Spider-Man Powers and Gadgets that have been retconned or forgotten/inconsistent

[Crazyspideyfan]

After re-reading some of the early Lee-Ditko run and thinking about Ben’s new Beyond Corp suit, I wanted to make a thread about powers and gadgets Peter (or any Spidey) uses that either are barely used or have been forgotten/retconned. Obviously his powers he gained during the Spectacular Spider-Man Disassembled storyline, and after becoming The Other have been removed ever since OMD, but they have been acknowledged since then and were canon at one point.

Pete’s utility belt has never been retconned, but depending on the writer/artist he isn’t always wearing it when he should be. This includes his Spider-Signal, which he does still use, but not frequently. I thought it was awesome that Homecoming actually had the Spider-Signal. His belt also includes his extra web-cartridges, something I’m surprised the movies haven’t incorporated. I don’t think any of the other Spider-characters (not including clones) have been mentioned to use a utility belt, mostly because a lot of Spiders like Ghost Spider either have powers or a symbiote that produces organic webs. Maybe Miles should get a utility belt as well, since he uses web shooters like Pete.

In ASM #1 by Lee and Ditko, Peter “uses his Spider senses” to track a helicopter he had lost track of. I think this has been largely forgotten by now, but seems to have been incorporated into Pete’s Spider-tracers, which are tuned to his Spider-sense if I remember correctly (or depending on the writer.) This means Peter might still have a short range tracking sense, that he upgraded with his Spider-tracers.

Depending on the artist, Miles Venom Shocks are either yellow or blue. The blue is becoming more prominent after it was popularized by ITSV, but Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 seems to be giving Miles both yellow and blue Venom shocks.

Let me know if y’all think of any other Spidey Gadget or Power inconsistencies! I may post more to this thread if I think of them!

Ps. Who would win Peter with the MK IV or Ben with the Beyond suit? (Might be unfair as we still haven’t seen enough of the Beyond Suit’s capabilities.)

[K7P5V]

Definitely, an all-time favorite would be Anya & her carapace (XD)

[Spiderfan001]

Peter's utility belt can also be used on it's brightest setting to blind functioning as a flashbang of sorts.

He has enhanced senses, all of them.Enough to see Speed Demon move around in the classic era even when not fast enough to actually act on it.

Spider-sense slows down time is kinda known, but Peter got training from Cap to use Chi slow down his perception of time even further.

Spider-fu is specially effective against Spider based enemies and enhances his Spider-sense and also tells him weak points or how to counter-attack.

And I think he still uses Spider-sense to track danger down IIRC, rarely but it does happen.

Also homecoming had extra web fluid IIRC

Also Peter alone would wipe the floor w/ any Spiders specially w/ Spider-fu.A severely beaten up Spider-man took an entire team of amped(Peter said Silk was twice as strong, and Anya and Julia had entirely new abilities) up Spiders like Miles, Anya, Gwen, etc. when he was holding back and they weren't(stated) and then saved them from drowning.

Peter w/ mark 4 against Ben w/ Beyond suit is overkill, specially because the suit has more showing lower than your avg. Spider-man level than above it anyway.Even w/ high tier feats only mark 4 Peter wipes

[Jman27]

well spider Fu is gone now so he is back to his regular fighting style

[Spiderfan001]

well spider Fu is gone now so he is back to his regular fighting style

Spencer said he practiced it everyday in an interview

Then Shang Chi writer had Peter say he doesn't use it much since Spider-sense came back, doesn't mean he's forgotten it

I'd take the word of an ASM writer(whose entire thing was that he read the all Spidey comics) over Shang Chi's writer but either way

And that fight against bloodlusted amped Spider-fam was w/out Spider-fu anyway

[HypnoHustler]

Ben Reilly is back, but his stingers and impact-webbing, which were both pretty creative, have been completely forgotten about. He also had micro-dot tracers.

Not exactly a gadget, but I also miss the web-pits that helped Peter glide a bit. They should bring back web-pits.

[Lukmendes]

In ASM #1 by Lee and Ditko, Peter “uses his Spider senses” to track a helicopter he had lost track of. I think this has been largely forgotten by now, but seems to have been incorporated into Pete’s Spider-tracers, which are tuned to his Spider-sense if I remember correctly (or depending on the writer.) This means Peter might still have a short range tracking sense, that he upgraded with his Spider-tracers.

Spider-Sense was very different back then, it wasn't just a "detect danger" kind of thing, it was basically a weaker version of Daredevil's radar sense:



(ASM#5)



(ASM Annual#1)

And the "weaker version of Daredevil's radar sense" isn't even just me saying it, ASM Annual#1 itself says it when explaining how it works:



At some point after Ditko left it became this "can only detect danger" kind of power, and it didn't even take that long, it happened with Conway's/Romita's run at the latest, and it probably happened during the Lee/Romita run.

Let me know if y’all think of any other Spidey Gadget or Power inconsistencies! I may post more to this thread if I think of them!

Well, he lifted a building once, that and him managing to defeat Firelord are about as inconsistent as you can get with his powers on the higher end lol.

Ps. Who would win Peter with the MK IV or Ben with the Beyond suit? (Might be unfair as we still haven’t seen enough of the Beyond Suit’s capabilities.)

Beyond suit only looked good in the first two issues, so it might as well not be there now, while Mk. IV suit, while it had inconsistency issues, like how in ASM: Civil War II#2 it could block out gas (https://i.imgur.com/zR69jSJ.png) but then in ASM#28 vol 4 it couldn't (https://i.imgur.com/zR69jSJ.png), it still was a pretty good suit to make him stronger and have more flexible stuff, like the many web types, I don't see Beyond Ben's suit really comparing to it, it only really defeated U-Foes because it explicitly counter picked them, and that's before we get into how Peter has far more experience than Ben, even if Ben is still pretty strong himself.

Ben would stand a better chance without those suits, since he's not as stagnant as Peter when it comes to his own gadgets, and he even managed to defeat Venom because of the gadgets, so yeah, if it was a battle between 90's Spidey and 90's Ben, I'd say it's a tougher one, Peter has more experience, but Ben had more creativity, that's a tough one to decide lol.

Anyways, a forgotten gadget is a machine Spidey had to track down Spider-Tracers, it was made redundant when Spider-Sense became able to track them, I only remember it showing up again twice in the 80's, in ASM#250, when Spidey's Spider-Sense was nulified by a gas Hobgoblin used:

https://i.imgur.com/wMJugz7.png

And again in ASM#267, where Spidey mentions it has bigger range than his own Spider-Sense:

https://i.imgur.com/SwZga5b.png

I get the feeling that after No One Dies in Slott's run, when Spidey lost his Spider-Sense for a while, Slott probably made it come back during the stories between it and Spider-Island, since he was having fun with Spidey's science side and he loved referencing stuff about Ditko's run but I dunno where it happened if so.

Also Peter alone would wipe the floor w/ any Spiders specially w/ Spider-fu.A severely beaten up Spider-man took an entire team of amped(Peter said Silk was twice as strong, and Anya and Julia had entirely new abilities) up Spiders like Miles, Anya, Gwen, etc. when he was holding back and they weren't(stated) and then saved them from drowning.

I don't remember Julia getting anything new, hell, she mostly wasn't even fighting during it lol.

I only remember Anya and Cindy getting new abilities, and Cindy's is probably shared 'cause Kindred managed to channel weird demonic powers through them, so she got shape shifting that makes her become monstrous, or just grow wings.

Urgh, now I realized that Kindred made others into shape shifters, but he somehow can't shape shift and has to use Chameleon's stuff... As much as there are things I'll miss about Spencer, I'm definitely not missing how horribly he uses magic lol.

Spencer said he practiced it everyday in an interview

Then Shang Chi writer had Peter say he doesn't use it much since Spider-sense came back, doesn't mean he's forgotten it

I'd take the word of an ASM writer(whose entire thing was that he read the all Spidey comics) over Shang Chi's writer but either way

I mean, if Spidey is practicing Spider-Fu, sure as hell doesn't look like it, so Shang Chi's writer is ironically more consistent with ASM, even Spencer's ASM lol.

It would be nice if Spencer had Spidey say he's been practicing it since the first time he got his ass kicked by Kindred, which could explain how he managed to keep up with two Kindreds, but eh, in practice Spider-Fu is gone, regardless of what Spencer says.

Not exactly a gadget, but I also miss the web-pits that helped Peter glide a bit. They should bring back web-pits.

They actually made Peter glide at any point? I know Jessica's web pits did so, but I don't remember Spidey's ever doing that lol.

[Jman27]

Spencer said he practiced it everyday in an interview

Then Shang Chi writer had Peter say he doesn't use it much since Spider-sense came back, doesn't mean he's forgotten it

I'd take the word of an ASM writer(whose entire thing was that he read the all Spidey comics) over Shang Chi's writer but either way

And that fight against bloodlusted amped Spider-fam was w/out Spider-fu anyway

when did spencer said this? source

[Spiderfan001]

I don't remember Julia getting anything new, hell, she mostly wasn't even fighting during it lol.

I only remember Anya and Cindy getting new abilities, and Cindy's is probably shared 'cause Kindred managed to channel weird demonic powers through them, so she got shape shifting that makes her become monstrous, or just grow wings.

Urgh, now I realized that Kindred made others into shape shifters, but he somehow can't shape shift and has to use Chameleon's stuff... As much as there are things I'll miss about Spencer, I'm definitely not missing how horribly he uses magic lol.

She got those glowing tentacle thingys(ugh) IIRC

I mean, if Spidey is practicing Spider-Fu, sure as hell doesn't look like it, so Shang Chi's writer is ironically more consistent with ASM, even Spencer's ASM lol.

It would be nice if Spencer had Spidey say he's been practicing it since the first time he got his ass kicked by Kindred, which could explain how he managed to keep up with two Kindreds, but eh, in practice Spider-Fu is gone, regardless of what Spencer says.

Gone as in not in practice, he still knows what it is and how to use it.

They actually made Peter glide at any point? I know Jessica's web pits did so, but I don't remember Spidey's ever doing that lol.

He did make web wings to fly lmao

when did spencer said this? source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDmTyyRlxw8&t=68s

1:08

[Lukmendes]

She got those glowing tentacle thingys(ugh) IIRC

I'm not seeing anything of the like in ASM#50.LR, all she does is kick him, then punch him, and nothing else.

Gone as in not in practice, he still knows what it is and how to use it.

Sure, in-universe he still most likely remembers it, but considering he's not looking that much better than usual, and Spider-Fu isn't even mentioned at all, well, it's not that different from when Cyke learned how to control his optic blasts back in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, would make sense to be there, but ain't, and practically stopped existing.

Still find it silly that Spider-Fu was made for Spidey to not look redundant in Spider-Island, so he becomes a better fighter, but then in ASM#671, Tarantula-Kaine easily counters him after just seeing recordings of Spidey fighting with it (Though I guess that happened so Spidey combining Spider-Sense with Spider-Fu looks more badass but, still...), and the whole point of the story is that Spidey is special because of who he is, not his powers, so Spider-Fu doesn't do much for the story besides giving an excuse for him to kick some ass before, even though Spidey should not struggle that badly against other Spider-People, and Slott mostly forgot about Spider-Fu afterwards... Yeah, not well though lol.

He did make web wings to fly lmao

That he did, but didn't use the web pits to do so, 'cause in ASM#8 he created much bigger wings to fly lol.

[Spiderfan001]

I'm not seeing anything of the like in ASM#50.LR, all she does is kick him, then punch him, and nothing else.



Sure, in-universe he still most likely remembers it, but considering he's not looking that much better than usual, and Spider-Fu isn't even mentioned at all, well, it's not that different from when Cyke learned how to control his optic blasts back in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, would make sense to be there, but ain't, and practically stopped existing.

Still find it silly that Spider-Fu was made for Spidey to not look redundant in Spider-Island, so he becomes a better fighter, but then in ASM#671, Tarantula-Kaine easily counters him after just seeing recordings of Spidey fighting with it (Though I guess that happened so Spidey combining Spider-Sense with Spider-Fu looks more badass but, still...), and the whole point of the story is that Spidey is special because of who he is, not his powers, so Spider-Fu doesn't do much for the story besides giving an excuse for him to kick some ass before, even though Spidey should not struggle that badly against other Spider-People, and Slott mostly forgot about Spider-Fu afterwards... Yeah, not well though lol.



That he did, but didn't use the web pits to do so, 'cause in ASM#8 he created much bigger wings to fly lol.

I'll check the LR stuff again when I can

Co-signed on Spider-fu.Still useful for CAV's IG, hopefully MCU does bring it about and hence it comes back in comics

[Lukmendes]

Co-signed on Spider-fu.Still useful for CAV's IG,

What's CAV and IG?

hopefully MCU does bring it about and hence it comes back in comics

Eh, not sure if that'd happen, Spider-Fu was just something for Spidey to become stronger and it works better if he's been around for a while, but then again, MCU does what it wants... Oh well, we'll see I guess lol.

[Spiderfan001]

What's CAV and IG?



Eh, not sure if that'd happen, Spider-Fu was just something for Spidey to become stronger and it works better if he's been around for a while, but then again, MCU does what it wants... Oh well, we'll see I guess lol.

CAV's are like versus battles on comicvine.
IG is I guess, I should not capitalize it though

Fair enough

[Huntsman Spider]

For Ben Reilly, it's impact webbing, stingers, and microdot tracers . . . all of which were innovations he came up with in the 1990s and yet haven't been seen in use since he came back into the webs.

For Peter himself, it's his spider-speed . . . while we still do see a lot of his agility and strength, as well as his wall-crawling and spider-sense, we don't necessarily see him displaying the kind of speed that once enabled him to outpace and outmaneuver an otherwise highly accurate targeting computer, dodge laser beams, and take down entire roomfuls of bad guys in an eye-blink or less, at least not regularly.

For Miles Morales, it's the bioelectric tendrils/"webbing" he was starting to generate in the final issues of Brian Bendis's run. Say what you will, those tendrils could have been interesting insofar as him learning to consciously shape and manipulate the excess bioelectricity that went into his "venom blast/strike." That said, it would be cool if future comics with him adapted the "venom boost/launch" from Insomniac Games' Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which he could use to amplify his leaps and the distance he could travel.

For Miguel O'Hara, it's the aspect of his accelerated vision that not only enables him to see in the dark and from vast distances, but also clearly perceive fast-moving objects without any blurring. Combined with his own spider-speed and reflexes, he could well do his own version of The Matrix's "bullet time."

[Lukmendes]

CAV's are like versus battles on comicvine.
IG is I guess, I should not capitalize it though

Here I was wondering it was some comic I missed, which there's definitely plenty of lol.

Anyways, as far as the way Spider-Fu's usefulness we have, while Slott overnerfed Spidey on that stupid, stupid battle where he basically couldn't do jack **** to Jessica, when Slott remembered Spidey has it, he did definitely look stronger, 'cause while Spidey didn't struggle that ridiculously to defeat someone else with the same powers as his', I really don't think he ever defeated another Spider-Person as easily before, (His victory against Jessica in Ends of the Earth could be chalked up to Otto not knowing how to use her powers, even if it's not the intention, but I guess it's still worth pointing out how easily it happened, plus, in ASM#671 has him defeating a bunch of villains powered up with Spider-Powers very easily because of Spider-Fu), so there's that at least, too bad there's not much showings of it besides Spider-Island and Ends of the Earth.

One thing that can be fun to point out is that while Spidey came up with Spider-Fu Shang Chi's help, he was basically a novice with it, because Tarantula-Kaine countered him very easily just by watching his stuff, and while you can say Kaine is that good, it also shows Spidey wasn't ready to counter Kaine's counter... Can also say that having Spider-Sense as a crutch for so long got in the way, but point is, despite how broken in theory it sounds, Peter was "linear" with it, but post Spider-Island, a villain managing to counter Spidey with Spider-Fu plus Spider-Sense would be a feat by itself, like climbing a mountain without equipment or using your hands.

It's honestly funny, in theory Slott's Spidey should've been the strongest 616 Spidey has been with the exception of that time he got Captain Universe's powers, Slott came up with bullshit technology that made his webs far, far more flexible, and came up with Spider-Fu so he can punch someone better if they get too close, yet, he's below average by 616 Spidey's level of competence, and while some of the stuff Slott came up with would be too much if Spidey was smart enough to use it properly and he'd be too overpowered, man, there's unfortunately not a lot of stuff that made him look impressive, and that kinda sucks.

For Ben Reilly, it's impact webbing, stingers, and microdot tracers . . . all of which were innovations he came up with in the 1990s and yet haven't been seen in use since he came back into the webs.

Which sucks, I remember thinking that a cool way to separate Peter/Ben/Kaine is to have Peter be the better fighters (With or without Spider-Fu being part of the reason), Ben being the one with more gadgets, and Kaine being the one with more Spider-Powers, but Kaine lost his Other related powers ups besides organic webs (Which, he shouldn't have to begin with since organic webs was a power up that came from Spider-Queen), and now Ben's back and neither Peter David's Scarlet Spider run or Beyond brought back his other stuff, so now all 3 of them have basically the same powers with the biggest difference is that Kaine explicitly lacks Spider-Sense (Which was pointed out in Peter David's Scarlet Spider, so that's still in effect).

For Peter himself, it's his spider-speed . . . while we still do see a lot of his agility and strength, as well as his wall-crawling and spider-sense, we don't necessarily see him displaying the kind of speed that once enabled him to outpace and outmaneuver an otherwise highly accurate targeting computer, dodge laser beams, and take down entire roomfuls of bad guys in an eye-blink or less, at least not regularly.

That's an unfortunate consequence of fights in super-hero comics becoming worse, nowadays it looks like the characters are posing at each other instead of actually fighting, so basically everyone looks slower, but it's specially noticeable with Spidey where his agility was always such a big deal about him.

Spencer's run improved that slightly, but more so because, unlike Slott, Spencer didn't make Spidey rely on brute force as much, but he's still not dodging that much, his victory against Carnage-Norman in the Absolute Carnage tie-in wasn't even him fighting better, just managing to get up and punch Norman harder, which, while cool in this anime-way, it doesn't really show off Spidey's powers that well, just his determination.

For Miles Morales, it's the bioelectric tendrils/"webbing" he was starting to generate in the final issues of Brian Bendis's run. Say what you will, those tendrils could have been interesting insofar as him learning to consciously shape and manipulate the excess bioelectricity that went into his "venom blast/strike." That said, it would be cool if future comics with him adapted the "venom boost/launch" from Insomniac Games' Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which he could use to amplify his leaps and the distance he could travel.

It's weird they completely forgot about those powers, while maybe those energy webs shouldn't completely replace the usual webs, having them around as another option for Miles could be cool.

For Miguel O'Hara, it's the aspect of his accelerated vision that not only enables him to see in the dark and from vast distances, but also clearly perceive fast-moving objects without any blurring. Combined with his own spider-speed and reflexes, he could well do his own version of The Matrix's "bullet time."

I didn't even know he had that, I get the feeling that was somewhat adapted in the Shattered Dimensions game, but I'm not sure of it... But still, what a waste of a good power.

Since we're talking about other Spiders, and I know more about Julia than I should, they completely forgot about her Psi-Webs, and when re-reading Last Remains, two different artists had different views of how she travels around:



(ASM: Sins of Norman Osborn)



(ASM#57 vol 5)

First one shows her traveling using normal webs, which, she never had before, (Vicentini also makes it look like Jessica is web swinging in it, which's definitely a mistake he made in ASM#52.LR), while the second one has her being carried by Jessica who looks like she's flying (She generally can't and just glides, but ASM doesn't seem to be consistent with that, ASM Free Comic Book Day issue had her flying away at the end of it), and also, Cindy is shown shooting webs by pressing her fingers in the middle of her palm instead of the webs coming out from her fingers... Urgh, overall lazyness with the other Spiders in this arc, both from Spencer and the artists lol.

Anyways, while Julia in general looks like she doesn't have any power besides the Madame Web related ones, Psi-Webs disappearing is just sad, since Psi-Webs in general is a wasted potential, it can be like, a really shitty green lantern ring, and maybe they could even make it so Madame Webs' telepathic related powers make Psi-Webs even stronger, but, nothing cool is done with Julia, she's just inexplicably a stronger precog than Cassandra, which's never pointed out in-universe and you'd only notice by seeing that Julia has consistently clearer visions, but Julia is also far more incompetent, less helpful, and wasted by sitting on the sidelines instead of doing anything cool... Other Spiders in 616 are ridiculously sidelined, but Julia has it bad, and she's not even the one who has it worse, 'cause at least she's alive and shows up once every 5 years or so, meanwhile, Mattie is dead and Black Tarantula lost anything that made him remotely interesting.

And since I'm whining about wasted power potential with Spiders, we have Anya's original power set, but specifically her Carapace, while the Hunter powers don't interest me much, it could be cool if developed better, but the Carapace being removed really sucks, she's basically just Miles without Venom Blast and probably without Spider-Sense with her powers now lol.

Oh also, Cindy's pheromones are just forgotten about, but I find it kinda funny how the fanbase collectively accepts this, I might be the only one who doesn't dislike Cindy who likes to remind y'all she had that once upon a time .

Oh well, short version is, if you're a Spider who's not Peter or Miles, Marvel tells you to get fucked, while Gwen and sometimes Jessica getting slightly less fucked lol.