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Mark Haslett
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Joined: April 19 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: July 02 2025 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 1
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This discussion has kept this childhood-favorite image front and center in my head for days now. I think this shows Romita's Spider-Man strength as pretty much the same level as Ditko's:
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Craig Earl
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Joined: July 13 2019
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: July 02 2025 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | 2
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Ah, the common error.
Spiders are not insects!
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Richard Stevens
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Joined: May 04 2004
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| Posted: July 02 2025 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | 3
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What a great image. Spidey tipping that bus is like me tipping a couch. I can't chuck the couch at Doc Ock, but I can tip it up to get something underneath. Relatable!
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Brian Rhodes
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| Posted: July 02 2025 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | 4
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There was a Silver Age Pinup of Spider-Man holding a platform over his head, and standing on it were the “only heroes possibly stronger than Spidey”. As I recall, those characters were The Thing, Hulk, Thor, Hercules, and Namor. So I have always viewed Spider-Man’s strength as slightly less than the Marvel heavy weights.
But I think since the Silver Age, all of the above have been depicted with greater strength levels than then. So, do you want him to be slightly less powerful than them then, or slight less than they are now?
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Peter Martin
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Joined: March 17 2008
Location: Canada
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| Posted: July 02 2025 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 5
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Being strong doesn't mean you can't be knocked out. Spider-Man has amazing agility and avoids getting hit... But if he is hit, it still hurts. I don't think that particularly changed in the 80s (e.g. I remember Daredevil punching him out in the Death of Jean Dewolff storyline).
As for what the strength level is... I think he can lift a small car over his head. Tilting a bus seems in that range.
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ron bailey
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Joined: October 16 2016
Location: United States
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| Posted: July 04 2025 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | 6
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His strength was always the least interesting thing about him to me.And can someone mandate that the side webs under his arms are not optional?
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Bob Harvey
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| Posted: July 04 2025 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | 7
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Contrary to the assertion earlier in this thread, spiders are not generally "weak," at least when compared to humans. Some of the larger, heavier spiders do have a pretty bad weight to carry ratio, but it's not the norm.
Spider-Man's abilities seem closest to the "powers" of a jumping spider to me, though that obviously isn't what Ditko drew. Some species of such can lift as much as 100x their body weight.
Edited by Bob Harvey on July 04 2025 at 9:39pm
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Joseph Vecchio
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Joined: October 26 2024
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| Posted: July 05 2025 at 5:05am | IP Logged | 8
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My favorite sequence from Spidey way the Roger Stern/Johnny Romita Jr. run in the eighties, but to me that was less about how strong he was than it was about how confident he was...there were no doubts as there were before, but I recall Tarantula shocked at how much faster Spidey was, and how impressed the Mad Thinker was when Spidey defeated an android designed to take on the Fantastic Four. I really liked that time. Spidey wasn't even afraid to tangle with Wolverine...
I didn't read the later years, so I have no idea if he got even stronger, but it seems to me that he was stronger here simply because he didn't hold back against the tougher opponents...
Edited by Joseph Vecchio on July 05 2025 at 5:06am
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John Byrne
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| Posted: July 05 2025 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | 9
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And can someone mandate that the side webs under his arms are not optional?••• From my earliest professional association with Spider-Man I have drawn him with the underarm webbing. On one of those early jobs the editor called and told me to stop. “We don’t do that any more.” I asked if he was aware the webbing was there on the corner symbol. “Just stop,” he said, “and we’ll do a story explaining it.” Oh frabjous day, I thought. Marvel has officially become DC.
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ron bailey
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Joined: October 16 2016
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| Posted: July 05 2025 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | 10
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My guess is that for branding/merchandising they probably thought the webs made him look too creepy, same reason his blue is lighter in most merchandise and usually darker or "black" with highlights in straight comics.One of the things I loved about Ditko's original look is that you just might assume this was a bad guy if you had no reason to think differently, so the mistaken public perception was totally believable (totally covered from head to toe, the name, webs, method of getting around, etc). Nothing traditionally heroic about his depiction.
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Craig Earl
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| Posted: July 06 2025 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 11
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Because the very first issues that I read were B&W UK reprints, I only became aware of the early changes in Spider-Man's costume about twenty years ago (I mean the big blue spider emblem on his back etc). For what it's worth, I loved the spindlier Spider-Man with the underarm webbing.
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Bill Dowling
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| Posted: July 06 2025 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | 12
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I don’t like to think of Spider-Man as this strong, but there was an old panel way back in the day that implied once he reached adulthood, he’d be as strong as the Hulk, Thor, and Thing.
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