Comic Illogic – A Look Into Spider-Man’s Strength

What’s up with those Spidey beatdowns above? Just hold up. It will make sense in a minute.

I don’t give AF what your premise is.

Solar powered, remarkably human-looking alien gets crazy powers because the sun is yellow?

Cool.

Accidents with radioactive circumstances give crazy powers to two science nerds?

I’m down.

There’s a whole other species of humans that power up when they hit puberty?

Sure.

Little eternal aged beings found an interplanetary police force based on magical bling?

Bring it.

A billionaire with no superpowers manages to sustain hundreds if not thousands of injuries and still keeps being the Knight we need?

I’m in.

I will suspend disbelief for you. I don’t care how crazy your world’s rules are as long as your internal logic is sound.

When it’s not, I lose my goddamn mind.

One of the things that makes me grind my teeth the most is BS fight scenes.

To wit:

Let’s take your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. According to Marvel’s own profile of him, he has superhuman speed and can lift ten (10) tons (obvi superhuman strength).

I’m ’bout to take you on a physics lesson. And I barely passed physics. There’s a really boring formula to measure the force of a punch. I’m not gonna make you do it. I’m gonna do it for you. Just some notes before I paste my calculations: Based on the 10 ton stat (20,000 pounds), I determined Spidey’s strength in comparison to the strongest humans. The world record (since erased because of a doping scandal) was 586 pounds. That means, conservatively, Spider-Man can bring roughly FIFTY SEVEN (57) times as much strength as one of the strongest (albeit doped) human beings in history. So if Spidey is 57 times as strong as a very strong human, let’s be conservative and say he’s ten (10) times as fast as the fastest human puncher on record, Keith Liddell at 45 mph.. That would make Peter Parker’s punch clock in at 450 mph. And finally, I converted Newtons to PSI because that’s a more common measurement.

So I promised to keep the boring away but I clearly failed. Anyhow, here’s my math for those who are crazy enough to actually be curious:

The calculations above (with, again, conservative estimates of speed and strength) show Spidey’s punch has a PSI (pounds per square inch) of 12996.83.

So how does Parker’s PSI compare to the hardest human hitters? According to remarkable post that utilizes both real science AND Ivan Drago, the toughest heavyweights max out around 1300 PSI. That means Pete hits roughly ten times as hard as the baddest boxers. For a visual comparison, Mike Tyson, rated potentially the hardest hitting boxer in history hit this hard (and he did this to big, strong, tough men – not old guys wearing green body suits with big wings):

If a punch ten times as strong as Iron Mike’s doesn’t impress you, let’s go outside homo sapiens.  By some estimates, the animal with the strongest bite (in PSI), is the Nile crocodile with a 5000 bite PSI. Here’s a photo of that baller:

So when Spidey’s fist hits a bad guy’s face, it is impacting with a PSI that is 2.6 times (MORE THAN DOUBLE) as great as the GREATEST biter on earth.

And I’m supposed to believe that any of the four villains (whose heads have absolutely no supernatural properties) at the top of this page can take one punch from Spider-man?

Please.

One punch would cave in each of their heads. One punch would probably enter through each of their faces and come out of the backs of each of their skulls. One punch would make Spidey a murderer. And if he kept fighting super villains, he would eventually become a serial killer, in a way. Like Dexter in a cooler onesie.

(Yeah, yeah, I know I’m reaching) (And yes I know that making these fight scenes comply with this universe’s internal logic would make them awfully short and really gross and very low on drama) (I like parentheses)

Belabored point is: follow your own goddamn rules. It drives me crazy AF when you don’t.

In conclusion, Private Hudson, so what happens when Spidey throws a haymaker against a human head?

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