Existentialism was fathered by Soren Kierkegaard, but it did not gain large scale acceptance until the years leading up to and after World War II. The French philosophers Jean-Paul Sarte and Albert Camus were the driving force behind Existentialism's rise to popularity in post-war France, and it was their ideas that led to the eventual universal acceptance of Existentialism. Sarte and Camus wrote literary works that encapsulated their existential philosophies, and in these works they developed they developed existential protagonists. An Existential protagonist has freedom, struggles with identity, and experiences alienation. The Existential protagonist must figure out how to deal with the absurdity of the world.
It is necessary to establish Spider-Man as an Existential protagonist in order to properly view his actions through the scope of that philosophy. At the start of the tale, Peter Parker is a normal teenager with the structure of a normal teenager. He must attend school, interact socially with his peers, and return to his home in the evening. After receiving his superhuman powers, Parker also receives super human freedom. He receives a part-time job at the Daily Bugle (a major newspaper that serves the greater Manhattan area in the comic book) that most teenagers would not have access to, but this is accompanied by the irony that Parker is contributing to the primary machine of hatred to his alter-ego. His new found confidence from his superhuman powers allows him a greater ability to interact socially and frees him from being the victim of bullies, but this is accompanied by the irony that his alter-ego prevents him from developing many meaningful relationships. Parker was always a highly successful student, but his superhuman powers had the unfortunate side-effect of freeing him from academia, thus barring him from the successful life that seemed a certainty while dooming him to live in poverty.