# Spiderman's webs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355 "2018-11-30T22:49:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/21 "2018-12-03T21:09:16Z")
As an aside, this is why I favor an at least partly organic explanation for the webs. Like, he secretes some substance from embarrassing orifices, that he doesn’t completely understand the chemistry of, but he’s been able to work out enough, by trial and error, to turn it into web-fluid. Sure, Peter Parker should be smart, but he should be honors high school student smart, not metatechnologist smart. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/22 "2018-12-03T22:23:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As an aside, this is why I favor an at least partly organic explanation for the webs. Like, he secretes some substance from embarrassing orifices, that he doesn’t completely understand the chemistry of, but he’s been able to work out enough, by trial and error, to turn it into web-fluid. Sure, Peter Parker should be smart, but he should be honors high school student smart, not metatechnologist smart. I agree with this so much that I quoted your entire post. I thought that making the webbing organic solved a lot of the logical problems inherent in the Spiderman comics- it allows Peter to be smart but not super smart (thereby sidestepping the “why isn’t he rich” problem), it explains how he’s able to make so much webbing (come on, there’s no way he’d be able to store enough webbing in those little clips on his wrists to get around town, let alone web bad guys to walls), and it explains how it’s so strong (hey, mutated super spider, remember?). ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/23 "2018-12-03T23:54:38Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > it explains how he’s able to make so much webbing [Not really](https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-does-spider-man-eat-breakfast/). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/24 "2018-12-04T00:20:49Z")
I’m still not sold on the versions where he shoots webbing straight out of his wrists, because what the heck are spinnerets doing in his wrists? My version (which I don’t think has ever actually been used in any of the stories) still has him doing _something_ to the stuff (maybe just as simple as dissolving it in an alcohol solution, or the like), and he still makes the shooters himself. So, using those honors-student smarts. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/25 "2018-12-04T00:25:40Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > I thought that making the webbing organic solved a lot of the logical problems inherent in the Spiderman comics- it allows Peter to be smart but not super smart (thereby sidestepping the “why isn’t he rich” problem), it explains how he’s able to make so much webbing (come on, there’s no way he’d be able to store enough webbing in those little clips on his wrists to get around town, let alone web bad guys to walls), and it explains how it’s so strong (hey, mutated super spider, remember?). It only does one of those things. There’s no reason that artificial webbing can’t exactly mimic the qualities of the biological derived kind. (We haven’t done that IRL, but it’s not impossible.) Or to surpass the strength (there are a LOT of substances in the Marvel universe that do). And having a load of premade cartridges of it is a _lot_ more reasonable than creating it within his own body on the fly. Both are perfectly reasonable in a superhero context, but when looking at it from outside that context, making them in his arms logically has all the drawbacks of the cartridges, as well as being slower and requiring fuel within his body. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/26 "2018-12-04T14:39:38Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > One of the ongoing contradictions in Spider-Man is that Peter has no money, yet can build himself amazing gadgets that would be worth millions to the public. He is as creative as Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, but lives in a shabby one bedroom apartment. And he could be the world’s greatest baseball player. That would be worth a few bucks. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/27 "2018-12-04T19:07:37Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > What about where those webs are actually attached to allow him to swing? Forget the problem of swinging to/from a flat vertical wall, what do you swing from at rooftop level? > > This was lampshaded in a Runaways/Spiderman crossover. Spiderman swings in and meets the runaways on a rooftop. A panel or two later one of the characters is shown looking up at the (apparently empty) sky above and wondering where he had anchored the line. Something similar happened in the Spider-Verse crossover a couple of years ago. A couple of Spider-Men visited the earth of the Spider-Man '66 animated series. First they remarked that all the buildings only had six windows, then wondered what their webbing was sticking to. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/28 "2018-12-05T16:58:38Z")
Spider-man can’t be fan-wanked hard enough to make his webbing even semi-plausible. They always show him swinging through the air, and at the top of his arc, he shoots out another line. It zips out half a block in a split second, defying swirling air currents and dirty buildings just in time for him to apply his whole weight to it. How can a near weightless strand travel any distance at all? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/29 "2018-12-05T17:39:07Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > They just ended a couple years long run where Peter founded a tech start up, became super rich, then lost it all. It was fun - he was like Tony Stark with absolutely none of the suave. They even did the “Spider-Man is Peter Parker’s bodyguard,” thing. And had him get haraunged from multiple people even though there were decent reasons for what happened. Parker should have pulled a “Nomad” or “Ronin” a long ass time ago. Change your name and become the worlds best bodyguard. He’d make more in a year then he did his entire non-ceo life. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Prize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/30 "2018-12-06T03:59:23Z")
My fan wank: When Peter experimented with his ability to cling to walls he tried it out on surfaces covered with various substances. He realized that when certain polymers pass through his “cling field” he could alter their properties. After further experiments and some inventiveness he developed web-shooters that pass the polymers through the cling field of generted from his palms. He is clever but his discovery is no use with out the ability to generate a cling field. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2018, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/31 "2018-12-30T20:08:59Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I find that hard to believe. Not your saying it’s plot but that someone couldn’t find a market for a super strong, quick dissolving adhesive. Apparently Parker’s genius doesn’t extend into marketing. > **[Reed Richards Is Useless - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless)** > > The observation that in some genres, characters can have fantastic technology far beyond our own, yet this technology only gets used to solve equally fantastic problems. A person who controls weather will never make it rain in drought-stricken … ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2018, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355/32 "2018-12-31T11:49:53Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > And having a load of premade cartridges of it is a _lot_ more reasonable than creating it within his own body on the fly. Both are perfectly reasonable in a superhero context, but when looking at it from outside that context, making them in his arms logically has all the drawbacks of the cartridges, as well as being slower and requiring fuel within his body. I disagree. Super powers are essentially magic, that defy the laws of physics. You have people with the ability to create matter and/ or energy in large quantities from nowhere. If you suspend disbelief and accept that premise, you can say that Spidey just creates webs out of nowhere, it’s one of his powers. Technology that defies the laws of physics is a lot harder to accept. Large webs that come from nowhere by magic, I can accept. Large webs that come from a small bottle, I can’t accept. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spidermans-webs/825355.md?page=1)