# Spider Man : Is my memory failing?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spider-man-is-my-memory-failing/156979>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 23, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spider-man-is-my-memory-failing/156979 "2003-02-23T15:26:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spider-man-is-my-memory-failing/156979/41 "2014-10-06T01:53:57Z")

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> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Back to the OP, I’m not especially fond of “organic webshooters in his wrists” _or_ “invented web formula”. In the first, we end up asking why his spinnerets are _there_ of all places, and in the latter we’re forced to accept that completely independently of his spider-related powers, he’s also a metatechnologist, whose only meta-invention coincidentally happens to also be spider-related.

IIRC, the Spider-Man cartoon split the difference by having Peter Parker develop the proportionate strength of a spider, and the ability to cling to walls, and he keeps seeing a weirdly-twining image in his mind’s eye of – wait, is that the formulaic structure of a chemical compound? Good thing I’m bright enough to win a high-school science fair…

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**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spider-man-is-my-memory-failing/156979/42 "2014-10-06T08:56:10Z")

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> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#):
>
> It was a radical change, but a sensible one. If Parker had the scientific brilliance all along to create something like the web shooters, it detracts from the “Average joe gets a lucky break” underpinning of the whole concept.

But that wasn’t the original concept. In the original comics, Peter Parker was extremely smart and worked on all sorts of gadgets. He was also witty and sarcastic.

I liked the first Spider Man movie with Toby McGuire well enough, but he really got the character wrong. The comic book Spider-man was more Repairman Jack than hapless kid. I’d love to see a Spider-Man movie which captures that.

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