Originally posted by Battlehammer
yes they were. reptedly shown in there fights the fisk was just as strong. fisk dident seem to retain such strength after the silver age however. actaully fisk seemed stronger at times
In the early days when Spiderman fought Fisk, Marvel didn't have a clearly defined strength level for either character. All that was clear was that Spiderman was definitely superstrong and Fisk was far stronger than an average man. So in those early stories it was perfectly feasable to show the 2 as being evenly matched, strength wise. Since then Marvel came up with different strength classifications for characters-stating that Spiderman has 10ton strength, while Fisk is peak human, able to lift round the 800 lb mark. As a result, Marvels official line is that Spiderman always held back fighting KP, to avoid accidentally killing him. A bit like how in Wolverines 1st appearance he couldn't cut Savage Hulk, but now has no trouble cutting any incarnation of Hulk-with the official explanation for Wolvie's inability to cut Hulk in that 1st fight being Hulk's HF healing him up so quick, that it looked like he wasn't cut.