What's great about Spider-Man 3 is that the conflict isn't between hero and super-villains, but about Peter Parker succumbing to his own hubris.Superman came from a planet of titans. Batman has vast wealth and resources inherited from his billionaire father. Spider-Man grew up in a ramshackle bungalow in Queens, New York.

The difference is that simple, and that profound.

I still think that the greatest contribution that director Sam Raimi made to the Spider-Man films was establishing in the first film that Peter Parker grew up in a blue collar household, with a loving aunt and uncle who struggled to make ends meet. It made me realize something about Spider-Man as a superhero, and his appeal to me.

Spider-Man was, and is, the original working class hero: his concerns are always down-to-earth. Can he make the rent? Can he help his aunt? Why can't he explain how he feels to Mary Jane? Peter Parker became a superhero not out of noble obligation or supreme destiny but because he screwed up spectacularly and realized that he had a responsibility to help others.

I grew up reading comics and I'll never forget reading reprints of Spider-Man's first adventures by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Peter was a nerd who got picked on by his schoolmates and even when a radioactive spider gave him superpowers he was still picked on, only now by the public. Peter Parker could never catch a break"”he was always struggling to find a way to help his ailing aunt or pay the rent. I identified with that even as a nine year-old. I was picked on at school. I was smart and bright and yet I was always struggling to find my way through the hostile environment of Sunningdale Public School.

Spider-Man was achingly human. What's great about Spider-Man 3 is that the central conflict isn't between hero and super-villains, but Peter Parker succumbing to his own hubris. At the start of the film, he starts believing his own press and becomes insensitive to needs of his own girlfriend. As the film progresses he becomes consumed by his own arrogance and anger (an alien goo that attaches itself to his costume doesn't help). For all the fantastic special effects and pitched battles, the film's climax is remarkably humble and remarkably human: it involves people forgiving others, and people forgiving themselves, and then going on, knowing how fragile and precious life is.

Spider-Man 3 couldn't be a more vastly different film to last year's Superman Returns if it tried. Its central premise is that Superman comes back to earth and finds him beset by people who don't believe in him anymore. It's hard to identify a guy with the powers of a god having that kind of predicament. Bryan Singer's cold, removed direction doesn't help: Superman is portrayed as an ultimately aloof saviour. He may understand, like Spider-Man, that with great power comes great responsibility, but he doesn't have to grapple with that responsibility at all. The central image of Superman Returns is Superman hovering high above the earth, cape flapping in the wind, listening to see who needs to be saved. Contrast this with Spider-Man living in a lower East Side tenement listening to a Radio Shack police scanner and I can tell you which hero I identify with more.

As I get older, I look at the four-colour comic book heroes that have been a part of my life and I ask myself: which one would I want as a role model? My favourite superheroes couldn't be more different. I love Superman with his Boy Scout values, primary colours and primal strength. I love Batman, who is a dark avenger of the night, relying on his wits and cunning and vast array of gadgets. And I love Spider-Man

All of these characters are wonderful and fantastic"¦but the one I most want as a role model is Spider-Man, a nerd from Queens, New York who still struggles to do the right thing and does it even though there are consequences. A guy who screws up but at the end of the day, just does his best and somehow makes it through. He's not an elite, he's a working class hero. Just like the rest of us.