as Agents, even after they were married and Peter had been born.
According to a recent story arc, Peter's grandfather and Mary's father was Will Fitzpatrick. Actually, his full name was Peter William Fitzpatrick Cochrane. He had an older sister, Ella, who became the mother of Lois Lane, and a younger sister, Jocelyn, who became the mother of Billy Batson. He was a cousin to Nellie Bly, the famous female reporter around the turn of the century. Known as "Peter Cochrane" in his youth, he started to write newspaper columns, known for their sarcastic and biting manner. He decided to go under the name of "Will Fitzpatrick", his two middle names, for most people knew him under a shy and unassuming person. When he got very successful at it, he decided to legally change his name to the name thousands knew him under...Will Fitzgerald.
Like Nellie Bly, or his niece and nephew, Lois Lane and Billy Batson, he learned the value of making a scoop in the newspaper business.
Will Fitzgerald's wife was Allison Blair Banner, the younger sister of William Burns Banner, Bruce Banner's grandfather. Like Peter, this brown-haired and brown-eyed misunderstood individual was brillant at science, and like Peter, was tragic in many ways. Banner's genealogy can be traced through my article about the Banner family. It's safe to say that much of Peter's brillance was derived from this branch of the family, which had many brillant...and tragic...scientists.
According to both later writers of the comic book and Stan Lee in the newspaper strip, Peter Parker eventually married Mary Jane Watson.
As readers of THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEERLESS PEER/ADVENTURE OF THE THREE MADMEN know, Dr. John H. Watson had a fourth wife that he finally had a son by, a beautiful woman who was called Nylepthah. She was the granddaughter of the original Nyleptha, queen of the lost city of Zu-Vendis, chronicled in H. Rider Haggard's novel ALLAN QUATERMAIN, as well as Quatermain's companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Capt. Good.
Evidently that son was not Dr. Watson's only child, for we have evidence of several children---and at least two grandchildren. Mary Jane was the daughter of Dr. Watson's first son, but she has an aunt and an uncle, and one sister at least according to later writers. She had an Uncle Spencer Watson, a Judge, and an aunt,Gayle Watson-Byrne. There was also another uncle who married Anna, Aunt May's best friend.
Mary Jane was beautiful like her grandmother, although she didn't inherit her grandmother's long golden hair. Like her grandfather, she wasn't always considered the brightest person around, but was far brighter than she seemed at first.
Peter and Mary Jane, according to later writers, had a daughter, May Paker, who was whisked away at birth. I'm trying to determine whether that is fictional or not. It is worth noting that Peter Parker could have been born no later than 1948, and his status as a twenty-something in the comics these days is a result of the writers deliberately expanding on events over several issues--- while trying to keep them "contemporary". Stan Lee himself admitted, around the time Peter was put into college, that he would tend to make Peter age slower than normal while telling of his life. In reality, Peter would be over fifty today in 2000...
Is the Spider-Girl series, supposedly set in the future, actually taking place today? With details added to depict a near-future?
Serious students will have to examine that question very carefully....
PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:
"The 19th Century" gives some details about Jonah Hex, but the contention that he never fathered any children was refuted by the story "The Haunting" by Michael Fleischer, among others.
"The Magnificent Gordons" Mark Brown's excellent article, which gives a geneaology for some very famous Gordons, including Charlie Gordon.
Of course, also TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HORATIO HORNBLOWER by C. Northcote Parkinson.
Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I
messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com
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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. "The Hulk", of course, is currently owned by Marvel Comics Group. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.
