Sitting high above the streets of New York City lurks one of America's most famous superheroes – having recently received something of a renaissance with the release of the first two films in what is widely expected to be a trilogy – Spiderman rarely grants interviews.

Maybe it's because he grows tired of the inevitable “So how come you are Peter Parker are buddies?” or maybe it's the pathetic attempts by the paparazzi to catch a photo of him taking a whizz – however today he made an exception.

As I climbed the final flight of stairs that lead to the roof access to the Empire State Building I had no idea of what to expect; the view was incredible. No city quite grasps scale in the same way that New York does... not even London. As I stood there overwhelmed by the view I witnessed something so spectacular it threw everything I was looking at into the shade: Spiderman flew up from a surge of momentum from what can only be described as a “web catapult” and landed only inches from the edge of building. Had he timed it any less perfectly he would have been plummeting to his doom.

I say plummeting to his doom... that would probably only apply if he did not have super human abilities as he could quickly just shoot out another web... but even without the mortal danger aspect of the whole situation it was still damned impressive.

He walked over to me and grabbed my hand. For a superhero I some how expected his handshakes to be firmer.

“I'm Spiderman.” he explained to me, in case I had inadvertently mistaken his entrance for that of someone else – maybe the window cleaners, I'm not sure, I forgot to ask.