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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 1
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From AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #15 (by Mark Gruenwald in 1981) -
The Super-Heavyweights - Hulk, Thor, Hercules, Wonder Man, Iron Man
The Heavyweights - the Thing, Namor, Doc Samson, Sasquatch, the Vision, Thundra, Black Bolt
The Super-Mediumweights - Valkyrie, She-Hulk, Power Man, Giant-Man, Silver Surfer, Colossus, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man
This pre-dates the original OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE by a couple of years and Colossus and She-Hulk were both listed as noticeably stronger than Spider-Man by then.
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 2
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Speaking of strength, one slightly distracting element of the 70s Spider-Man TV series was the lack of spider-strength. In the pilot movie, Parker refers to the proportionate strength of a spider - yet in almost all the episodes, he often struggled against street thugs, some of whom caught him unawares (so I guess his spider-sense was off!).
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Wallace Sellars
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | 3
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Stan and Steve were mixing up their bugs when they gave Spider-Man super
strength. Spiders are proportionately very weak. It's their webbing that is
super strong.
(Curiously, Ant-Man didn't get the enormous proportionate strength of his
namesakes.)
—
You're not going to believe this, but… I {I]promise I was just thinking of both
things on my ride home from work yesterday afternoon.
She-Hulk, Silver Surfer and Colossus should all be stronger than Spider-Man.
Heck, She-Hulk should be a heavyweight… or maybe even higher!
Where does Namorita rank?
I haven't liked the idea of Wonder Man being among the top strongmen since I
first heard that "second only to Thor" claim. Even with all that strength, I
imagine guys like Ben and the Sub-Mariner whuppin' him in a fight.
Black Bolt and the Vision should be at the bottom of their group.
Hercules should be slightly stronger that Thor. (No, I'm not crazy.)
Hulk should be "the strongest one there is!"
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 4
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As per the classic Lee-Kirby years, the Submariner in water should be able to take on all comers... and beat almost everybody.
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | 5
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When I was a kid, I was reading the Gerry Conway/Ross Andru AMAZING SPIDER-MAN tales at the same time as I read the Stan Lee/John Romita stories in MARVEL TALES, and the Lee/Ditko stuff was always being reprinted too.
It seemed to me in the later stories that Spider-Man had lower medium-level strength--Luke Cage was a good match for him. He could punch people like Doc Ock and the Vulture in the face and not obliterate their skulls. Lifting a car over his head was reasonable, but lifting a bus off the ground seemed like a real strain.
Imagine my confusion when I saw some early features (like that Kirby pin-up above) that implied that Pete was a Superman in the making. When Pete was fighting Flash in the ring, he realized at the last second that he could really pulverize Flash--which seemed a bit much to me...especially when he had no such compunctions about the street thugs he punched willy nilly. That Steve Ditko sequence with a trapped Spider-Man struggling to lift the wreckage off his back (recently referenced in the latest SPIDER-MAN movie) really stuck with me--and a lot of other people too.
Spider-Man is street-level. He struggles.
Looking back and knowing what I know now about how comics are made and the quirks of certain creators, I think those early claims of super-super-strength were Stan Lee exaggerating. I think Steve Ditko got the limits right, but sometimes Stan scripted against the art. Looking at the very early THOR stories, Stan was writing him as, basically, Superman. Maybe some of that drifted over to SPIDER-MAN too.
I'm not arguing Stan Lee vs. Gerry Conway; the Lee/Romita stories I read in MARVEL TALES seemed to have leveled out Spider-Man's power levels too--when normal (relatively speaking) men like the Kingpin and Man-Mountain Marko could hold their own against the Wall-Crawler, I think the claims of him one day reaching Thor or Hulk strength levels have to be abandoned.
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Charles Valderrama
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | 6
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Remember these rankings from the '80s?
-C!
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Anthony J Lombardi
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | 7
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I thought that Silver Suffer was stronger than that. If not on the same level with Hulk and Thor. Surely he would be on par with the Thing.
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | 8
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Looking at that pic shared by Charles - COME ON! We all know Silver Surfer beats Thing in a match. ;-)
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David Allen Perrin
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | 9
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Surfer, Colossus and She-Hulk have no business in that image.
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Doug Centers
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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"I haven't liked the idea of Wonder Man being among the top strongmen since I
first heard that "second only to Thor" claim. Even with all that strength, I
imagine guys like Ben and the Sub-Mariner whuppin' him in a fight."
...
What ,no love for Wondy, Wallace? I feel obligated to defend him. I think he takes the Thing with out too much trouble. Namor would be a little tougher but out of water Simon wins.
Anyway Hulk is no doubt numero uno!
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Eric Smearman
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | 11
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Never for one second bought that Colossus was in the same class as
Spider-Man in terms of sheer physical strength. I always placed him on
a par with Namor and the Thing.
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 18 July 2017 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | 12
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Wonder Man was more or less designed to take on the Thor-Iron Man-Giant-Man Avengers, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's in the top group. He's gone toe-to-toe with Thor on several occasions.
The Silver Surfer yields the Power Cosmic which he can use to augment his strength, but I don't have a problem with his normal strength level being about the same as Spider-Man.
Colossus and She-Hulk should have both been in the middle group, and Power Man at that point in time had superhuman strength, but not to the extent of the others he's listed with. Now he's depicted as much stronger than before.
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