Not only are radioactive spiders a bit thin on the ground but any ambition to swing from skyscrapers is somewhat muted by the fact that it doesn't have that many tall buildings to swing from in the first place.
To make it worse, the ones it does have are all at least a mile apart, meaning one needs a very good aim to be able to hit one building with webbing whilst clinging to another.
Having achieved that, you would then smash stylishly into the pavement, roughly fifteen seconds after beginning your swing.
Of course, the other reason for my lack of Spider-Man style activities is that I don't have any web shooters.
Unbelievably it's true. Despite the fact that a penniless teenager managed to whip a pair up in his bedroom, in about twenty minutes, I, a genius beyond measure, with the resources of Croesus at his disposal, have somehow failed to make a pair for myself.
I did once make a Daredevil style billy club from Lego, a piece of string, and a metal hook from a Meccano set but, sadly, Lego isn't the strongest building material known to man and I suspect my contraption wouldn't have stood the test of supporting me as I swung majestically from the towering heights of Park Hill Flats.
But wait? What's this? All along, in the 1970s, there was a solution to my problems?
For just $2.19, I could've bought a genuine Spider-Man web shooter simply by cutting out a coupon?
Armed with this knowledge, I do find it amazing that, when I watched American movies and TV shows, as a youngster, there were never any children in sight swinging around in the background, from their web shooters. Clearly they must have all been skillfully edited out, so as not to divert attention from Kojak or McCloud as they went about their crime-smashing business.
Now that I have that problem solved, all I need to do is find out from which issue of which Marvel comic I can find a High Evolutionary style Genetic Accelerator and I will at last have all the comics-related hardware I have ever desired.
I seem to remember a comment in a fan magazine like Comic Collector or Comic Interview in the 1980's. It may have been by a British fan, or maybe it was an editor at Marvel UK. Anyway, he said that he never really fully understood Spider-Man, Daredevil, or Batman when he was reading comics as a kid, because he had never seen really tall buildings in real life. He said that when he visited New York City, and saw the skyscrapers and concrete canyons, he finally "got it."
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ReplyDeleteHow did Daredevil know what color his costume was?
ReplyDeleteI could go for a pair of the Shocker's shock-gauntlets. Maybe liven things up around here...
Speaking of the Shocker, I've always been impressed by how many super-villains knocked their costumes and gadgets up in prison workshops. They must have seriously well-equipped workshops in New York's prisons.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Blizzard did that once, I believe. Somehow got access to the prison refrigerator and cannibalized the innards to make a suit.
ReplyDeleteA Blizzard suit. Just blew his way outta there.
Ruined ice cream day for everybody!
Now, THAT'S villainy.
M.P.
Or it was something like that, anyway.
Didn't the Vulture do something like that once too?
Superman's arch enemy, Luthor, could take odds and ends from the prison workshop and build an armored vehicle that he used to smash through the wall and escape. And he could build a time machine out of a broken mirror and some wires. But he couldn't invent a cure for baldness.
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