who wins in a fight....spider-man or superman????

[The Successful Dropout]

A couple guys at work were discussing this not too long ago, so I figured I'd get a bigger audience involved. I vote Superman all the way...especially after being hooked on Smallville. Spider-Man isn't that great imo (wow, he swings from buildings) and the movies really aren't that great (also and obviously imo). Just a little fun, no need to yell at me about how Spider-Man is your hero.....

[RedvsBlue]

Spidey your my special friend!

10 pts for who can guess what movie that quote is from.

[1SwtDeception]

superman.. cause well superpowers he dont need webs to fling around.. haha wow never realize this really.. their both working for newspaper.. but anyhow superman..

[The Successful Dropout]

right...what the hell does spiderman do? he swings from buildings...superman can fly, hes strong as hell, fast as hell, made of steel, and can shoot laser beams from his eyes....once again, spiderman swings from buildings

[godhatesjustyou]

batman, he is obviously the superior intellectual.

(superman, duh)

[mousin]

i dislike superman, something about him is gay, his tight crouchgrabbers, or that hairstyle, anyone know the GAY AMBIGUOUS DUEL? yea.. :P spider-man gets my vote because hes not so SUPER, and still has a cool herolike personality.

[Xevious]

Superman is stronger than Spiderman so he would win.

However Superman is a lot more boring than Spiderman. Spiderman is cooler.

[TheUnsane1]

Spiderman wins because he is resourceful. Add to this he has no horrible I lose instantly weakness. Spiderman vs Batman vs Mac Geiver(spelling is way off) is a much better match up. All three of them always beat superman tho cause they're all little boy scouts who are always prepared there by they happen to carry kryptonite incase superman goes crazy and tries to kill them.

[The Successful Dropout]

Spiderman wins because he is resourceful. Add to this he has no horrible I lose instantly weakness. Spiderman vs Batman vs Mac Geiver(spelling is way off) is a much better match up. All three of them always beat superman tho cause they're all little boy scouts who are always prepared there by they happen to carry kryptonite incase superman goes crazy and tries to kill them.

well....
superman would bring pesticide for spiderman
superman would bring ozzy osbourne for batman
and
i dunno

[Kaijufan]

Superman would likely win, unless Spiderman is able to get kryptonite.

[TheUnsane1]

Remember that Peter Parker is a science nerd.

[Darkwebs]

Although Spidey is my favorite superhero, I have to say that Superman would easily win. He is faster, stronger, and has more super abilities than the Webhead. Sure Spider-Man is resourceful and very intelligent, but unless he has access to Kryptonite or magic, he can't do much against the Man of Steel.

[Dok Diamond]

superman, no contest

[pinoy530]

I find it funny that even though most people admit Superman would win, people still vote for spidey. Don't get me wrong, I like spidey more than superman, but they're different classes. I mean, Superman is about as strong as the Hulk.

[The Successful Dropout]

superman is finally ahead as of this post 8-7

die spidey die

[godhatesjustyou]

anyways, voted for spider-man just so that the poll is dead even. :)

[Slipknot9762]

i would have to say spider man because i always use to like him.

[Ikohn4ever]

spidey could whip up some kryptonite webbing and blast the shit out of him

[webcamjenna]

[quote="mousin"]i dislike superman, something about him is gay, his tight crouchgrabbers, or that hairstyle [quote]
HAHAHA I agree with that so much so I voted for Spidey.

[godhatesjustyou]

damn, after 28 votes the poll is STILL dead even. this is gonna be a close one..

[bignick]

super man would pwn spiderman. The only thing that weakens superman is kryptonite. Superman could fly spiderman into space and leave him there.

[Mustang O-Line 75]

As much as I like Spiderman
and dislike the Superman comic figure (because I loooove smallville)
Superman Wins

spidey can't compete

but i still voted for him

[kristianator]

what exactly are we voting for? who is the better superhero? or who would win in a straight up fight? if its the former, my vote goes for spidey. if it's the latter, there really is no need for a poll because it's just common knowledge that superman would win. how can you even compare the two? yes, superman is strong, BUT he is also very fast. not just fast, but flash-like fast. he's impervious to everything except kryptonite and magic, neither of which is readily available or regularly used by spider-man. as cool as spider-man is, if we were comparing in terms of who would win one on one, superman is michael jordan and spider-man is... someone who isn't in the NBA.

[Drocket]

this is gonna be a close one..

Unlike the fight, in which Spiderman would get smooshed in about 7 seconds. I only give him that long because of I figure his tingly spidersense would save him from the first punch or two. After that, though - Superman is just WAY more powerful.

[WeaponX2099]

Spidey vs Superman is like Pikachu vs. your cat or a new pair of Jordans vs. an old pair of adidas shell toes. You gotta say Superman.

[1SwtDeception]

Mm superman could blast off spiderman's hands/arms whatevr it is.. and he be render helpless and what he shots outta his butt now?

and spiderman also wears a tight costume i mean it' pretty skin tight anyways.. its just that superman is drawn more or osmething

[pinoy530]

Man, this is a joke. Its who would win in a fight, not who do you like better. Stop voting for spidey. Superman could just super speed behind spidey and snap his neck right as his spidey sense starts tingling. Or Superman could just laser vision his butt from the freaking sky.

Part of what makes spidey great is that he's human. Yeah, he has powers, but they cost him his uncle, hes always broke, half the city hates spider man, etc. Hes not this invulnerable alien who could easily rule the world and has the strength of the hulk, the speed of the flash, can fly like Archangel, has laser vision like Cyclops, and can freeze crap with his breath sorta like Iceman.

Spiderman just wouldnt stand a chance unless he somehow cheats and uses kryptonite.

[epobirs]

This just isn't functional question. If it's just one set of stats Vs. another set of stats then Superman has the obvious lead. This doesn't make for much of a story. In the past when Spider-man beat a foe who had an immense advantage over him there was more to it than finding a magic rock that evened the odds.

http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/f/firelord.htm

One good example was about 15 years ago when Firelord, an ex-herald of Galactus to give you an idea of his level of power, turned up in Manhatten and started making trouble. Spider-man tried to subdue him but was hopelessly outmatched until he found he could easily goad Firelord into rash and stupid actions. This only lasted so long until Firelord got pissed and announced he was going to waste Spidey if he had to take out a block radius area just to get the job done. Genuine fear drove Spidey into delivering a rapid-fire torrent of blows that dazed Firelord to the extent he couldn't focus to summon his strength and ultimately fell unconscious.

At this point, with Spidey still trying to believe what has happened, the Avengers show up to cart away Firelord for another storyline in that series. Hercules is especially stunned to learn that Spidey brought down Firelord, if only long enough for the Avengers to even the odds. Hercules drives the point home, suggesting it would be very dishonorable to seek revenge against Spider-man since it would only draw more attention to the reason and it would also make Hercules pissed at him.

Normally, the idea of Spidey against any former employee of Galactus doesn't appear to be a fight measured in more than fractions of a second. It was the writing that not only made it work but also made it an enjoyable read. By comparison the Superman vs. Spider-man oversized one-shot in the 70's was crap that came up with moronic reasons to temporarily grant Spider-man the ability to pound on Superman.

[godhatesjustyou]

wow man, i am really impressed. after 40 votes, the poll has not gotten out of the tie yet.

[KingDox]

I think that spiderman had a fight against Thanos. I don't have the comic, only one where spidey thinks about the fight. But how the hell could spiderman beat someone like Thanos ? But I guess he did. He's also survived fights against the hulk and he's close to superman when it comes to power.

Spiderman like the other poeple said, would have a really hard time beating superman with out having kriptonite. Now however Cosmic Spiderman could kick Superman's ass, but how offten does spiderman become cosmic ?

[Pylis]

Haven't you guys ever seen the Super Friends? Super Man had like 250 different powers, and the writers made up two or three more every episode. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that the poor bastard suffers from Alzheimers or something, because he never seemed to remember any of them. For example, Superman had heat-ray eyes and freeze breath. He could kill you by looking at you or breathing on you--from across the room with no hands. But he didn't. If a villain tied him up in a crappy rope, Superman would just sit there and watch the guy launch a nuclear missile at a kindergarten. In fact, the super power he used most often was getting a 10 year old boy to scream at his TV, "Your eyes shoot lasers, you stupid fucker! LASERS! Blow a hole in his head! Do you want the kids to die, Super$$$?!"

Also, take a look at Superman's weakness: kryptonite, which is radioactive pieces of a planet that exploded decades ago on the other end of the universe, which might explain why it's so easy to find. Superman can move goddamn planets and fly around meteorites in circles so fast that they warp into another dimension. So naturally, the only way to balance this out is to give every villian who graduates from World Domination School a shitload of kryptonite to go along with their retarded jumpsuit and gay tinfoil helmet. Spiderman has taken care of his fair share of villians, so I'm sure that he has more than enough green planet chunks to take down the man of steel. And besides, if he tied him up in sticky web, Superman would probably just sit there like a helpless moron spouting out gay one-liners and unmotivational speeches about how crime doesn't pay. My vote goes to Spidey.

[godhatesjustyou]

Haven't you guys ever seen the Super Friends? Super Man had like 250 different powers, and the writers made up two or three more every episode. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that the poor bastard suffers from Alzheimers or something, because he never seemed to remember any of them. For example, Superman had heat-ray eyes and freeze breath. He could kill you by looking at you or breathing on you--from across the room with no hands. But he didn't. If a villain tied him up in a crappy rope, Superman would just sit there and watch the guy launch a nuclear missile at a kindergarten. In fact, the super power he used most often was getting a 10 year old boy to scream at his TV, "Your eyes shoot lasers, you stupid shaq-fuer! LASERS! Blow a hole in his head! Do you want the kids to die, Super$$$?!"

Also, take a look at Superman's weakness: kryptonite, which is radioactive pieces of a planet that exploded decades ago on the other end of the universe, which might explain why it's so easy to find. Superman can move goddamn planets and fly around meteorites in circles so fast that they warp into another dimension. So naturally, the only way to balance this out is to give every villian who graduates from World Domination School a shitload of kryptonite to go along with their retarded jumpsuit and gay tinfoil helmet. Spiderman has taken care of his fair share of villians, so I'm sure that he has more than enough green planet chunks to take down the man of steel. And besides, if he tied him up in sticky web, Superman would probably just sit there like a helpless moron spouting out gay one-liners and unmotivational speeches about how crime doesn't pay. My vote goes to Spidey.

lol, very nicely put. :D

[Mr Durand Pierre]

OK, to settle any superman vs an-other-superhero battle to date, Superman would win. Physically his superpower far outwighs his superweakness. I mean the guy can move aseroids and fly around the earth in seconds. However, Superman is quite possibly the most boring of superheroes, so I'd root for Spiderman... but then I'd root for Batman to kick both their asses.

[epobirs]

I think that spiderman had a fight against Thanos. I don't have the comic, only one where spidey thinks about the fight. But how the hell could spiderman beat someone like Thanos ? But I guess he did. He's also survived fights against the hulk and he's close to superman when it comes to power.

Spiderman like the other poeple said, would have a really hard time beating superman with out having kriptonite. Now however Cosmic Spiderman could kick Superman's ass, but how offten does spiderman become cosmic ?

In the story I remember Spider-man didn't beat Thanos but played a vital role in sustaining the battle. This was another cross-over with the Avengers with Starlin at the helm IIRC. Everything seemed lost when Adam Warlock, seemingly killed by Thanos, rose up briefly to turn Thanos to stone and retired for several years into the Soul Gem along with many of his friends and even enemies who no longer felt any animus towards him. Adam and his entourage sprang back into the 'real' world when Thanos was resurrected and started gathering up what were now know as Infinity Gems.

It was another great example of Spidey as someone completely out of his league but still making a difference. It's why writers love the character.

[Mr. Anderson]

i dislike superman, something about him is gay, his tight crouchgrabbers, or that hairstyle, anyone know the GAY AMBIGUOUS DUEL? yea.. :P spider-man gets my vote because hes not so SUPER, and still has a cool herolike personality.

Please, tell me more about this GAY AMBIGUOUS DUEL.

[The Successful Dropout]

for those who dislike superman....have you seen smallville??? i was too young to care about the movies when they came out and i dont read superhero comics....but after smallville came out, im very interested in superman....

as for spiderman....hes just not interesting to me at all....kinda boring....

by the way...like someone else said, the poll is about who would win, not who do you like better....

[vrs1650]

Superman would fuck spiderman up. Plain and Simple.

[1SwtDeception]

haha this seems to be more turning to "whose your favorite between superman and spiderman" or a "who wears the less tighter of the costume"

[The Successful Dropout]

haha this seems to be more turning to "whose your favorite between superman and spiderman" or a "who wears the less tighter of the costume"

yeah...looks like someone is gonna have to make a "who would you rather have gay sex with...spider-man or superman" poll...lol

and yeah, i know you're a girl

[1SwtDeception]

haha this seems to be more turning to "whose your favorite between superman and spiderman" or a "who wears the less tighter of the costume"

yeah...looks like someone is gonna have to make a "who would you rather have gay sex with...spider-man or superman" poll...lol

and yeah, i know you're a girl

i would let all the guys answer that poll and just view the result (probably still be neck to neck)

[epobirs]

haha this seems to be more turning to "whose your favorite between superman and spiderman" or a "who wears the less tighter of the costume"

yeah...looks like someone is gonna have to make a "who would you rather have gay sex with...spider-man or superman" poll...lol

and yeah, i know you're a girl

Consider the 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex' problem and substitute 'Gay Man of Kleenex' to understand why Superman is an unobtainable goal.

http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

This was written by a friend of mine back in the 70's, so it's a bit anachronistic.

[The Successful Dropout]

lmao...watch that "queer" word...ur not aloud to dislike gays on this site...trust me, i already got reamed in the ass on that one...no pun intended

[Mr_hockey66]

spidey would shot web in supermans eyes and take away most his powers. heat vision x ray vision vision period. Then spidey would web him up and put him in a big tank of liguid krptonite. All while saying something like " nice tights did your boyfriend give them to you"

[1SwtDeception]

haha this seems to be more turning to "whose your favorite between superman and spiderman" or a "who wears the less tighter of the costume"

yeah...looks like someone is gonna have to make a "who would you rather have gay sex with...spider-man or superman" poll...lol

and yeah, i know you're a girl

Consider the 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex' problem and substitute 'Gay Man of Kleenex' to understand why Superman is an unobtainable goal.

http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

This was written by a friend of mine back in the 70's, so it's a bit anachronistic.

haha.. that was well descriptive now we can cross out superman and put umm batman instead? that site reminded me like a "scientific reason why santa claus doesnt exist" giving all these logical.. and i mean logical reasons..

[1SwtDeception]

spidey would shot web in supermans eyes and take away most his powers. heat vision x ray vision vision period. Then spidey would web him up and put him in a big tank of liguid krptonite. All while saying something like " nice tights did your boyfriend give them to you"

how does that take away most of his powers...it's just web... superman is too fast anyways and dodge it

[mmn]

Look, Superman is technically the most powerful superhero that's ever existed. Spider-Man cannot and would not beat Superman.

Superman could fly into space and shoot his damn eye beams down and give Spider-Man a lobotomy. Spider-Man would probably break his fist just punching Superman. Spider-Man has his spidey senses, yes, but Superman moves close to the speed of light. Spider-Man can stick to a building and Superman could LIFT the building and chuck it into space.

There's no contest. Everyone who voted for Spiderman is voting because they like Spider-Man - but they know there's really no way Spider-Man would even stand a chance.

[ananag112]

It depends. Peter Parker is very smart, so he could figure out that Superman becomes powerless when exposed to kryptonite and could use that to defeat Superman. On the other hand, if it was just a fight based on pure strength, Superman would kill SPiderman in less then a second.

[Grave_Addiction]

There's no way Spidey would have a chance against Superman. Make no mistake, I think Spiderman is way more cooler than Superman, but you just can't bet against the Man of Steel.

[yeahokthenfu]

I think everyone is mssing the point in this vote, it says who wouls win in a fight. I like Spiderman more than Superman, for some odd reason, but I voted for Superman cuz hands down he would beat spidey no doubt, its not about anything else, just straight up who would win in a fight not about who you like more, that would be like betting on a 100 pound man against a sumo wrestler in a sumo wrestling match, that would make no sense.

[Gamer G]

Spider man would win. Why? well, he is somewhat a scientist all he would do is mix the kryptonite into his webs and superman would be able to do nothing about it. Superman does have power and super speed but mentally he has been slapped around by weaker opponents.

just my take on it.

[Tromack]

Spiderman wins because he is resourceful. Add to this he has no horrible I lose instantly weakness. Spiderman vs Batman vs Mac Geiver(spelling is way off) is a much better match up. All three of them always beat superman tho cause they're all little boy scouts who are always prepared there by they happen to carry kryptonite incase superman goes crazy and tries to kill them.

This is scary. My friends and I just discussed a Spiderman vs. Optimus Prime vs. MacGyver match. We determined that MacGyver > Optimus Prime > Spiderman. Anyway, Superman would crush Spiderman. But none of them can beat the Flash. I'm sorry, but anyone who can travel at the speed of light can beat anyone.

[ElfAngel7]

Spiderman w/o a doubt is my favorite superhero period, so it's obvious what my choice would be. However, this fight already happened comicwise. Also, unfortunently Superman would win, since he basicly is god incarnate. Yawn.

[TiKi2]

First of all if spiderman found out superman was weakened by kryptonite I don't think superman would wait around waiting for him to find some. Sceond: Kryptonite only exist in the DC universe . Superrman would win

[evilmax17]

Superman would probably win, but that's only because he's a lame Superhero.

Superman's conception:
"Hey, let's make a guy who can do EVERYTHING!"
"What about weaknesses?"
"Hrmmm...a super-rare rock"
"OK!"

What's the point of reading the comics or watching the movies at all? You know Superman is always going to win because he's rediculously overpowered. Batman on the otherhand is awesome, because he's just a regular person. Moral of the story: Anybody could be a superhero if he had Superman's powers. Batman doesn't even HAVE powers.

Back to spiderman: He's cool and his powers aren't overwhelming. In almost every fight he has, Spiderman gets his ass KICKED, but manages to JUST make it by. That's whats great about reading/watching him, things actually get INTERESTING.

[ElfAngel7]

^^ agreed. There is some suspense as to wheter spidey or bats would win where as superman always wins. Why does Luther bother? Oh thats right! Superman isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. The strongest and most unbendable, but definently not the sharpest.

[Cornfedwb]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

[ElfAngel7]

No, its just that the character of Spiderman is just more interesting than Superman. People are basing this on how they like the character, not their strength. The right thing to say is keep this on a strength, not character basis. I can almost guarntee if you asked this 3 months ago, or even 9 months ago, it'd be the same.

[basketkase543]

since practically every viliain seems to be able to find kryptonite than i would say spiderman would kick his ass.

[Ikohn4ever]

if supes is so tough how is always beaten around or held captive or even the occasional killed

[Tromack]

since practically every viliain seems to be able to find kryptonite than i would say spiderman would kick his ass.

Perhaps, but as I learned in Kingdom Come, Superman has absorbed enough sunlight that kryptonite is no longer crippling to him. I guess it just gives him some sort of rash or something now.

[The Successful Dropout]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

i noticed the same thing...but...their is a superman tv show out called Smallville....sadly, its not nearly as popular as those crap spider-man movies....

for everyone whos voting that superman is stupid, not cool, not interesting, blah blah blah...do yourself a favor, get out of spider-mans ass and buy smallville on dvd

[Smell]

Spiderman the comedian of course he has kryptonite in his pocket no more superman

yay

[Ikohn4ever]

if u have seen Kill Bill 2 you have some idea why I dislike Superman. They give a nice lil talk on Kal-el. I really just cant stand the boyscout. Give me a hero with edge, who has more human emotions. Give me a hero who can not only kick ass but is also his own man. Superman is a chump, only when he goes nuts and evil do I find any enjoyment in him. Hell give me the tick over superman any day

[coolsteel]

Voted Superman simply because while Spiderman is the more interesting of the two it just would be a joke of a fight, unless Spidey found kryptonite by pure luck AND figured out it was his weakness withn 5 seconds he would just get owned.

Oh and as for the Smallville loving going on, it really doesn't prove Superman is more interesting then Spiderman. I mean looking at the show Lex steals every stinking scene he is in . Not to mention the constant running gag of having kryptonite be everything from a health shake to ingrediants in a bomb .

[Drocket]

A lot of people have made the point that Superman is a less-than-interesting character, since he has virtually limitless power. I agree that there have been a lot of really bad Superman stories (especially with the 'everyone and his dog has a chunk of Kryponite' thing), but there have been some really good stories too, focusing on Superman as a person, and the difficulties that would accompany having that much power.

Probably my favorite Superman story is one from a number of years back -Superman Answers his Mail. Basically, Superman gets a bajillion letters from people all over the world begging him for things. There are a lot of 'business proposals' (Why don't you use your XRay vision to find a load of gold, tell me where it is and I'll dig it up, then we'll split the profits) which generally disgust Superman because of the pure greed of some people. He gets hate mail from people who blame Superman for any random thing ('My sister died when the evil space aliens invaded last month! Why didn't you stop them before they killed her!') Superman also gets a lot of letters from children, a lot of whom are really pathetic - letters from orphans who want Superman to help them find parents, for example, or kids who's parents have gotten divorced and want Superman to 'fix' things. One letter Superman tries to answer is from a kid who's mother has cancer - not that Superman can do anything, but he feels the need to basically apologize to the kid for not being able to help.

Anyway, Superman stories can be pretty good, when they're in the hands of a good writer. Bad writers just focus on bigger, badder, stronger bad guys and ignore Superman as a character, and that results in the truly terrible storylines. That's true of any comic book character, though.

[Cornfedwb]

Probably my favorite Superman story is one from a number of years back -Superman Answers his Mail. Basically, Superman gets a bajillion letters from people all over the world begging him for things. There are a lot of 'business proposals' (Why don't you use your XRay vision to find a load of gold, tell me where it is and I'll dig it up, then we'll split the profits) which generally disgust Superman because of the pure greed of some people. He gets hate mail from people who blame Superman for any random thing ('My sister died when the evil space aliens invaded last month! Why didn't you stop them before they killed her!') Superman also gets a lot of letters from children, a lot of whom are really pathetic - letters from orphans who want Superman to help them find parents, for example, or kids who's parents have gotten divorced and want Superman to 'fix' things. One letter Superman tries to answer is from a kid who's mother has cancer - not that Superman can do anything, but he feels the need to basically apologize to the kid for not being able to help.

Maybe it's just me, but I read comics for action with some (small) story. If I wanted a regular sob story like that crapfest.. I'd read a classic piece of literature.

Just because someone made something so out of nature for Superman (like him reading fan-mail).. doesn't mean his character is any less disinteresting.

[Tromack]

A lot of people have made the point that Superman is a less-than-interesting character, since he has virtually limitless power. I agree that there have been a lot of really bad Superman stories (especially with the 'everyone and his dog has a chunk of Kryponite' thing), but there have been some really good stories too, focusing on Superman as a person, and the difficulties that would accompany having that much power.

Probably my favorite Superman story is one from a number of years back -Superman Answers his Mail. Basically, Superman gets a bajillion letters from people all over the world begging him for things. There are a lot of 'business proposals' (Why don't you use your XRay vision to find a load of gold, tell me where it is and I'll dig it up, then we'll split the profits) which generally disgust Superman because of the pure greed of some people. He gets hate mail from people who blame Superman for any random thing ('My sister died when the evil space aliens invaded last month! Why didn't you stop them before they killed her!') Superman also gets a lot of letters from children, a lot of whom are really pathetic - letters from orphans who want Superman to help them find parents, for example, or kids who's parents have gotten divorced and want Superman to 'fix' things. One letter Superman tries to answer is from a kid who's mother has cancer - not that Superman can do anything, but he feels the need to basically apologize to the kid for not being able to help.

Anyway, Superman stories can be pretty good, when they're in the hands of a good writer. Bad writers just focus on bigger, badder, stronger bad guys and ignore Superman as a character, and that results in the truly terrible storylines. That's true of any comic book character, though.
And anyone who actually knows comic books knows that Spiderman has had some shitty storylines. I know this has been mentioned before, but it can never be mentioned enough. What the hell was up with all of that clone shit?

[hiccupleftovers]

right...what the hell does spiderman do? he swings from buildings...superman can fly, hes strong as hell, fast as hell, made of steel, and can shoot laser beams from his eyes....once again, spiderman swings from buildings

Don't forget about his freezing breath and his x-ray vision (great power IMO if you think about it :wink: ) Anyhow, although i like spiderman more than superman, there is no doubt that Superman would win. He's just the stronger and more poewrful character, though he is not that smart which spiderman could take advantage of but still how long do you think that would last.

I have a question for all the CAGs out there, I know superman died once before when he fought someone. Does my memory serve correctly but was it Doomday?? I think that was it and was one of the greatest story arcs IMO. But to get to my point this shows that superman can die if he is totally beaten up, which spidey could do possibly (there's a chance) or if he went cosmic spidey.

Oh yaeh, my vote goes to superman. on a side note, it would be pretty funny if when ever he said his name like that one person from the movie Superstar, you know SUPER!!! man.

[coolsteel]

Yes it was Doomsday, loved that story, nothing more then 7 or 8 issues of Supes getting his ass handed to him across the U.S, i'l admit Superman 75 had me choked up with the whole " This is the day that a SUPERMAN died"

[hiccupleftovers]

Yes it was Doomsday, loved that story, nothing more then 7 or 8 issues of Supes getting his ass handed to him across the U.S, i'l admit Superman 75 had me choked up with the whole " This is the day that a SUPERMAN died"

Yaeh me too. I had been an avid comic book reader and fan and basically read every comic book, but superman started to get way to repetitive for me. So i stopped,until one of my friends were like you gotta pick this one up. One of the coolest comic books arcs ever, nesxt to Crsis on multiple Earths/ Crisis on ifinite earths, kindom come, and zero hour.

[Drocket]

Maybe it's just me, but I read comics for action with some (small) story. If I wanted a regular sob story like that crapfest.. I'd read a classic piece of literature.
Ok, so words in a comic book (beyond 'Pow!', 'Boom!' and 'Thud!') = bad. Got it.

Just because someone made something so out of nature for Superman (like him reading fan-mail).. doesn't mean his character is any less disinteresting.
But its NOT out-of-character for him. Superman is a boyscout: his nature is that he wants to help everyone, and he feels terrible when he can't. Superman's power is, to him, a major responsibility and a constant burden. Superman would love to say 'screw this saving the world stuff' and stay at home with Lois, but he can't. A key theme that Superman and Spiderman share is the 'With great power comes great responsibility' thing: the best Superman stories (and Spiderman stories too, for that matter) are ones where Superman feels the stress from that responsibility. That was what made this story so good: It was Superman recognizing the fact hat he can't help everyone - despite all his powers, he's still only one person - and him dealing with the guilt from that.

[captainfrizo]

Superman would win the fight even though I like Spider-man much, much more.

I've never really cared too much for Superman. He's superstrong and can stop speeding trains (although Spidey does that in his kick ass new movie), but he's weak to kryptonite? Come on, how lame of a weakness is that? Silver bullets or something would've made more sense.

Spidey is at least human under his super strength and has the same weaknesses as everyone else. Superman is built to be a near immortal and a little stone/rock can do him in?

Superman would win the fight but of the two Spider-man dominates in the coolness factor.

[Drocket]

I have a question for all the CAGs out there, I know superman died once before when he fought someone. Does my memory serve correctly but was it Doomday?? I think that was it and was one of the greatest story arcs IMO. But to get to my point this shows that superman can die if he is totally beaten up, which spidey could do possibly (there's a chance) or if he went cosmic spidey.
Yep, it was Doomsday, but its highly doubtful that Spiderman would be able to do anything close. Doomsday was insanely strong (as in, stronger than Superman himself) and pretty much completely invulnerable (as in, more invulnerable than Superman.) On top of that, any time that Doomsday was defeated/died, he came back to life stronger than he was before and immune to whatever previously killed him. Doomsday absorbed Superman's attacks in a battle across multiple states without major damage, while constantly beating Superman down the entire time.

So basically, if Spiderman would be able to dodge EVERY SINGLE ONE of Superman's blows (a single blow at supersonic speed would almost certainly kill Spiderman) over the course of several days, plus somehow aquire super strength, then MAYBE Spiderman could win.

I'm not betting on it...

[ElfAngel7]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

i noticed the same thing...but...their is a superman tv show out called Smallville....sadly, its not nearly as popular as those crap spider-man movies....

for everyone whos voting that superman is stupid, not cool, not interesting, blah blah blah...do yourself a favor, get out of spider-mans ass and buy smallville on dvd

I have (well, i borrowed it from a friend) and it's alright. The writing is pretty good and the acting is alright. And although it's impossible to compare a TV show to a movie, the Spiderman movies are great examples of good comic movies. So yah, he may be Supes and all, but I think he's way overrated

[JSweeney]

The answer is neither. It's already been done:

http://www.supermantv.net/wallpaperbattles/spiderman.htm

[Drocket]

but he's weak to kryptonite? Come on, how lame of a weakness is that?

Because I have nothing better to do (as you may have noticed :) ), I thought I'd explain Superman's vulnerability to Kryptonite:

Superman's people, the Kyrptonians, were extremely xenophobic people. They simply wanted to be left alone without random alien races popping in to visit every other day. So, to stop unwanted visitors, they created and released a virus on their planet that would kill any non-Kryptonian. An unfortunately side-effect of the virus, though, was that it modified their DNA such that it was impossible for them to leave the planet. That was generally OK with them, though, because they were happy staying at home.

A few people on Krypton weren't happy being stuck on the planet, though, one of them being Superman's father, especially once he discovered that the planet was going to go boom. He couldn't have just built a rocket and shipped people offworld because that would have killed them anyway: he had to figure out a way to modify the Kyrptonian genes first to cancel out the virus. Before it was perfected, though, the planet was pretty much set to blow up. He applied what he had to Superman and stuffed him into a model rocket and sent him to Earth.

The 'cure' that Superman's dad worked out, though, wasn't perfected. Instead of making Kryptonians need to be on Krypton, it made them horribly allergic to it. At the very least, though, Superman was able to survive off-world.

Also, in case you're wondering, the reason that there's so much Kryptonite on Earth is Superman's rocket: the rockets was taking off just as the planet was exploding, and the rocket pulled large amounts of Kryptonite along in its wake.

So you see, Superman's back story actually does make some sense. Or at least as much as any superhero's does... (Radioactive spider - yeah, right...)

[JSweeney]

I've never really cared too much for Superman. He's superstrong and can stop speeding trains (although Spidey does that in his kick ass new movie), but he's weak to kryptonite? Come on, how lame of a weakness is that? Silver bullets or something would've made more sense.

The irradiated remains of his old home planet. Makes sense to me...
Superman's phisology is different than that of humans, so the irradiated remains of don't have as notable an effect on humans... though it actually does catch up with Luthor, who actually develops cancer from his constant proximity to Kryptonite.

Spidey is at least human under his super strength and has the same weaknesses as everyone else. Superman is built to be a near immortal and a little stone/rock can do him in?

It's not just a little stone... it's a shard of the planet Krypton. Exposing a Kryptonian to it would be like exposing a human to uranium or some other highly radioactive material (with them not having the proper protection)

[captainfrizo]

Thanks for the explaination Drocket.

I never really read the comics or anything growing up and I've just aways thought that being weak to a crystal (I guess that's what it really is) was pretty lame. It makes sense now.

[JSweeney]

Maybe it's just me, but I read comics for action with some (small) story. If I wanted a regular sob story like that crapfest.. I'd read a classic piece of literature.

Just because someone made something so out of nature for Superman (like him reading fan-mail).. doesn't mean his character is any less disinteresting.

I think that's part of the problem. People still look at comics as some trivial thing for children, and not as works of Art or Literature.
Of course, some schools and Universities are actually starting to wise up that there are some actual works of literature out there in the world of comics... like "The Watchmen".

[epobirs]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

Inoperative claim. smallville has been a successful TV series throughout the existence of both Spider-man movies. The problem is that Superman is much more difficult to write engaging stories for due to the level of power he psosseses. One of the reasons the early Marvel superhero characters marked such a change was that they had such greater depth, albeit not so much from today's perspective but you had to start somewhere. Comics were a terribly limited format up until that point with few long term plot arcs. Stories were almost always wrapped up within a single issue and regardless of how traumatized the characters should have been there were no consequences to speak of.

Once in a while there would be some new element that was used again but more often than not it was to the detriment of good story. Superman was an especially good example of this. Kryptonian debris kept accumulating to the point where it seemed the whole destruction of the planet was an elaborate joke played on Jor-El and Lara, and they were the only Kryptonians to die. Once you have lots of Lryptonians and their technology lurking it's always a question of why they're ignored most of the time. On top of this the whole supporting cast would gain and lose super-powers with such regularity as to make one wonder why it always comes as a surprise to them.

This crap built up for decades. A few writers tried to do good stories but the load of garbage under which the character was mired was too much. It wasn't until they let John Byrne restart the character from scratch that things improved in a major way. Byrne gave thought to all the basic elements and tried to make them more believable and eliminate the loophole that lazy writers relied on. Serious questions like why such an advanced civilization as Krypton was incapable of saving itself fromt he destruction of a single world. How did Clark manage to have an almost normal childhood sufficient to let him regards humans as equals rather than ill-behaved pets. (Always a big problem if you have Suprboy instead of Clark manifesting most of his powers in his late teens.)

So the Superman stuff got a lot better and it was Byrne's version that led to the Lois & Clark and Smallville series. Those of us with longer memories know that Spider-man gave writers a much better platform long before then. Long-term arcs were common going back to the 60's. I can recall a sub-plot in the late 70's that took the better part of a year to finally piece together all of the hints that Doc Ock had survived a nuclear blast and was returning to revive his relationship with May Parker. (This was always rather creepy since even the middle-aged Octavius had to be a good two decades at least younger than May.)

The difference between the classic versions of these characters will always be with me.

[epobirs]

And anyone who actually knows comic books knows that Spiderman has had some shitty storylines. I know this has been mentioned before, but it can never be mentioned enough. What the hell was up with all of that clone shit?

It's the same problem any long running series faces. Superheroes encounter a lot of strangeness in their lives but it gets worse when those characters only age a year for every five or so in the real world.

PEter Parker was fifteen or sixteen when he became Spider-man in 1963. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were supposed to be WWII veterans, making them fairly long in the tooth for newly minted superheroes. Tony Stark was somewhere in his thirties, likewise for Bruce Banner. The X-men were all high school or beginning college age.

Just like Superman, these characters packed an awful lot of living into the brief amount of aging they did before the reset button got pushed. Over time their chronology evolved. Spiderman never met the Beatles. Reed and Ben became Korea then Vietnam veterans and even that conflict is now too far in the past to serve the purpose of giving them serious combat experience.

The clone stuff in recent (last decade or so) Spider-man is a case of a writer not being able to leave well enough alone. given time every single aspect of a character will be explored to death. It's similar to the industry of producing books to document every single moment of the Star Trek characters' lives. It can become a crutch.

The original start of the clone stuff was actually quite good for the era except for the ultimate villain being much physically adept to be believed. It took one of the major events that made Spider-man stand out in that they killed a major supporting character and made it stick. No time travel do overs, no magical resurrection, she was simply dead because she got in the way of a lunatic that would do anything to hurt Spider-man. This was pretty major for the era, especially since Spider-man then set out for genuine revenge and not some unbelievable pap about bringing the Goblin to justice. Spider-man was only saved from doing something he'd later regret when the Goblin accidentally killed himself. (The Goblin's similar death in the movie lost of its impact for lack of that motivation on Spider-man's part since they didn't have a Gwen Stacy they could kill and still leave Mary Jane after combining the two along with Liz Allen into a single character.)

So when Gwen Stacy shows up at Peter Parker's apartment with no recollection of the events leading up to her death this was a real smack in the face. It's been done to death since then but back then it meant something.

They later trashed that storyline diuring the pathetic 'Evolutionary Wars' crossover cash cow. They decided the Gwen Stacy clone was really just somebody else who'd been virally programmed to look like Gwen and possess her memories and that Carrion wasn't a Prof. Warren clone got bad (or worse) but was just some student infect with a similar virus. This was a horrible decision. It tried to cover for the improbability of Prof. Warren's accomplishments in cloning but ruined a great long running story arc.

Later on they decided the cloning was real and everything got ridiculously complicated but by that point I'd stopped buying comics and this only served to show me why this was the best course.

[The Successful Dropout]

i always read comics for comedy....i could never get into the action ones....wheres the action in a drawing? flame me, i dont care....i always used to read archie, jughead, betty & veronica, ren & stimpy, itchy & scratchy, the simpsons, etc....after all, whats the word "comic" mean?

[Zenithian Legend]

It really doesn't matter in the end spiderman will just make everyone gay http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/dadyes/sp.html, so why even bother...

[x0thedeadzone0x]

It really doesn't matter in the end spiderman will just make everyone gay http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/dadyes/sp.html, so why even bother...

LMAO, You really like that link don't you?

[The Successful Dropout]

It really doesn't matter in the end spiderman will just make everyone gay http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/dadyes/sp.html, so why even bother...

take the comma out so the link works :wink:

[The Successful Dropout]

lmao....that is a funny site though....

[trq]

This was written by a friend of mine back in the 70's, so it's a bit anachronistic.

Do you really know Larry Niven? It'd be pretty cool if so, especially since I've had some (minor) contact with him myself...

[trq]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

i noticed the same thing...but...their is a superman tv show out called Smallville....sadly, its not nearly as popular as those crap spider-man movies....

for everyone whos voting that superman is stupid, not cool, not interesting, blah blah blah...do yourself a favor, get out of spider-mans ass and buy smallville on dvd

I find this pretty funny, considering the writer/creators (Millar & Gough) of your beloved "Smallville" wrote "Spider-Man 2."

On top of that, many of the show's elements don't belong to Superman -- they were lifted straight out Spidey's backstory. Clark and Lex weren't old friends -- that's Peter and Harry Osborne. Clark was never a high-school outcast (yeah, guys who are really good at football and look like male models are always the unpopular ones in school ... :roll: ) -- that again was Peter.

So considering that even the writers had to "borrow" so much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, I guess you're a bigger Spidey fan than you thought, eh?

That said, I voted for Supes. He's obscenely (and uninterestingly) powerful.

[The Successful Dropout]

Wow.. maybe if there was a Superman movie out this wouldn't be so close. There is no reason to vote Spiderman to defeat Superman.. I mean seriously people... stop jumping on every bandwagon that drives past you.

i noticed the same thing...but...their is a superman tv show out called Smallville....sadly, its not nearly as popular as those crap spider-man movies....

for everyone whos voting that superman is stupid, not cool, not interesting, blah blah blah...do yourself a favor, get out of spider-mans ass and buy smallville on dvd

I find this pretty funny, considering the writer/creators (Millar & Gough) of your beloved "Smallville" wrote "Spider-Man 2."

On top of that, many of the show's elements don't belong to Superman -- they were lifted straight out Spidey's backstory. Clark and Lex weren't old friends -- that's Peter and Harry Osborne. Clark was never a high-school outcast (yeah, guys who are really good at football and look like male models are always the unpopular ones in school ... :roll: ) -- that again was Peter.

So considering that even the writers had to "borrow" so much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, I guess you're a bigger Spidey fan than you thought, eh?

That said, I voted for Supes. He's obscenely (and uninterestingly) powerful.

ummm....i dont care what you have to say...just because someone wrote one thing, doesnt mean i have to like everything that they write....and it doesnt mean that they'll both work well on camera.....and just because i really dont know the whole "real" background and penis size of both of these guys, doesnt mean ones not more enjoyable then the other...whether it adopted from the other or not....and if the writers had to borrow soo much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, why didn't they just make a Spider-Man tv show?

[trq]

ummm....i dont care what you have to say...just because someone wrote one thing, doesnt mean i have to like everything that they write....and it doesnt mean that they'll both work well on camera.....and just because i really dont know the whole "real" background and penis size of both of these guys, doesnt mean ones not more enjoyable then the other...whether it adopted from the other or not....and if the writers had to borrow soo much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, why didn't they just make a Spider-Man tv show?

Ah, ye old "I just got schooled, so now I'm not listening" response. Nice. I also like your "I don't know shit about what you're talking about, so I'm still right" argument. That's airtight. I myself watch Smallville from time to time, but considering it owes quite a bit to Spider-Man, bashing one while fawning over the other is pretty dumb. Consider not being so aggressive about other people's opinions if you can't even remotely defend your own.

Anyhoo, "they" didn't make a Spider-Man show because Warner Bros. (you know -- the WB) doesn't own Spider-Man. It's that simple.

[Graystone]

Spiderman has no strength

[Moxio]

Superman obviously,

[GuilewasNK]

My money is on SUPERMAN but anything can happen in comics. Spidey beat Juggernaut before. I have the comic to prove it. Spidey didn't beat down Juggy but he walked away when Juggy cuoldn't.

[Gameboy415]

I would win.

Seriously.

[mozby]

Supes, unless Spidey has kryptonite.

[mcwilliams132]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

[mcwilliams132]

Spiderman has no strength

No strength?!

I remember having a Spidey comic novel (small novel sized book about 200pg) and it had a section all about Spidey's powers...

When they got to strength...only Thor, The Thing, and The Hulk were stronger than spiderman...

he has the proportional strength of a spider...

[JSweeney]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

Which Hulk?
Green Hulk doesn't have a prayer.
Gray Hulk probably could put the hurt on Superman.

[Strider Turbulence]

I vote for Superman, even the much weaker incarnation Superman that appears in the comics today wouldn't have much trouble with Spiderman if he wasn't holding back.

Pre-Crisis Superman, the one Spiderman fought in a crossover in the 70's, was so grossly overpowered that it's ridiculous.

-While chatting with Lois Lane, Superman (as Clark Kent) once overheard a bunch of villains in another universe plotting to destroy him and flew ALL THE WAY across the universe, beat them up, and returned in less than the time it took for Lois to blink an eye.

-Once Flew so fast (and breaking all kind of barriers) that God sent the Spectre to stop him from crashing into Him and destroying all existance.

-My favorite: Sneezed and destroyed a universe (I've got to find that issue)

[Zenithian Legend]

It really doesn't matter in the end spiderman will just make everyone gay http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/dadyes/sp.html, so why even bother...

take the comma out so the link works :wink:

Must I do everything? Oh well since I really do love posting this link so much, here it is again!

http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/dadyes/sp.html \:D/

[SpookyD]

What about batman, there are quite a few comics where he stomps superman (return of the dark knight)

[JSweeney]

Batman exists in the same universe. Batman knows each and every one of Superman's weaknesses (along with just about every other superhero/villian in the DCU). Batman obsessively plans and has contingency plans in place just incase Supes ever did cross the line.
Spiderman has no such benefit.

Not to mention that more often than not, the Elseworlds stories where Batman fights Superman has Batman (or Batmananov) destroying himself in his quest to defeat Superman.

[Zenithian Legend]

I thought Batman didn't have any "superpowers" he was just a rich badass with a punch of gadgets at his disposal

[Gameboy415]

and a stable of little boys in tights.....

[The Successful Dropout]

ummm....i dont care what you have to say...just because someone wrote one thing, doesnt mean i have to like everything that they write....and it doesnt mean that they'll both work well on camera.....and just because i really dont know the whole "real" background and penis size of both of these guys, doesnt mean ones not more enjoyable then the other...whether it adopted from the other or not....and if the writers had to borrow soo much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, why didn't they just make a Spider-Man tv show?

Ah, ye old "I just got schooled, so now I'm not listening" response. Nice. I also like your "I don't know shit about what you're talking about, so I'm still right" argument. That's airtight. I myself watch Smallville from time to time, but considering it owes quite a bit to Spider-Man, bashing one while fawning over the other is pretty dumb. Consider not being so aggressive about other people's opinions if you can't even remotely defend your own.

Anyhoo, "they" didn't make a Spider-Man show because Warner Bros. (you know -- the WB) doesn't own Spider-Man. It's that simple.

heres the "i dunno want to argue over comic books" response....you're retarded....

[JSweeney]

Let's get retarded!
Let's get retarded in here!
Let's get retarded!
Let's get retarded in here!

[Steggy]

Spiderman, its all about the radioactive sperm.

[epobirs]

I find this pretty funny, considering the writer/creators (Millar & Gough) of your beloved "Smallville" wrote "Spider-Man 2."

On top of that, many of the show's elements don't belong to Superman -- they were lifted straight out Spidey's backstory. Clark and Lex weren't old friends -- that's Peter and Harry Osborne. Clark was never a high-school outcast (yeah, guys who are really good at football and look like male models are always the unpopular ones in school ... :roll: ) -- that again was Peter.

So considering that even the writers had to "borrow" so much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, I guess you're a bigger Spidey fan than you thought, eh?

That said, I voted for Supes. He's obscenely (and uninterestingly) powerful.

Actually, if you consider the whole Superman history, none of those elements are lifted from Spider-man.

A Superboy story from the 1960 offered a origin that gave a specific reason for Lex Luthor's intense dislike of Superman. Lex was originally a big Superboy fan and they became friends with Superboy contructing laboratory facilities for Lex to conduct research into a cure for the vulnerability to Kryptonite radiation. Lex accidentally started a fire in the lab and in the process of putting it out Superboy caused Lex to be doused with volatile chemicals that caused all of his hair to fall out and even more remarkable, gave him an allergy to most artificial fibers used in wigs.

Original:
http://superman.ws/tales2/howluthormetsuperboy/?page=0

A 70's remix of the Luthor origin:
http://superman.ws/tales2/luthor/?page=1

Until John Byrne's revamp of Superman in the mid-80's Clark Kent adopted the bespectacled mild-mannered persona very early on as a way to avert attention from anyone seeing a resemblence between him and Superboy. Byrne knew that being so powerful and so repressed from early childhood would surely produce a super-psychopath so he decided to have Clark's power remain mostly latent until his late teens. He had a fairly normal childhood including school athleticsa without fears of casually killing his opponents and didn't learn he was an alien until early adulthood and even then the exact details weren't revealed to him until he'd been Superman for some time.

This was a great idea on Byrne's part but rather restrictive for a show concentrating on Clark's teens so the premise was adjusted so that he started developing his powers early enough for his parents to forbid him from contact sports.

Byrne's version that has Clark adopting the mild-mannered persona upon coming to Metropolis is kind of a reversal of Spider-man. Peter PArker started off nerdy but Stan Lee dumped his glasses with no explanation in #8. ( http://www.samruby.com/AmazingSpider-ManA/amazing_spiderman_008.htm ) Later on a preposterous explanation about improved eye muscles was given but that doesn't hold water since the vast majority of vision corrections are for lens deformations.

It wsn't to long afterwards that Peter's wardrobe and hairstyle saw serious upgrades, too. Like a lot of smart people, Parker blossomed in college where his intellegence was more valued. Thanks to being Spider-man Peter was able to leave his neurotic high school persona behind while John Byrne's Superman was caused to adopt a similar persona because of his other life.

[hiccupleftovers]

I find this pretty funny, considering the writer/creators (Millar & Gough) of your beloved "Smallville" wrote "Spider-Man 2."

On top of that, many of the show's elements don't belong to Superman -- they were lifted straight out Spidey's backstory. Clark and Lex weren't old friends -- that's Peter and Harry Osborne. Clark was never a high-school outcast (yeah, guys who are really good at football and look like male models are always the unpopular ones in school ... :roll: ) -- that again was Peter.

So considering that even the writers had to "borrow" so much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, I guess you're a bigger Spidey fan than you thought, eh?

That said, I voted for Supes. He's obscenely (and uninterestingly) powerful.

Actually, if you consider the whole Superman history, none of those elements are lifted from Spider-man.

A Superboy story from the 1960 offered a origin that gave a specific reason for Lex Luthor's intense dislike of Superman. Lex was originally a big Superboy fan and they became friends with Superboy contructing laboratory facilities for Lex to conduct research into a cure for the vulnerability to Kryptonite radiation. Lex accidentally started a fire in the lab and in the process of putting it out Superboy caused Lex to be doused with volatile chemicals that caused all of his hair to fall out and even more remarkable, gave him an allergy to most artificial fibers used in wigs.

Original:
http://superman.ws/tales2/howluthormetsuperboy/?page=0

A 70's remix of the Luthor origin:
http://superman.ws/tales2/luthor/?page=1

Until John Byrne's revamp of Superman in the mid-80's Clark Kent adopted the bespectacled mild-mannered persona very early on as a way to avert attention from anyone seeing a resemblence between him and Superboy. Byrne knew that being so powerful and so repressed from early childhood would surely produce a super-psychopath so he decided to have Clark's power remain mostly latent until his late teens. He had a fairly normal childhood including school athleticsa without fears of casually killing his opponents and didn't learn he was an alien until early adulthood and even then the exact details weren't revealed to him until he'd been Superman for some time.

This was a great idea on Byrne's part but rather restrictive for a show concentrating on Clark's teens so the premise was adjusted so that he started developing his powers early enough for his parents to forbid him from contact sports.

Byrne's version that has Clark adopting the mild-mannered persona upon coming to Metropolis is kind of a reversal of Spider-man. Peter PArker started off nerdy but Stan Lee dumped his glasses with no explanation in #8. ( http://www.samruby.com/AmazingSpider-ManA/amazing_spiderman_008.htm ) Later on a preposterous explanation about improved eye muscles was given but that doesn't hold water since the vast majority of vision corrections are for lens deformations.

It wsn't to long afterwards that Peter's wardrobe and hairstyle saw serious upgrades, too. Like a lot of smart people, Parker blossomed in college where his intellegence was more valued. Thanks to being Spider-man Peter was able to leave his neurotic high school persona behind while John Byrne's Superman was caused to adopt a similar persona because of his other life.

Very insightful as well as interesting.

[epobirs]

Spiderman has no strength

No strength?!

I remember having a Spidey comic novel (small novel sized book about 200pg) and it had a section all about Spidey's powers...

When they got to strength...only Thor, The Thing, and The Hulk were stronger than spiderman...

he has the proportional strength of a spider...

Not even close. A long time ago Marvel started this encyclopedia series of all the characters with formalized details for things like strength. Geek heaven. Spidey is strong enopugh to engage in mass murder of normal humans if he decided that was a good idea but on the strength scale they offer he's fairly low down on the list. Class 10, which is approximately equivalent to being able to press ten tons.

http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/s/spiderman.htm

Strength level 10 examples
http://www.marveldirectory.com/strengthlevels/10.htm

Class 100 is reserved for some very scary guys and a lot of cosmic types for whom physical strength is a minor issue compared totheir other abilities. The Thing is in the lesser Class 85 but is very effetive by being much smarter than he acts.

[epobirs]

Very insightful as well as interesting.

THe real secret of Parker's escape from nerdland was getting a new artist in the form of John Romita. Everybody looks like a nerd when they're drawn by Steve Ditko. Frankly, I've never understood his poularity and his own writing makes him appear to be something of a Randian lunatic.

[epobirs]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

Which Hulk?
Green Hulk doesn't have a prayer.
Gray Hulk probably could put the hurt on Superman.

Isn't that backwards?

[epobirs]

This was written by a friend of mine back in the 70's, so it's a bit anachronistic.

Do you really know Larry Niven? It'd be pretty cool if so, especially since I've had some (minor) contact with him myself...

I first met Larry through the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society ( lasfs.org ) about 18 years ago and in recent years have been responsible for much of the upkeep of his computer equipment. His current machine for the past several years is a 1 GHz Pentium III with a GeForce 3 card and many other items that were top of the line at the time I built it. Although I've tried to entice him into something newer he's happy with that machine since he doesn't do as much gaming as he used to and everything he wants runs fine on that machine. His wife MArilyn AKA Fuzzy Pink is more likely to get an upgrade since she has some serious graphics applications she uses frequently.

[trq]

Very insightful as well as interesting.

THe real secret of Parker's escape from nerdland was getting a new artist in the form of John Romita. Everybody looks like a nerd when they're drawn by Steve Ditko. Frankly, I've never understood his poularity and his own writing makes him appear to be something of a Randian lunatic.

Insightful indeed. I was vaguely aware of the Superboy elements, but gave them the usual "pre-Crisis dismissal." I stand corrected. I also agree regarding artists. Sure, Ditko is the original, but Romita is the quintessential to many people, myself included.

[trq]

heres the "i dunno want to argue over comic books" response....you're retarded....

I might be offended if your post was remotely coherent. :?

[trq]

I first met Larry through the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society ( lasfs.org ) about 18 years ago and in recent years have been responsible for much of the upkeep of his computer equipment. His current machine for the past several years is a 1 GHz Pentium III with a GeForce 3 card and many other items that were top of the line at the time I built it. Although I've tried to entice him into something newer he's happy with that machine since he doesn't do as much gaming as he used to and everything he wants runs fine on that machine. His wife MArilyn AKA Fuzzy Pink is more likely to get an upgrade since she has some serious graphics applications she uses frequently.

Small world. I deal with him in a mostly professional capacity, so I guess I have you to thank for him consistently being able to supply me electronic versions of his stories in a nice, readable Word format. :D

[Ebraum]

Batman would be nothing if he wasn't rich. Bruce bought his hero status. Without his toy's and gadget's, what do you have left?

[JSweeney]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

Which Hulk?
Green Hulk doesn't have a prayer.
Gray Hulk probably could put the hurt on Superman.

Isn't that backwards?

Well, not exactly. While the Grey Hulk isn't as strong as the Green one, he's more devious and has a greater propensity to evil.
There are a few of the hulk incarnations that even superman would likely have some trouble dealing with.

http://www.incrediblehulk.com/incarnations.html

[Theenternal]

Trust didnt specify the fight, so that would give spiderman some slight hope of beating superman if he was able to prepare ahead of time using his brain for Supes weekneses. It could be possibe imo. If they just bumped into one another on the street. And had a "oh its on" "you better bring it" Spiderman would get served. During the secret wars, spidey won a small scruffle vs the x-men.

Could prof x take Superman?

And Movie superman would always win, since he can reverse time and change anything that might cause him to loose.

[JSweeney]

Prof X would likely lose because mutant powers and mental powers aren't magical.

Weakness to magick is one of the major weaknesses that Superman has that no one seems to remember.

[JSweeney]

So, that would make you wonder... Could Urza or Mishra beat Superman?
(Hey, if everyone is going to throw out stuff, I'm just going to try to start getting as obscure as possible.)

[epobirs]

So, that would make you wonder... Could Urza or Mishra beat Superman?
(Hey, if everyone is going to throw out stuff, I'm just going to try to start getting as obscure as possible.)

That depends. Who does the writer favor? Never mess with the guy dictating reality.

[JSweeney]

Yeah, that's a tricky one... you have to look at whether it would be a comic book or a novel.
Magic Geeks and Comic Geeks would get in massive fights... the resulting slapfight wouldn't be pretty.

[Dante Devil]

Sure, the Spider-man movies kick the ass out of Superman's movies, but in a comic sense, Superman would win. Look at the guy, he has super strength (moved the planet earth for God's sake) super speed, heat vision, flight, x-ray vision, etc.

[epobirs]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

Which Hulk?
Green Hulk doesn't have a prayer.
Gray Hulk probably could put the hurt on Superman.

Isn't that backwards?

Well, not exactly. While the Grey Hulk isn't as strong as the Green one, he's more devious and has a greater propensity to evil.
There are a few of the hulk incarnations that even superman would likely have some trouble dealing with.

http://www.incrediblehulk.com/incarnations.html

I'd favor the Prof. Hulk. All the strength with serious smarts.

Gray Hulk had trouble holding the thing and got his ass kicked by the Sharon Ventura She-Thing while suffering the effects of poison. Gray hulk was great because of what Peter David did with him but I don't favor him in any ultimate contest.

[mcwilliams132]

Spiderman has no strength

No strength?!

I remember having a Spidey comic novel (small novel sized book about 200pg) and it had a section all about Spidey's powers...

When they got to strength...only Thor, The Thing, and The Hulk were stronger than spiderman...

he has the proportional strength of a spider...

Not even close. A long time ago Marvel started this encyclopedia series of all the characters with formalized details for things like strength. Geek heaven. Spidey is strong enopugh to engage in mass murder of normal humans if he decided that was a good idea but on the strength scale they offer he's fairly low down on the list. Class 10, which is approximately equivalent to being able to press ten tons.

http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/s/spiderman.htm

Strength level 10 examples
http://www.marveldirectory.com/strengthlevels/10.htm

Class 100 is reserved for some very scary guys and a lot of cosmic types for whom physical strength is a minor issue compared totheir other abilities. The Thing is in the lesser Class 85 but is very effetive by being much smarter than he acts.

what about this:
http://www.superherostuff.com/Biographies/SpideyBio.html

Strength and Agility
Shortly after he was bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his amazing powers, Peter Parker accidentally crushed a steel pipe as if it were made of paper. He was astonished to discover that he now possessed superhuman strength. Since then, Spider-Man has often told people that he has the proportional strength of a spider; but he’s actually a lot more powerful. While not as strong as the Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, or The Thing, our friendly neighborhood web-slinger is able to lift almost 10 tons. He can bend a solid iron bar with his bare hands and shatter a concrete wall with a single punch. And in one, spider-powered spring, he has leapt the height of three stories, or the width of a highway.

Even more impressive than his spiderlike strength is Spider-Man’s amazing speed and agility. When it comes to quick thinking, death-defying, lightning swift, acrobatic stunts, the wall crawling wonder is truly without equal. Spider-Man moves with a fluid and casual grace that can’t even be equaled by trained superathletes such as Captain America or Daredevil. He leaps from rooftops, summersaults over flagpoles, tumbles off water towers, and balances on top of light poles as he routinely travels across the city in his own unique manner.

Average people have been known to lift cars in times of stress. Spider-Man can raise a couple of Cadillacs on a normal day. Add in the excitement of one of his typical battles, and his power level can shoot into uncharted territory. Over the years the web-slinger has been seen holding up multistory buildings, freeing himself from beneath tons of debris, and flattening cosmically powered aliens.

Spider-Man's reflexes operate up to forty times faster than those of a normal person, and he uses them to dazzle much stronger foes. Faced by the Rhino or even the Hulk, Spider-Man kicks into high gear ricocheting off the walls, ceiling, and ground to barrage his opponent with blow after blow. THe victim, dazed by the wall-crawler's speed, is left punching thin air.

[JSweeney]

the better question would be

HULK vs. SUPER-MAN

Which Hulk?
Green Hulk doesn't have a prayer.
Gray Hulk probably could put the hurt on Superman.

Isn't that backwards?

Well, not exactly. While the Grey Hulk isn't as strong as the Green one, he's more devious and has a greater propensity to evil.
There are a few of the hulk incarnations that even superman would likely have some trouble dealing with.

http://www.incrediblehulk.com/incarnations.html

I'd favor the Prof. Hulk. All the strength with serious smarts.

Gray Hulk had trouble holding the thing and got his ass kicked by the Sharon Ventura She-Thing while suffering the effects of poison. Gray hulk was great because of what Peter David did with him but I don't favor him in any ultimate contest.

Yeah. I wasn't figuring on any of the higher forms... the green hulk I was thinking of was just the standard Savage Hulk... not to bright, strong, etc.
Gray Hulk would be better off against Supes, but the Proffessor would just be an outright crazy fight... it'd be like Luthor and Lobo all wrapped up into one.

[zenimann89]

neiver of them exist.! :bs: besides that they both share bland, and boring names, they are both completely different characters and have different fighting styles. spiderman just needs to fire a web at superman, or a whole bunch of them and superman won't be able to brake free. wtvr, i feel like a $$$ talking about this. :imwithst:

[epobirs]

Spiderman has no strength

No strength?!

I remember having a Spidey comic novel (small novel sized book about 200pg) and it had a section all about Spidey's powers...

When they got to strength...only Thor, The Thing, and The Hulk were stronger than spiderman...

he has the proportional strength of a spider...

Not even close. A long time ago Marvel started this encyclopedia series of all the characters with formalized details for things like strength. Geek heaven. Spidey is strong enopugh to engage in mass murder of normal humans if he decided that was a good idea but on the strength scale they offer he's fairly low down on the list. Class 10, which is approximately equivalent to being able to press ten tons.

http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/s/spiderman.htm

Strength level 10 examples
http://www.marveldirectory.com/strengthlevels/10.htm

Class 100 is reserved for some very scary guys and a lot of cosmic types for whom physical strength is a minor issue compared totheir other abilities. The Thing is in the lesser Class 85 but is very effetive by being much smarter than he acts.

what about this:
http://www.superherostuff.com/Biographies/SpideyBio.html

Strength and Agility
Shortly after he was bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his amazing powers, Peter Parker accidentally crushed a steel pipe as if it were made of paper. He was astonished to discover that he now possessed superhuman strength. Since then, Spider-Man has often told people that he has the proportional strength of a spider; but he’s actually a lot more powerful. While not as strong as the Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, or The Thing, our friendly neighborhood web-slinger is able to lift almost 10 tons. He can bend a solid iron bar with his bare hands and shatter a concrete wall with a single punch. And in one, spider-powered spring, he has leapt the height of three stories, or the width of a highway.

Even more impressive than his spiderlike strength is Spider-Man’s amazing speed and agility. When it comes to quick thinking, death-defying, lightning swift, acrobatic stunts, the wall crawling wonder is truly without equal. Spider-Man moves with a fluid and casual grace that can’t even be equaled by trained superathletes such as Captain America or Daredevil. He leaps from rooftops, summersaults over flagpoles, tumbles off water towers, and balances on top of light poles as he routinely travels across the city in his own unique manner.

Average people have been known to lift cars in times of stress. Spider-Man can raise a couple of Cadillacs on a normal day. Add in the excitement of one of his typical battles, and his power level can shoot into uncharted territory. Over the years the web-slinger has been seen holding up multistory buildings, freeing himself from beneath tons of debris, and flattening cosmically powered aliens.

Spider-Man's reflexes operate up to forty times faster than those of a normal person, and he uses them to dazzle much stronger foes. Faced by the Rhino or even the Hulk, Spider-Man kicks into high gear ricocheting off the walls, ceiling, and ground to barrage his opponent with blow after blow. THe victim, dazed by the wall-crawler's speed, is left punching thin air.

Yes, that is very much part of what defines the character. Not much help against Superman, though, since he can largely match the Flash for spped but cannot sustain it as long. Notably, even the much slower Marvel speedster Quicksilver, has a major advantage over Spidey in speed and reflexes. Much like the Thing not being at the top rank of the muscle contingent, he overcomes by being smarter and more determined than his opponents, where this makes a difference. I previously mentioned his overcoming Firelord in a moment of panicked action.

The article reiterates what I already said, Spidey is in the Class 10 Stregth category. This makes him capable of terifying feats of strength from a human perspective but is in the minor leagues in terms of strength alone amongst the Marvel pantheon of superhumans. There is a difference between picking up a large car with great effort and tossing it aside compared to crupling it into a small ball and hurling it over the horizon.

Putting things in detailed dfinition gives the writer useful tools for applying the characters. One of the great ways Spiderman has been applied is to give reactions when a more powerful but less engaging character do some awsome feat. Spidey dependably connects tot he reader by supplying the "Holy Shaq-Fu on a tandem bicycle!" reaction when he is blown away despite being quite strong himself.

[JSweeney]

neiver of them exist.! :bs: besides that they both share bland, and boring names, they are both completely different characters and have different fighting styles. spiderman just needs to fire a web at superman, or a whole bunch of them and superman won't be able to brake free. wtvr, i feel like a $$$ talking about this. :imwithst:

Well, we aren't the ones making you stare at the men in spandex's crothes. You're doing that yourself.

[epobirs]

neiver of them exist.! :bs: besides that they both share bland, and boring names, they are both completely different characters and have different fighting styles. spiderman just needs to fire a web at superman, or a whole bunch of them and superman won't be able to brake free. wtvr, i feel like a $$$ talking about this. :imwithst:

<Reaches over and touches zenimann89's arm>

I'm afraid your suspicions are confirmed.

[alongx]

If Superman didn't win, he wouldn't be so damned super, now would he.
I hate Superman. He's unstoppable when there's no kryptonite around. I need a superhero that can be beaten, but overcomes adversity to kick the shit out of evil.

[epobirs]

It's all down to the quality of the writer. Even then, sometimes the first thing he'll do is get rid of the guy who makes everyone else look like a bystander.

There was an issue of Avengers long ago that concluded two parallel storylines with Thor announcing he was leaving the team because he was too much of a big fish in the Avenger's merely large-ish pond. None of the group that had just gotten back from the Squadron Supreme's universe thought to mention how much easier it might have been if they'd had someone on their side who could actually trade blows with Hyperion. (Hyperion was essentially a red-headed clone of Superman as the rest of the Squadron were analogs for the Justice League lineup of that era.) The writer just decided it was too unbalanced to have Thor sharing the same pages with Hawkeye, Captain America, Beast, etc. This still left them with Iron Man and the Vision for heavy hitters, especially useful since Iron Man could easily be absent due to his own series and the other was completely owned by whoever wrote Avengers. (It's always a hassle to include characters with their own series in a team book.) IIRC they brought back Wonder Man not much later.

Which leads to another favorite moment involving uberstrong characters. There was an issue of the ill-conceived and worse-costumed (initially) Ms. Marvel, towards the end of its run, that had as its antagonist a guy in some battle armor that had a computer with a SHIELD derived database of all the world's known superhumans and how to deal with them. It would automatically make a visual ID and offer some advice on what weapon would work best and how. Things were going pretty well for this guy until Wonder Man attacked. The armor IDed him and offered only this advice: RUN.

[bmulligan]

Are we talking old school Superman or that whimpy new Justice league Superman who gets hurt in almost every other episode?

Superman can hammer throw misguided ballistic missiles into deep space from standing on the Earth's surface. You can't argue with that shit, Superman wins hands down. I love Spidey and all, but c'mon, he's not bulletproof.

[Drocket]

Later on a preposterous explanation about improved eye muscles was given but that doesn't hold water since the vast majority of vision corrections are for lens deformations.

It depends on if you're talking about near-sightedness or far-sightedness. Far-sightedness is usually caused by an overall deterioration of the eyeball, and is usually just a 'getting old' thing. Far more likely, we can guess that Peter was near-sighted. The majority of near-sightedness is caused by unbalanced muscle pairs: there are several pairs of muscles that control the eye, and if one set or another is too strong, they pull the eyeball out of shape.

So POSSIBLY, far-sightedness could be corrected (or at least improved) by changes to muscle strength. It require the weaker muscles to improve more than the 'too strong' muscles, so that the eye would be pulled back into its correct shape (this is, by the way, why squinting works: it temporarily squishes the eyeball back into the shape that its supposed to be.)

[Explosion]

while i think spiderman is a billion times cooler, i think superman would win in the fight.

during the train scene in spiderman 2, did anyone else besides me say to themselves "if superman was there, he could take care of the problem in a jiffy."

[Theenternal]

while i think spiderman is a billion times cooler, i think superman would win in the fight.

during the train scene in spiderman 2, did anyone else besides me say to themselves "if superman was there, he could take care of the problem in a jiffy."

btw about spiderman 2.. when spiderman was punching Dr octo, was he pulling his punches? because with that strength we should taken his head off.

[ykryptonite13]

Wow this really is a no-brainer. I'm surprised that it's even 67-32 in favor of Supes right now. No way Spider-Man could beat Superman. If this was who's a better character, I'd say Spider-Man, but Spider-Man has his limits while Superman can take on gods. I honestly think that people are just in love with Marvel and don't think much of DC in general so that could be why Spidey has so many votes. Anyways, Superman's creative team is getting better and the books are pretty good right now IMO. Check it out.

[OkeSmokey21]

ummm....i dont care what you have to say...just because someone wrote one thing, doesnt mean i have to like everything that they write....and it doesnt mean that they'll both work well on camera.....and just because i really dont know the whole "real" background and penis size of both of these guys, doesnt mean ones not more enjoyable then the other...whether it adopted from the other or not....and if the writers had to borrow soo much from Spidey's background to make Supes interesting, why didn't they just make a Spider-Man tv show?

Ah, ye old "I just got schooled, so now I'm not listening" response. Nice. I also like your "I don't know shit about what you're talking about, so I'm still right" argument. That's airtight. I myself watch Smallville from time to time, but considering it owes quite a bit to Spider-Man, bashing one while fawning over the other is pretty dumb. Consider not being so aggressive about other people's opinions if you can't even remotely defend your own.

Anyhoo, "they" didn't make a Spider-Man show because Warner Bros. (you know -- the WB) doesn't own Spider-Man. It's that simple.

heres the "i dunno want to argue over comic books" response....you're retarded....

Why don't you quit being a dick and asnwer the poll? Nobody likes your style

[The Successful Dropout]

heres the "i dunno want to argue over comic books" response....you're retarded....

I might be offended if your post was remotely coherent. :?

:lol: my bad....i was tired....but i'm sure you understood that i meant "don't" and not "dunno"....


by the way....while you "stand corrected" on the issue of you saying superman borrows soo much from spider-man....you're apology is accepted....i hope that this response was coherent enough for you....i just got home from work and am finally going to bed...

[kristianator]

by default, spider-man almost always pulls his punches unless he knows the recepient can handle it. he wants justice, he doesn't wanna take anyone's head off. boo to that!

here's a better poll... who would win in marvel vs. capcom 2, spider-man or superman? i would say spider-man because he seems more nimble and could handle those insane infinites on the joystick. superman seems more like the kind of guy who would play low and mid-tier characters just cuz he likes them.

spidey - sentinel/commando/magneto

superman - guile/colossus/amingo

[kristianator]

and to everyone who says bruce wayne/batman is nothing without his money... the guy's trained in practically every martial art there is. he's in peak physical condition and he's practically a genius. drink your milk kids!

seriously though, he's not superhuman, but he's a top-rated regular human, if that makes sense.


one more note... wasn't there an issue way back where muhammed ali knocked out superman? it was a bit on the BS side, because superman supposedly pulled his punches so that they would be on the same level as muhammed ali. somewhere out there, bobcat is explaining to people that he could theoretically beat down superman.

[GuilewasNK]

^Lol, you may as well have Gary Coleman vs. Galactus!!

[trq]

heres the "i dunno want to argue over comic books" response....you're retarded....

I might be offended if your post was remotely coherent. :?

:lol: my bad....i was tired....but i'm sure you understood that i meant "don't" and not "dunno"....

by the way....while you "stand corrected" on the issue of you saying superman borrows soo much from spider-man....you're apology is accepted....i hope that this response was coherent enough for you....i just got home from work and am finally going to bed...

I don't see that it merits an apology, considering that my point was about how similar they are, specifically in Smallville and the movies, but if that's what you're looking for, knock yourself out. Besides, I thought it didn't matter that you didn't know the whole "background and penis size" of the characters. Now it does?

And if you don't want to argue over comic books, why'd you make a "Spider-Man vs. Superman" thread? :-k

[trq]

here's a better poll... who would win in marvel vs. capcom 2

Now THAT'S an idea! And since the Marvel characters have migrated over to EA, maybe Capcom should put together a "DC vs. Capcom" game. C'mon -- the big guys (Batman, Supes, Wonder Woman, the Flash, etc.) are all no-brainers, but I'd love to see a 2D fighting game version of Deathstroke or Hawkman.

[ElfAngel7]

you wouldn't be able to put Superman in a fighting game. If they made him take any damage people would bitch about the game being untruthful to the character. Plus, Ryu vs. Supes? Yah, he'd kill everybody in the game.