So my bf and I were watching the old Spiderman cartoon on TV this morning and we were talking about Spiderman’s web ability. I say in the original comic Spiderman had to use web fluid, he says that shooting webs was one of the abilities Spiderman got from the spider bite(like in the new movie). So which one of us is righ? I figured you guys would know, thanks for the help.
He had some kind of mechanical web squirter on his wrists. They obviously had tremendous pressure to be able squirt the web fluid from building to building. I hate to think where he kept the compressed gas.
yeah thats what I thought happened in the original marvel comic, but bf insists I’m wrong. Would you happen to have a cite? Or would anyone know of one?
Depends on which old Spiderman cartoon. In the old 1960s one, I distinctly remember an episode where his webshooters ran out of web fluid, and he had to replace the cartridges.
I never saw the 1990s series – at least, never sat thru a whole episode – so I couldn’t tell you.
read any of the Spiderman books (yes, there are books… with mostly words. the Venom Factor, etc.) they mention Spidey running out of fluid… or mixing up more… stuff like that.
I’m moving this thread to Cafe Society.
BTW, I’m been a SpiderFan since Amazing Fantasy #15, and until the recent movie, Spider-Man(please note the hyphen, folks:)) always used webshooters with replaceable cartridges.
Indeed, the whole reason Peter Parker was a “science geek” was to give a semi-plausible reason for a 17 year old kid to be able to create mechanical web-shooters, and the specialized web-fluid that went in 'em.
He wore (or still wears, unless the comics have ret-conned in the movie premise of organic webbing) a Batman-like utility belt under his shirt, like a bandolier for his web-fluid cartridges. It was a frequently used plot device to have his web-shooters run out of fluid at a critical moment, in the comics.
[long story]
And, the character of Vemon, who the casual fan may or may not be familiar with, is directly related to this.
A buncha years back Marvel put out a mini-series titled Marvel Superheroes’ Secret Wars. Alla the good guys and bad guys were swept away to another planet by a godlike figure (Super-Fanboy!) who basically wanted to watch 'em all have a big knock-down drag-out fight. Spider-Man runs outta fluid, during his stay on the Battle-World.
So, he comes across this machine that he thinks will replicate a new costume for him (his is all tore up, what with the constant fisticuffs, n’ such). Not only does it do this, but the new outfit (the black and white job that Venom now sports) has built in web-shooters. Yay Spidey.
Of course, the costume is, in fact, a living organism, which Pete goes through a whole buncha rough times trying to get rid of, when he discovers it’s feeding off him, vampire style. (or something along these lines, anyway)
Somewhere after this, the “costume,” still alive, finds a guy what hates Peter and Spider-Man, and they end up as Venom.
[/long story]
Get all that? There’s gonna be a quiz, later.
preview, preview, preview
Venom, not Vemon.
Nertz.
And of course, there was Spider-Man 2099, a short-lived series about Spidey’s 22nd century replacement. His powers came from accidentally having spider-DNA implanted on him a la The Fly, creating biological webspinners in his wrists. (His saracstic quip was that if any more DNA mixed in with his, he’d be shooting webs out of his rear instead of his wrists.)
I’ve seen speculation that this inspired the biological webbing in last summer’s movie.
:: fanboy geek mode ::
Not always. During the time after Secret Wars where he wore the black alien symbiote costume, it generated webbing for him. An easy way to tell is that the webbing came out of the backs of his wrists, not the front.
But he only wore it for a year at most.*
The alien symbiote costume went on to become Venom.
Fenris
*He wore a black costume for longer than that, but it was just a normal cloth/spandex/whatever outfit.
So whats the deal with Carnage?
He was the most badass of them all.
Crap. Or what Skeezix said.
Note to self: Next time, read the whole thread first.
The gesture Toby makes in the movie is actually the same one the Original Spidy makes to depress the bulb containing the web fluid and shooting it out of the wrist dispenser device thingy. I must say this does make for much more graceful brachiation through NY than it would be if there were spinerettes coming out of the end of his abdomen. Just picture him hanging from a lamp post by something sticky attached to his ass, mumbling for help…
The deal is, although he’s my namesake, he pretty much sucks. Infact his continuity was screwed up quite a bit lately but I think at last count, he was dead. Carnage never shot webs, but as a spawn of Venom, he would extend parts of his skin/costume/symbiotic self to form stabbing/slicing weapons and did use the stretchy ability to swing from time to time.
He wsa encased in cosmic silver by the Silver Surfer in one Spidey story. Shoulda been inescapable. But then either John Byrne or Howard Mackie forgot about that and had him in jail where Venom found and ate (yes, ATE) him.
Minimum Carnage from Max Carnage. I love it.
[sub](Fenris, doncha hate when that happens?)[/sub]
The extended edition origin story:
Eddie Brock (the guy who became Venom) was captured by the good guys, seperated from the symbiote costume, and chucked in jail. He ends up being cell-mates with a serious psychopath name o’ Cletus Kassidy (or some variant spelling thereof).
The symbiote manages to escape the cosmic doo-hickey it’s trapped in* and goes to find Eddie. It breaks him out of the hoosegow, and, unbeknownst to anyone else, leaves a little egg behind, in the cell. This, natch, turns out to be a symbiote generation two, which bonds with Kassidy, who in turn becomes Carnage. And there was much parent/child angst betwixt the twain.
And, before everything got all fouled up by the writers, a couple’a decent fight scenes, and one cool-ass video game, were enjoyed by all.
[sub]*I think Doctor Doom wrecked the Fantastic Four’s headquarters, damaging the container, which was stored there, in the process. Been many moons now since my books were easily accessible, though, so I could be way off.[/sub]
Much as I dearly wanted a pair of web-shooters as a child, I have to say that the idea that Peter invented them always sort of gave me pause. Sure, he was presented as a science nerd, but his actual inventing skills seemed awfully intermittent. He concocts the formula for web fluid immediately after getting his powers, and then he invents… well, nothing much for a while.
Eventually he got around to devising his spider-tracers, which somehow triggered his spider-sense at low levels, enabling him to follow criminals. How, exactly, was this accomplished? Can danger be broadcast over radio? As a kid I toyed with the idea that the tracers contained a piece of paper with his name and address, thus providing a small amount of danger should the villain ever open one up and read it.
How did he come up with those tracers, anyway? Did he walk past a malfunctioning air conditioner one day that happened to be accidentally emitting spider-sense vibrations, and extracted the principle from that? Was there ever a story that addressed this?
There was also the Spider-belt buckle, which lit up and cast a web shadow that was supposed to terrify criminals in some unspecified manner. Probably the terror was inspired by the sight of Spider-man exposing his belt. That’s about it as far as the Spider-invention arsenal goes, as I recall. A radioactive Thomas Edison he wasn’t.
And, really, you tend to expect more from a mind able, on the spot, to come up with a substance with the amazing properties that web-fluid had. I remember some “What-If” story or other where Pete quit superheroing, sold the formula to 3M, and made a bundle. At the least, you would think that he would have cashed in a little from his genius. Or can he only invent spider-themed items?
As a side note, I seem to recall an interview with Stan Lee in which he stated that the original concept for Spider-man included the ability to organically generate webbing, but the idea was rejected as being too disgusting for a comic book.
He followed the original tracers with a handheld tracking device before finding a way to “tune” them so he could pick them up on his spider-sense. The physics remain unclear, but the implication I got was that spider-sense could pick up signals that weren’t necessary limited to personal danger. In one story, a man invents a transmitter device that makes regular spiders swarm and uses them to fulfill murder contracts. Spider-Man was affected by this, first feeling compelled to travel to where the spiders were being herded, and later to react with extreme violence. In the same story, the unnamed (and as far as I know, never seen again) inventor came up with ways to shut down Spidey’s spider-sense completely, using a similar transmitter of some kind.
In a later story, it’s made clear that spider-sense is convenient but not very effective at following distant tracers. Spidey wasted a day swinging around Manhattan trying to track one, then went home, dug out his old handheld tracker with its much longer range, and chased his suspect into the suburbs.
One of my favorite "What If"s had the radioactive spider bite Flash Thompson instead of Peter Parker. Flash eventually turned to crime, using his powers for evil instead of good. Peter, without the distraction of being Spider-Man turns more to science, invents his web shooters, and gets a job working for Doctor Octopus. Of course, in this time line Doc Ock doesn’t go crazy, but he does have a version of his arms. Flash Thompson breaks into the lab to steal some radioactive mcguffin, and Doc Ock is accidentally killed. Peter, vowing revenge, hooks up the arms with web shooters, puts on a disguiese and tracks down Flash and sends him to jail. Peter decides to use the arms and web-shooters to become Spider-Man, and fight crime.
I remember another “What If?” comic whose premise was, “What if Peter’s Uncle Ben had lived?” In this comic, when the burglar breaks into Ben and May’s house, he doesn’t shoot Ben …
… He shoots May instead. :rolleyes:
The result, of course, was that Peter Parker realized that he could have stopped the burglar from killing Aunt May if he’d only intervened backstage at the wrestling office when the crook ran past him, and in so realizing he discovers that with great power comes great responsibility and thus becomes Spider-Man.
It seems that no matter what happens, Peter Parker always becomes Spider-Man!
I seem to remember from somewhere (don’t ask me for a cite… it might’ve been “The making of Spider-Man” or something similar on T.V.) that the reason they gave Peter Parker the genetic ability to shoot out web from his wrists in the movie was because any device they came up with that looked as though it could possibly hold the amount of fluid necessary for the number of webs that Spidey shoots out would also have looked too big and ungainly.