Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
In 1962, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko slipped a new character into the last issue of a comic that was about to be cancelled. Little was expected of him. He was Peter Parker, a thin, bookish teenager from Queens, and when a spider bite left him with great strength, his first idea was a pragmatic one: earn some money.
I think that small, slightly shabby choice explains why he has outlasted so many grander heroes. Superman came from another planet. Batman had a fortune. Peter had the rent to worry about. His powers solved almost nothing in his own life. If anything, they opened a running tab: a missed class, a lost job, a friend let down, a bruise hidden from his aunt at breakfast. No rescue ever cleared it, and each fight only added to it.
A sceptic will say the character lasts because he sells. That is partly true. Since 2002, three actors have played Peter in live-action films, and the mask stares out from lunch boxes and school bags. But merchandise was once just as ubiquitous for heroes nobody remembers today. Sales can keep a name alive. They cannot make a teenager in Nagpur feel that the boy in the suit has the same mundane troubles she has.
The mask matters here more than the muscles. Because it hides the whole face, almost anyone could be under it. In a 2018 animated film, the suit passed to Miles Morales, a Brooklyn teenager with school and family worries of his own, and the film became one of the best-loved in the character’s history. Perhaps audiences had never come for Peter himself, only for his kind of trouble.
It can be inferred from the passage that, in the writer’s view, Peter Parker would have mattered less to readers if
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → his powers had also made his everyday life easier
The writer says Peter lasts because his powers do not fix his own life. If they had, this reason would be gone.
- “His powers solved almost nothing in his own life.” They only added costs, and “no rescue ever cleared it”.
- Readers stay with him because he has the same everyday troubles they have.
- A Peter whose powers also paid the rent would be just another grand hero. In the writer’s view, he would matter less.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: he had first appeared in a comic that was selling well — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The dying comic is only a fact about his start. The writer never links it to why readers care about him.
Option 2: he had been introduced in a film instead of a comic — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage never compares films and comics as places for a hero to begin.
Option 3: a different actor had played him in each new film series — Incorrect. Contradicted: This has already happened. Three actors have played Peter since 2002, and the writer says he still lasts.