Were web shooters really such a problem in Raimi's film trilogy?

[Lukmendes]

Fair enough, though I think it could also be used to make temporary bridges for rescue or disaster relief operations, as well as medical bandages, and given that the web-formula can be made to last longer nowadays . . .

Medical bandage wouldn't work, a person needs to use them for an indefinite amount of time, so even if it's something like 3 hours, it still wouldn't work well, plus, with how tough the web is, it could be complicated to remove them if time limit isn't a problem.

Temporary bridge is a pretty good idea though, though it would definitely need longer time limit, webs could also be used to temporarily hold a place together, which Spidey did a few times.

When you put it that way, it makes sense that 1) they were uniquely for Spider-Man and 2) that they were hard to sell.

As I recall in the MCU films, it lasted two hours.

Yeah, in the comics, the other guys were actually interested in buying the webs, but once they realized it was temporary, they rejected because temporary glue just isn't worth it.

[Huntsman Spider]

Medical bandage wouldn't work, a person needs to use them for an indefinite amount of time, so even if it's something like 3 hours, it still wouldn't work well, plus, with how tough the web is, it could be complicated to remove them if time limit isn't a problem.

Temporary bridge is a pretty good idea though, though it would definitely need longer time limit, webs could also be used to temporarily hold a place together, which Spidey did a few times.



Yeah, in the comics, the other guys were actually interested in buying the webs, but once they realized it was temporary, they rejected because temporary glue just isn't worth it.

Thanks, and fair enough, though considering Otto Octavius figured out how to make the web-formula permanent unless a special solvent was applied to it . . .

[WebLurker]

Never understood why it was so bad that Spider-Man had organic webbing in the movie; it simplified the origin story, was a logical idea, and made for a good scene where he tried to figure them out.

What's interesting is there's multiple shots in the finished 1st film where you can see the web shooter nozzles on his wrist in-costume (one of them is when Spidey and MJ are on the garden roof talking after he saves her in Times Square), because they originally had it so Peter was wearing the web-shooters over his organic wrist shooters. That was another Cameron thing. The web-shooter props were on display at E3 2001, I think- and there's a bit of trailer footage from that event that has Peter in his bedroom with the webshooters on (along with a shot of the Alex Ross suit in motion).

The novelization also mentions him using a kind of webshooter to help use the organic webbing.

[Agent Z]

I didn't have an issue with organic webbing in the first film, but I did in the second film because it went overboard with the web-fluid is a metaphor for sexual potency thing.

I think you're reading way too much into that.

Since as you guys mentioned, Spider-Man running out of webs can't be something you can use with endless webbing.

Doesn't sound like a problem to me. It's not like there aren't other ways to put Spider-Man in peril.

Likewise, the third movie introduced the Symbiote. In the comics, the Symbiote was the first time Spider-Man had unlimited organic webbing in the comics...and the Symbiote giving Peter those extra powers and advantages was part of the appeal of that costume to Peter and the reader. If he has organic webbing before he gets the Symbiote, where's the sense that the Symbiote is addictive enough/tempting enough for Peter to like the Symbiote and prefer it to his normal costume?

In the movies and the shows, the Symbiote enhances his physical abilities while also affecting him mentally. Keep in mind that the Symbiote being addictive and tempting to Peter wasn't in the comics. That was created for the 90s show and used in subsequent adaptations.

[Scott Taylor]

Heh. The only times he runs out of webs in the comics is when the bad guy needs to get away so that the story can be dragged out a few more pages. Its just a cheesy story device.

Best use of it, I thought, was with the Black Cat when she first appeared and had her "bad luck" powers. That was great.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

The idea came from James Cameron. Peter's powers in his film were apparently meant to be a metaphor for puberty, and Peter would have been embarassed the stuff is coming out of him and thought that others would find it gross, so he would build fake webshooters to make it look like the webbing was coming from a device.

I think webshooters work better because 1) they show Peter's intelligence, 2) they offer a bigger variety of types of webbing / attacks, and 3) Peter can just refill them instead of waiting for his body to make more webs.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The idea came from James Cameron. Peter's powers in his film were apparently meant to be a metaphor for puberty, and Peter would have been embarassed the stuff is coming out of him and thought that others would find it gross, so he would build fake webshooters to make it look like the webbing was coming from a device.

The puberty concept doesn't work too well if the character is going to age out of high school partway into the film as it happened in Spider-Man 1. It would work better, in theory, with a perpetually teenage Spider-Man (not that I think they should go with this). Puberty is a one-and-done stage of life. Once you hit it, that's it, it happens and you move past. It's not a perpetual state of being.

Spider-Man 2 made it work as a metaphor for impotence and castration, i.e. Peter denying himself from being near Mary Jane out of his suffering hero shtick but that repression shorts out his powers. I wasn't a fan of that element (and in general while I acknowledge Spider-Man 2 is a good movie, I otherwise rank it far below the first film) but it was a more adult take on it and not something tied to teenage life.

I think webshooters work better because 1) they show Peter's intelligence, 2) they offer a bigger variety of types of webbing / attacks, and 3) Peter can just refill them instead of waiting for his body to make more webs.

Right. I mean logically when Peter got bitten by the spider, he still remained physically and mentally a human being, and he just got some spider abilities and not others. Mainly the ability to stick to walls (the so-called proportionate strength of the spider is just nonsense Stan Lee made up) and then the souped up Spider-Sense that Lee made up (spiders apparently due to poor eyesight are sensitive to air vibrations which is kinda like radar to them...logically the Spider-Sense should work closer to Daredevil's enhanced senses). He didn't get spider-venom (Miles got that). And other stuff spiders do. So it was never inherent to the character and concept that he get all the abilities spiders have (contrary to the song "does whatever a spider can").

You know...for a while I've had a pet theory that since the webbing formula was created by Peter after his spider-bite in AF#15, that the mental leap needed by Peter to create that formula is part of his spider-powers. He's Spider-Man right. The spider who bit Peter gave him his abilities but who's to say it didn't somehow pass along the secret of creating spider webs into the DNA of Peter where that information could be processed and accessed. And since Peter already knew a great deal about science and chemistry, that meant he could use that information to create the webbing formula and cartridges. A spider specifically evolved its body to create the webbing but a human being with its great brain (and Peter's great smarts) could do that without having to process and secrete it out of itself since the human body wasn't evolved that way. It's just my pet theory mind you, and one I don't know others will like, because again it implies that Peter's not a genius who created the webbing on his own (for me it's a mix of the Spider-Bite and Peter's intelligent which led to the webbing being made in that specific way but that nuance won't filter down). But it does explain how Peter got sewing skills to make up his costume (since Spiders are expert weavers) and how he created the webbing formula.

Alternate movies and adaptations fudge it...so for instance in Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, the web formula is based on Peter's dad's works which was left incomplete and which Peter finished later. So a little props to Peter but it implies that the main work can be credited to Peter's Dad. The Garfield movies make it Oscorp and so on.

[blackspidey2099]

It wasn't a huge issue but yeah it was a completely unnecessary change which wasn't for the better imo

[Huntsman Spider]

The puberty concept doesn't work too well if the character is going to age out of high school partway into the film as it happened in Spider-Man 1. It would work better, in theory, with a perpetually teenage Spider-Man (not that I think they should go with this). Puberty is a one-and-done stage of life. Once you hit it, that's it, it happens and you move past. It's not a perpetual state of being.

Spider-Man 2 made it work as a metaphor for impotence and castration, i.e. Peter denying himself from being near Mary Jane out of his suffering hero shtick but that repression shorts out his powers. I wasn't a fan of that element (and in general while I acknowledge Spider-Man 2 is a good movie, I otherwise rank it far below the first film) but it was a more adult take on it and not something tied to teenage life.



Right. I mean logically when Peter got bitten by the spider, he still remained physically and mentally a human being, and he just got some spider abilities and not others. Mainly the ability to stick to walls (the so-called proportionate strength of the spider is just nonsense Stan Lee made up) and then the souped up Spider-Sense that Lee made up (spiders apparently due to poor eyesight are sensitive to air vibrations which is kinda like radar to them...logically the Spider-Sense should work closer to Daredevil's enhanced senses). He didn't get spider-venom (Miles got that). And other stuff spiders do. So it was never inherent to the character and concept that he get all the abilities spiders have (contrary to the song "does whatever a spider can").

You know...for a while I've had a pet theory that since the webbing formula was created by Peter after his spider-bite in AF#15, that the mental leap needed by Peter to create that formula is part of his spider-powers. He's Spider-Man right. The spider who bit Peter gave him his abilities but who's to say it didn't somehow pass along the secret of creating spider webs into the DNA of Peter where that information could be processed and accessed. And since Peter already knew a great deal about science and chemistry, that meant he could use that information to create the webbing formula and cartridges. A spider specifically evolved its body to create the webbing but a human being with its great brain (and Peter's great smarts) could do that without having to process and secrete it out of itself since the human body wasn't evolved that way. It's just my pet theory mind you, and one I don't know others will like, because again it implies that Peter's not a genius who created the webbing on his own (for me it's a mix of the Spider-Bite and Peter's intelligent which led to the webbing being made in that specific way but that nuance won't filter down). But it does explain how Peter got sewing skills to make up his costume (since Spiders are expert weavers) and how he created the webbing formula.

Alternate movies and adaptations fudge it...so for instance in Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, the web formula is based on Peter's dad's works which was left incomplete and which Peter finished later. So a little props to Peter but it implies that the main work can be credited to Peter's Dad. The Garfield movies make it Oscorp and so on.

Funny enough, that was more or less how the 90s animated series on Fox had him explain how he developed the web formula and shooters in its adaptation of "The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man," that the spider bite passed on some instinctual knowledge of how to make the web formula.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Funny enough, that was more or less how the 90s animated series on Fox had him explain how he developed the web formula and shooters in its adaptation of "The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man," that the spider bite passed on some instinctual knowledge of how to make the web formula.

Huh...didn't know that.

Cool.

[Lukmendes]

Spider-Man 2 made it work as a metaphor for impotence and castration, i.e. Peter denying himself from being near Mary Jane out of his suffering hero shtick but that repression shorts out his powers. I wasn't a fan of that element (and in general while I acknowledge Spider-Man 2 is a good movie, I otherwise rank it far below the first film) but it was a more adult take on it and not something tied to teenage life.

That "impotence" made him legit happier for a while, which is not what impotence actually does, at all, you sure you're not having a weird interpretation of this? Specially considering this was a plot point that happened in the comics, and Spider-Man 2 just used the same beats.

Right. I mean logically when Peter got bitten by the spider, he still remained physically and mentally a human being, and he just got some spider abilities and not others. Mainly the ability to stick to walls (the so-called proportionate strength of the spider is just nonsense Stan Lee made up) and then the souped up Spider-Sense that Lee made up (spiders apparently due to poor eyesight are sensitive to air vibrations which is kinda like radar to them...logically the Spider-Sense should work closer to Daredevil's enhanced senses).

It originally worked like Daredevil's enhanced senses, annual 1 even calls it a radar, directly compares both and says Daredevil's senses is a better version:



And we kinda see that a few times, like in ASM#4 where he used it to walk in the dark:

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

Don't ask why he even needs Spider-Sense to walk on his own home when it's dark lol.

Green Goblin also talks about it in ASM#26 like it can be avoided if he's fast enough:

https://i.imgur.com/Zyxx7J7.png

And apparently it affected his eyes too, or at least something like it, since in Annual#1, he could use it to read a message that was in a piece of paper he covered in thin web:

https://i.imgur.com/lpg35BY.jpg

So yeah, it wasn't a "predict only danger" ****, it originally was enhanced senses.

Wonder when exactly it became a "predict danger" kind of thing, at the latest it was done by Conway, since during the original Clone Saga, there was that whole dumbass thing of "Spider-Sense only protects against enemies, not friends" with Jackal from ASM#148:

https://i.imgur.com/Er1KydZ.png

Which, while really dumb (And contradictory, since Spider-Sense did warn him in the same damn page, only too late), it might be what started this "Spider-Sense only detects danger".

He didn't get spider-venom (Miles got that).

Alledged venom anyways, since it doesn't work like any actual venom, it's just bio electricity, or a win buttom when powered by Bendisforce.

Alternate movies and adaptations fudge it...so for instance in Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, the web formula is based on Peter's dad's works which was left incomplete and which Peter finished later. So a little props to Peter but it implies that the main work can be credited to Peter's Dad. The Garfield movies make it Oscorp and so on.

I can see where they're coming from, since a lot of inventions are based on something else, so I can see why they'd make Spidey "finish" what someone else did.

While it's dubiously canon, Spider-Man/Fantastic Four#2 has this moment where Peter said he based his webs in "synthetic polymers" Reed made for space suits, so even 616 went for that at some point:

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

Though, here he only used it as a basis and made the web of his own, not finishing what someone else started, which is nice.

Funny enough, that was more or less how the 90s animated series on Fox had him explain how he developed the web formula and shooters in its adaptation of "The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man," that the spider bite passed on some instinctual knowledge of how to make the web formula.

Ah, I knew that something once said that the spider bite is what made him be able to make the web formula, but wasn't sure where that came from, thanks for that.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That "impotence" made him legit happier for a while, which is not what impotence actually does, at all, you sure you're not having a weird interpretation of this?

Peter wasn't happier not being Spider-Man after his powers shorted out. He managed to get some stuff done in terms of attending Connors' class but he didn't like the fact that he couldn't do nothing about the mugger or save enough people in the burning building. And of course he confessed to May about letting Ben die...so it's not like he was "legit happier" then. Mary Jane was still engaged to John Jameson.

At the end of the movie, when Mary Jane comes to him and tells him "go get him Tiger" and Spider-Man swings out and whoops out loud, that's when he's truly happy, "legit happy".

So yeah the power-less in SM-2 it's a metaphor for sexual impotence and sexual repression, and only when Peter gets MJ's love and validation is he truly happy.

[Agent Z]

Peter wasn't happier not being Spider-Man after his powers shorted out. He managed to get some stuff done in terms of attending Connors' class but he didn't like the fact that he couldn't do nothing about the mugger or save enough people in the burning building. And of course he confessed to May about letting Ben die...so it's not like he was "legit happier" then. Mary Jane was still engaged to John Jameson.

At the end of the movie, when Mary Jane comes to him and tells him "go get him Tiger" and Spider-Man swings out and whoops out loud, that's when he's truly happy, "legit happy".

So yeah the power-less in SM-2 it's a metaphor for sexual impotence and sexual repression, and only when Peter gets MJ's love and validation is he truly happy.

What you're describing here is less a metaphor for impotence and more a case of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone". Even then, May did forgive Peter which made him happy and with MJ, his problem was not being able to tell her he was Spider-Man.

[Huntsman Spider]

Huh...didn't know that.

Cool.

Thanks.

That "impotence" made him legit happier for a while, which is not what impotence actually does, at all, you sure you're not having a weird interpretation of this? Specially considering this was a plot point that happened in the comics, and Spider-Man 2 just used the same beats.



It originally worked like Daredevil's enhanced senses, annual 1 even calls it a radar, directly compares both and says Daredevil's senses is a better version:



And we kinda see that a few times, like in ASM#4 where he used it to walk in the dark:

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

Don't ask why he even needs Spider-Sense to walk on his own home when it's dark lol.

Green Goblin also talks about it in ASM#26 like it can be avoided if he's fast enough:

https://i.imgur.com/Zyxx7J7.png

And apparently it affected his eyes too, or at least something like it, since in Annual#1, he could use it to read a message that was in a piece of paper he covered in thin web:

https://i.imgur.com/lpg35BY.jpg

So yeah, it wasn't a "predict only danger" ****, it originally was enhanced senses.

Wonder when exactly it became a "predict danger" kind of thing, at the latest it was done by Conway, since during the original Clone Saga, there was that whole dumbass thing of "Spider-Sense only protects against enemies, not friends" with Jackal from ASM#148:

https://i.imgur.com/Er1KydZ.png

Which, while really dumb (And contradictory, since Spider-Sense did warn him in the same damn page, only too late), it might be what started this "Spider-Sense only detects danger".



Alledged venom anyways, since it doesn't work like any actual venom, it's just bio electricity, or a win buttom when powered by Bendisforce.



I can see where they're coming from, since a lot of inventions are based on something else, so I can see why they'd make Spidey "finish" what someone else did.

While it's dubiously canon, Spider-Man/Fantastic Four#2 has this moment where Peter said he based his webs in "synthetic polymers" Reed made for space suits, so even 616 went for that at some point:

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

Though, here he only used it as a basis and made the web of his own, not finishing what someone else started, which is nice.



Ah, I knew that something once said that the spider bite is what made him be able to make the web formula, but wasn't sure where that came from, thanks for that.

You're welcome.

[Scott Taylor]

It would be kind of funny and interesting if people in comics could see things like thought balloons or the wavy spidey-sense lines!