peter parker also has spider tracers that allow him to “bug” moving objects. they operate on the same frequency as his spider-sense or something.
i, too, am a recovering comicbook nerd.
I remember in the cartoon he had some sort of super strength. 'cos there was this one episode where something (can’t remember what) stole his powers, or stole his strength, or something like that happened, and he tried to web sling (is that what it’s called?) and Spidey commented that it almost ripped his arm off.
Of course, I could be remembering wrong. But I do believe that super strenght was somewhere in the package.
If you go to Marvels website they have an index of characters, one of Spidermans powers is “class-ten strength”, or the ability to lift up to 10 tonnes.
One of the charming things about the Ultimate Spiderman series of comics is that he keeps screwing up and having his enemies find out his secret identity.
Marvel canon has Spider-Man’s comic-book strength level at the “can lift (press) ten tons” level, and this goes back to the beginning. In Amazing Spider-Man #1, he was able to knock down The Thing, from the Fantastic Four.
His ability to aim his webs without error is also an aspect of his superhuman abilities.
Originally, he used a special receiver to track his spider-tracers, but eventually figured out a way to tune them so he could track them with his own spider-sense. In one issue, it was clear that his own sense had a more limited range than his tracking device, so he dug the tracker out of storage and was able to chase a suspect into the suburbs.
He doesn’t really dodge bullets as such, but his spider-sense lets him predict the bullet’s bath before it is fired.
I’m also a comic-book nerd, but I don’t consider myself “recovering”. I’m happy in my depravity.
I heard somewhere that they went for organic web-shooters becuase they couldn’t come up with a way to make mechanical ones look good: anything that looked remotely believably large enough to hold the amount of web-fluid he spewed looked huge, clunky, and ugly. Organic web shooters were much more aethetically pleasing.
I
Physics moment: Assuming that the initial web is horizontal and that webs don’t stretch significantly, he’s feeling a maximum of three gees, at the bottom of the swing (elastic or angled webs would both decrease this). Supporting one’s own weight under three gees is not outside the “normal human” range: It’d be equivalent to hanging from a rope with a person holding on to each of your ankles. This also lets us put some bounds on the ultimate tensile strength of spideyweb.
Sam Raimi has made several public quotes about how it also seemed more realistic to him that they be of organic origin, than that a teenage kid (genius or not) develops a high-tensile chemical in his spare time that all the engineers at 3M could not.
In what way? How does your calculation suggest that he couldn’t perform the same swing with a Volkswagen hanging from each of his ankles? I’m fairly certain there’s plenty to suggest in both books and movie that the webs will support substantially more weight than 3x(skinny geek).
- Dave
The comic-bok webs have been described as nearly Hulk-restraining, and even the movie version was strong enough to support Spidey and MJ while he held onto a 20+ton cable car with his other hand.
Artistic license. If they had played up Peter in the movie as being as much of a chemical whiz kid as his comic equivalent, maybe he whips up something extraordinary. Of course, logically, he should then patent it and make a billion dollars, but then we wouldn’t have all this lower-middle-class money angst. An adhesive that’s stronger than piano wire and then dissolves, leaving little or no residue? 3M would love something like that.
It’s not clear if the organic webbing used in the movie also dissolves after one hour, nor is it clear how Peter keeps manufacuring it in quantity. A friend of mine pointed out that Peter should have a ravenous appetite to make up for all the energy he burns and webbing he shoots; to the point where walking into his room and finding the dessicated remains of a few homeless people wouldn’t be all that surprising.
I’m curious as to the math behind this.
Thanks.
Apparently James Cameron gets the credit for the built-in webs.
Hmmm. Well, if the web-glands are arachniform rather than technological in origin, why do they come out of his freaking wrists? Shouldn’t they come out of somewhere near his nether regions? And wouldn’t that add some drama to the film? I can see it now, but you don’t need me to draw any pictures…
Well, if you had to pull three Gs through your…nether regions, that would smart a bit, super powers or not.
Quoth BigGiantHead:
Sorry if I was unclear there; I meant a lower bound. As in, his webs are at least strong enough to hold three scrawny nerds. Of course, we also see him carrying MJ when webslinging, so make that six. Obviously, the cable car gives us a much higher bound, but I had forgotten about that.
carnivourousplant, we’re assuming that the swing is semicircle, from fully horizontal to fully horizontal. To find his speed at the bottom, we use conservation of energy: mgL = 1/2 mv[sup]2[/sup], where L is the length of the web (radius of the semicircle). So v[sup]2[/sup] = 2gL. Now, centripetal acceleration is a = v[sup]2[/sup]/R (R being the radius), which gives us two gees of centripetal acceleration. Add in the usual one gee from gravity, and it’s three gees.
I was thinking about the his appetite, too… In addition to him eating a lot of stuff, I’d expect for him to eat a bunch of weird stuff. He’d be having all sorts of cravings for whatever contains the stuff webbing is made of. I have a difficult time buying that webs would almost restrain the Hulk, though… In the movie, at least, we see the Goblin breaking them without too much effort, and I’d be surprised if they never broke in the comic books. This isn’t adamantium we’re talking about, here, and you can only have so many miracle materials in one universe.
I seem to recall, from playing the Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game years ago, that Spidey’s web is classed as “Monstrous” strength. A quick primer on the relative levels of strength:
2 - Feeble
4 - Poor
6 - Typical
10 - Good
20 - Excellent (the limit of unenhanced human ability)
30 - Remarkable
40 - Incredible
50 - Amazing
75 - Monstrous
100 - Unearthly
So, someone with Amazing strength or lower couldn’t break Spidey’s webs (Spidey’s strength is Incredible), someone with Monstrous strength would have a chance (this would include the Thing), and someone with Unearthly strength would snap the webbing like tissue paper (this would include the Hulk, Thor, and Wonder Man). I do recall Wonder Man snapping Spidey’s webbing from his hands in one issue, saying to himself, “It’s strong stuff, all right, but I’m a lot stronger.” That’s coming from a guy who once held a job wearing flak jackets and letting people shoot him with a bazooka so that he could tell them how well the jacket worked, though, so he’s hella-tough.
So, the movie doesn’t jive with the strengths as given in the RPG, and the RPG seems to jive closely with the comics. Also, I seem to recall that, in the comics, after 30 minutes or so Spidey’s webbing would dissolve into a chemically-neutral powder; there’s no indication of how the movie handled all the spare webs he surely left littering the city buildings.
I seem to recall, from playing the Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game years ago, that Spidey’s web is classed as “Monstrous” strength. A quick primer on the relative levels of strength:
2 - Feeble
4 - Poor
6 - Typical
10 - Good
20 - Excellent (the limit of unenhanced human ability)
30 - Remarkable
40 - Incredible
50 - Amazing
75 - Monstrous
100 - Unearthly
So, someone with Amazing strength or lower couldn’t break Spidey’s webs (Spidey’s strength is Incredible), someone with Monstrous strength would have a chance (this would include the Thing), and someone with Unearthly strength would snap the webbing like tissue paper (this would include the Hulk, Thor, and Wonder Man). I do recall Wonder Man snapping Spidey’s webbing from his hands in one issue, saying to himself, “It’s strong stuff, all right, but I’m a lot stronger.” That’s coming from a guy who once held a job wearing flak jackets and letting people shoot him with a bazooka so that he could tell them how well the jacket worked, though, so he’s hella-tough.
So, the movie doesn’t jive with the strengths as given in the RPG, and the RPG seems to jive closely with the comics. Also, I seem to recall that, in the comics, after 30 minutes or so Spidey’s webbing would dissolve into a chemically-neutral powder; there’s no indication of how the movie handled all the spare webs he surely left littering the city buildings.
As God is my witness, I only pushed “Submit” once. I have no idea how the doublepost happened.
I was hoping the second post was to correct “jive” to “jibe.” Max – I’m surprised at you!
New Yorkers are used to dealing with graffiti and litter and pigeon crap and giant webs and whatnot.
Stan Lee is on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air now.
You guys who are wondering how Spider-Man’s webs can be so strong are gonna have a terrible time when you watch The Incredible Hulk next year wondering where all the additional mass comes from when Bruce Banner transforms. And where does it go when the Hulk changes back to Banner? And how about when Ben Grimm changes to The Thing and back again? Where does that damn rocky skin come from and where does it go?
This stuff was never meant to be examined too closely.