NEW YORK (AP) — Spider-Man fandom is in Tyler Scott Hoover’s blood — but not because he was bitten by an irradiated arachnid. His father had collected Marvel comic books featuring the character since the 1970s. “He passed down a ton of comics to me,” says Hoover, 32, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. “It kind of makes it almost like a religion. It would have been hard for me not to become a fan of Spider-Man.” There are legions of fans of Spider-Man, who this month marks 60 years in the vast, imaginative world of comic books, movies and merch. Among those fans are devotees like Hoover, a professional Spider-Man cosplayer and model who doesn’t resemble the longtime “canon” presentation of the character. However, in the cinematic and comics universes, a Black Spider-Man is now reality. Hoover is biracial — of Black and white ancestry — and stands at 6 feet 2 inches. And the story of his fandom illustrates an important point about New York City’s favorite super-powered wall-crawler: The appeal of the character long ago transcended its original iteration as a white, unimposing, orphaned teenager.