MovieChat Forums > Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Discussion > At this rate they should just give him a...

At this rate they should just give him a red cape (some spoilers)

posted 7 years ago by horrorfan000 (2070)
4 replies | jump to latest

I know the character is suppose to have the strength of ten men but come on.This is just nearly Superman level strength and invulnerability.Peter slams into the water from that altitude and doesn't brake a bone.He impacts the ground at i don't know how many miles per hour when the plane crashed and only gets a little blood on his lip.Or even has a couple of tons of concrete dropped on his head without a scratch to show for it.Yet i'm somehow supposed to be worried when Keatons character pulls the gun in the car.If those other things didn't penetrate his skin a bullet sure as hell isn't going to.

[–] MaximRecoil (4059) 6 years ago

"I know the character is suppose to have the strength of ten men but come on."

Where did you hear that? Classic Spider-Man, according to Marvel, can press 10 tons (20,000 pounds) with ease, and that's when he first got his powers as a teenager. According to this, the average man can press 135 pounds...

"An effective way to evaluate the average's man strength is to look at familiar exercises that work multiple muscle groups. With this in mind, the average untrained man can squat 125 pounds, bench press 135 pounds and deadlift 155 pounds."

... which means he has the strength of ~148 men.

From day one he was said to have the "proportionate strength of a spider". To get an idea of what that means, see here:

https://i.imgur.com/q0qnqd8.png

Spider-Man weighs 165 pounds according to Marvel, so 165 × 170 = 28,050 (~14 tons). In other words, putting him only in the 10-ton strength class is being conservative. More recent versions of Spider-Man are in the 20-ton strength class.

"If those other things didn't penetrate his skin a bullet sure as hell isn't going to."

There's a difference between blunt force and a bullet. A bullet has a lot of energy and a small surface area, which makes it very effective at penetrating things.

I'd like to know where the myth of Spider-Man not being particularly strong came from. Based on Marvel stats, the amount of weight he can press with ease is 25 times greater than what Captain America can press with difficulty.

[–] horrorfan000 (2070) 6 years ago

A line that stayed with me from that late 70's live action Spider-man show.He said he had the strength of 10 men.And i knew the character was agile,fast,healed quickly and could take considerable damage without getting really hurt but i never associated near Superman level invulnerable skin with those powers.I mean tons concrete drops on his head and he just walks away from it like the concrete was made of foam.I don't find overly indestructible characters that interesting.Because they can become boring.If you know that they can't be hurt then their usually never in any real jeopardy.

[–] MaximRecoil (4059) 6 years ago

"A line that stayed with me from that late 70's live action Spider-man show.He said he had the strength of 10 men."

Maybe that's where the myth came from then. I never saw that show aside from maybe once or twice when I was a little kid, but they probably de-powered Spider-Man for that show in the same way that they drastically de-powered the TV Hulk played by Lou Ferrigno. The actual source is the comics though, and you can see him in this issue from 1966 (The Amazing Spider-Man #33) lifting, with great difficulty, a massive steel structure that had fallen on him:

https://i.imgur.com/RUIgzx9.jpg

That's one of the most famous issues, and it's also what inspired the similar scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

In TASM #89 from 1970 he holds up a water tower filled with water, on his back, and then throws it up off his back with his arms:

https://imgur.com/a/fo12aII

I don't know how big that water tower is, but let's say it's 20 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, which means it could hold 11,752 gallons of water, which weighs about 98,000 pounds (49 tons), and that's not counting the weight of the tower itself. Keep in mind that 10 tons is what he can lift with relative ease; when straining and full of adrenaline, he can lift a lot more than that.

And for an official statement of his strength from Marvel, see here:

https://i.imgur.com/L8GcLcw.jpg

It says:

Strength level: Spider-Man possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) approximately 10 tons.

That comes from the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe", first published by Marvel in 1982.

But even in the comics, Spider-Man has always been vulnerable to bullets.

[–] AP (5258) 6 years ago

Spider-Man in the comics has done many of the things described here. He's very strong. He's not at the level of Superman or Hulk, but he's much stronger than 10 men. In fact, the scene from this movie where tons of concrete fall on him and he lifts it up to escape is directly taken form a scene in a comic issue. Keep in mind, in Civil War, we saw him catch a falling gate car in the airport. In the previous Spider-Man movies we saw him stop a train, catch a falling wall, catch cars, etc.

He can still be hurt, though. He has to dodge bullets and blades. While his body can resist falling great heights or getting smashed, he does have limits.