In 1962, the
Marvel Comics comic book series
Amazing Adult Fantasy (no, it wasn't a
porn magazine) changed names to
Amazing Fantasy after
issue 14. In
Amazing Fantasy, the issue numbering
continued, so the
first issue of
Amazing Fantasy had 15 as issuenumber. That issue would also be the last issue, since
Amazing Fantasy was
cancelled after issue 15.
In that issue, number 15, the student Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and gains superhuman powers. Peter decides to hide his powers from everybody, and only use them when he really needs to. But, with great power comes great responsibility.
Because his aunt May and uncle Ben, with who he lives, are really poor, he decides to try and win some money in a wrestling contest. He puts on a costume, and enters the contest with the alias Spider-Man. Of course, Spider-Man wins, and receives some money.
While standing in the lockerroom, a burglar runs past him, and a security guard yells that he should be stopped. Peter doesn't care, since it is not his job to do that. He gets home in the evening, only to discover that his uncle has been killed by a burglar. He overhears a conversation between two police officers, that the burglar is hiding somewhere in a warehouse. He goes, in his Spider-Man costume, to the warehouse to catch his uncle's killer. The killer turns out to be the burglar Peter could have stopped at the wrestling match.
Naturally he feels guilty, and to honor his uncle's memory, he decides to become the masked crime fighter known as Spider-Man.
Spider-Man's adventures continued in Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man's own series, which started in 1963.
In 1995, Marvel Comics released a three issue limited series, which supposedly told the story of what happened with Spider-Man between Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #1. These issues were numbered as issues 16, 17 and 18 of Amazing Fantasy.