A Brief History of Spider-Man in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

1987 was a big year for Spider-Man. Not only did Peter Parker hit the jackpot when he married Mary Jane Watson that summer in both the Stan Lee-penned newspaper comic strip and the giant-sized Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, but wall-crawler and wife tied the knot during a real-life ceremony at New York’s Shea Stadium. Attired in a tuxedo and gown created by fashion designer Willi Smith, Spidey and bride exchanged vows — “With this ring, I thee web” — and snapped photos for their wedding album, which was featured in the fall 1987 issue of Marvel Update Magazine.

55,000 fans witnessed the ceremony officiated by co-creator Lee and attended by Captain America, the Hulk, and the groom’s Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends co-stars Iceman and Firestar. What could be bigger than that?

Months later, on November 26, 1987, the Spider-Man balloon debuted during the 61st annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For the first time, Marvel’s web-slinger soared over the streets of New York City as he had done countless times since first appearing in the pages of Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. (Network NBC, which aired the parade and the Saturday morning cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, promoted the series by having Spider-Man make an appearance as part of a cavalcade of costumed characters in 1981 and 1982.)

RELATED: After a Decade Away, Marvel’s Spider-Man Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon Returns With an All-New Look for 2024

The 78-foot long, 36-foot wide balloon weighed in with 9,522 cubic feet of helium. 40 balloon handlers, dressed in blue overalls with red and black webbed tunics, marched down Central Park West to Herald Square in a procession that was followed by Marvel’s second showstopper: a 32-foot tall, 24-foot long multi-level parade float presented by the New York-based Marvel Comics Group. New World Pictures, the B-movie company co-founded by low-budget movie maker Roger Corman, acquired Marvel Entertainment one year earlier in November 1986 and saw the Marvel Universe float and Spider-Man balloon as a way to raise Marvel’s profile.

The float depicted a dramatic battle between Marvel’s superheroes — including Captain America, the Hulk, Iron Man, and Wolverine — and the villains Enchantress, Magneto, and Doctor Doom. More than two million spectators lined the streets of Manhattan and over 80 million people across the nation tuned in to watch the parade that featured parade staples like Garfield, Kermit the Frog, and DC’s Superman.

John Romita Sr., at the time Marvel’s art director and former Amazing Spider-Man series artist, designed the 1987 version of the parade balloon that continued to fly for the next 11 years, until it was retired in 1998.

“I got a charge out of doing that,” Romita said in 1991’s Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics. “At the initial meeting they were teaching me aerodynamics, saying the bulk had to be in the upper part – you usually need a big head filled with helium to keep these balloons upright. But I was thinking of a crawling character, so I needed his rump and his thighs to be a volume area. They made a plaster model from my sketch, and I crouched and twisted and bent to paint onto that four-foot figure the exact pattern of the webbing, and the eyes, and where the boots and the gloves go.”

“They made the balloon from that model,” Romita added. “To see it go from sketch to fruition was just a terrific feeling.”

In 2009, after an 11-year absence, Macy’s announced that a new Spider-Man balloon with an updated costume (bigger eyes and deeper shades of red and blue) would take flight in the 83rd Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and take part in the parade until 2011. That version combined the classic pose — Spider-Man’s arms outstretched in front and legs bent behind him in crawling mode — with a web-slinging pose and a “more modern” look for a “more defined Spider-Man.”

“Marvel’s iconic character, which flew for over a decade in the ’80s and ’90s was one of the most memorable balloons in Macy’s long Parade history,” Robin Hall, then executive producer of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, said in 2009. “‘When is Spider-Man coming back?’ is a question that has been shouted from the sidelines each and every year we inflate our helium giants on Thanksgiving eve.”

The timing coincided with the recently-relaunched The Amazing Spider-Man comic book, 2008’s “Brand New Day” era, and the planned Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man 4. (Sony Pictures was developing a sequel to 2007’s $895 million blockbuster Spider-Man 3, but the sequel, which would have starred Tobey Maguire as the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, was ultimately cancelled in 2010.)

“With anticipation for the upcoming release of Spider-Man 4 reaching a fever pitch, the timing couldn’t be better to bring back the Spider-Man balloon in this year’s Macy’s Parade,” said Juli Boylan for Spider-Man Merchandising, L.P, the limited partnership comprised of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc.

Nearly 40 years after his debut appearance, Marvel’s Spider-Man balloon returned to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time since 2014 — with an all-new design based on the work of the late Romita Sr., who died aged 93 in June 2023.

The 34-foot wide, 44-foot tall balloon is the longest of the 17 featured character helium balloons at 77.5 feet long, and depicts Spider-Man in a Romita-inspired web-swinging pose (rather than a wall-crawling one).

“It was John the whole way through,” Will Coss, Vice President and Executive Producer of Macy’s Studios, told Polygon about the newly-redesigned balloon inspired by Romita Sr.’s iconic style. “I think we knew early on that this was the approach, the style. Once we had an opportunity to confirm that we were going to be fortunate enough to have Spider-Man return to the parade, we keyed in on it early.”

The new Spider-Man balloon debuted during the rainy 98th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, where its inaugural flight was witnessed by Romita’s son and fellow Marvel artist John Romita Jr.

“It was amazing to see my father’s work displayed as a balloon in the Macy’s day parade,” Romita Jr. shared. “Hearing his name mentioned during the show was a honor to him and our family.” After all, with great power must come great inflatability.