Originally posted by SamZED
True, that happened from time to time. But he'd normally tool those same people when he's piseed. Too much CIS imo.
One thing that didn't help Spiderman's reputation as a fighter were 2 stories from the 1970's, both written by the same writer, Len Wein.
The first one was in Amazing Spiderman #162 when Spiderman is beaten up and knocked out by two, yes TWO, common thugs who were in Jigsaw's gang. From the rooftop Spiderman sees someone, lying unconscious or dead, in an alley. He goes down to help only for the "dead" man to pull a gun on him, as this is one of Jigsaw's thugs. Obviously Pete's spider sense was temporarily off, or else it would've warned him he was walking into a trap. I say temporarily as it goes off to warn him that thug1's partner is about to attack him from behind. Unfortunately with the return of his spider sense, Pete has lost his super reflexes and can't avoid being smashed in the skull by the large wrench that that thug2 is wielding. Thug2 gets in another hit and then thug1 finishes this one sided stomp with a high kick to Spiderman's head.
The second fight was against a bloke calledf the Hitman, in Amazing Spiderman #174. Hitman fought alongside the Punisher in the Vietnam war and was presumably the same level as Punisher, physically. When Hitman fough Spiderman, Spidey gets in the first punch (the arm he throws the punch with was injured by a bullet wound in the previous issue) which has no effect, as Hitman immediately repsonds with a left hand uppercut that knocks Spiderman backwards, setting him up for a double fist smash on the back of his neck, which puts him on the floor, with his head spinning. The excuse was that Spiderman's injured arm threw him off and gave Hitman the edge.
I don't know how Len Wein got away with such poor portrayals of Spiderman's fighting prowess. The above incedents are PIS on steroids. Going by Spiderman's consistent showings, in the 1st scenario his spidersense warns him of the danger posed by thug1 long before he pulls his gun, and he webs it up as thug 1 is pulling it out. As thug2 creeps up behind him, Spidey easily doges his attack and punches him out then webs the the two up.
I don't think its worth me describing how the fight with Hitman should've gone. Common sense dictates that in a fist fight between a normal man with at most, olympic level strength and reflexes, and a man who can lift cars and effortlessly dodge automatic gunfire, the normal fella gets crushed. Hitman beating Spiderman is like me beating up one of the Klitschko brothers.
