Gotta love the movies where someone is falling only to be caught by a superhero who has accelerated to ludicrous speeds to catch the fallen and intercepts their trajectory at 90° just before hitting the ground. So the victims goes from 150mph down to some crazy speed at a 90° vector to their original path after being slammed into by superhero.
They’re so dead.
But the superhero Suspension of Disbelief Field extends to secondary characters in the story.
Isn’t this the story of the original Gwen Stacy? Spiderman tries to save her, but does exactly this and the force on her body kills her anyway.
It’s been a long, long time since I have read the comics but iirc, it was a defining point in the spiderman canon.
It wasn’t originally. It was essentially the scene from the first Spider Man movie where Goblin makes Spidey swoop in to save her, but she was already dead.
They retconned it later to make it so Spidey killed her, which is a better story.
It’s the other way around, actually.
In The Amazing Spider-Man #125 (Oct. 1973), Marvel Comics editor Roy Thomas wrote in the letters column that “it saddens us to have to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey’s webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her. In short, it was impossible for Peter to save her. He couldn’t have swung down in time; the action he did take resulted in her death; if he had done nothing, she still would certainly have perished. There was no way out.” Source
The comic (#121) is ambiguous though. There is really no way for the reader to know whether she was dead before her neck was snapped, Green Goblin certainly seems to think so (but he is hardly a reliable source). But snapping her neck certainly would have killed her anyway.
I didn’t think it was ambiguous at all. The word “snap” is printed at her neck when it happens.
If you read my comment, I said it’s ambiguous if she was already dead when her neck was snapped, not that her neck was in fact snapped.
I’m disagreeing. The ambiguity was retconned later because Marvel didn’t want to commit to Spider-Man “causing” her death.
In the original comic, she is alive and looks like she’s in a state of shock according to Peter. Goblin even threatens to kill her, further confirming she is alive. She gets pushed over the edge of the bridge, and he neck is snapped when the web stops her fall. The clear intent in the story telling is that she is alive until the snap. You even quote Roy Thomas stating as such in print a few episodes later.
OK, now I understand what you’re getting at and I don’t disagree actually. I also think that the original intent was that she died of a broken neck but the ambiguity is there, whether by design or accident, which makes other theories and later retconning possible. I personally suspect they made it a bit ambiguous to give themselves a bit of a back door in case the public would react too harshly to Spidey accidentally kiling his girlfriend. One has to remember how unexpected and grim this was at the time, it was a huge risk to take for the writers (Stan Lee even said later that he was tricked into OKing it while he was packing for a trip…not sure I believe that though).
It would have been easy to make her perhaps say something or make a sound when she’s lying on the edge of the bridge, or make Peter feel her pulse to confirm she was alive before the fall. As the scene unfolds now, and the way she is drawn when lying on the edge (she looks dead), I feel its unlikely that wasn’t intentional. But this is ultimately a matter of interpretation.
I’m the wrong guy to ask, I haven’t a clue about comic character lore and canon.
Generally when people postike this, on an open forum, they’re asking readers in general. It wasn’t directed specifically at you, but was a response to what you said.
It’s like one of the opening scenes from The Boys.
splat
Sorry Lois Lane, superman just made you into a bony pink mist.
Was thinking of the Airplane Rescue, as Homelander breaks down why everyone’s fucked no matter what they do.
God, I know people love that show, but I really hate that.
“Rescue”
I mean, for the first minute it looked like things were going well.
That’s exactly what I thought when I was watching that scene with that superfast dude in X Men where he saves a bunch of people by carrying them away from an explosion. They must accelerate from 1 to 1000 km/h in a mere second.
The scene is still awesome, but I don’t think anyone would be alive after that.
He would have created his own explosions just getting there either from the friction of moving all that air out of his way so he didn’t collide with the atoms, or from the nuclear forces involved in colliding his atoms with the air’s (and still creating a lot of friction in the process).
It would be like that light speed baseball pitch question and answer that ends up killing everyone in the stadium with a nuclear blast.
And Xavier would have done one of those himself in X2 when he freezes time at the mall… Maybe, actually I’m not clear if his ability is a time stop or if he did a mind control on everyone and made them stand still. There’s another one like that in Logan, though Logan is able to fight through it, which kinda makes it even less clear exactly what he’s doing. Powers!
Yeah, Xavier can’t stop time, he can just mind control people into standing still.
Yeah, with the Flash, there’s the “speedforce” excuse, but quicksilver has never had that kind of effect given as part of his power set.
Isn’t it well known that if you’re near Superman you"get" some of his powers. So him coming in to save you like this would be ok because you’d have some of his invincibility.
You’re saying if I have an unconscious superman, and I wear him as a backpack, I can rob banks?
You don’t need to be superman to rob a bank tho
True, but it would be much easier if you were.
The cleanest explanation was that he’s Superman because his powers give a psychokinetic field around his body that can absorb kinetic and other energy. It’s what makes him invulnerable except for kryptonite that can just bypass and negate that field. It can also extend over other people so they can lift along and it can absorb the energy from the fall.
Alright, that’s enough nerding out.
It is like the trope of the explosion behind the hero.
Cool Meaney (O’Brien) reversed the polarity on the inertial dampener.
Hope that was just a typo. “Colm”, lol.
Autowrong fixed my “typo…”
I mean if you catch the person like you catch an american football ball, it should greatly reduce the effect of the impact.
Largely true, but it’s crazy what the difference of just a few feet of slowing down does (rather than zero feet of abrupt stopping) to acceleration forces. The crumple zone on a car only has to be 3 feet long to turn a 60mph crash from a fatality to a horrific injury.
Crumple Zone is the superhero we really need here. With thick arms and soft bones he can rush to the scene and turn sudden death into mere horrific imjuries.
Check out the absorption barriers on the edges of racetracks. They’re remarkably small for cars that could be hitting them at 100+ mph.
Of course, the cars themselves are also designed to save the driver but it’s the same concept.
Totally. Every next safety measure from airbags to seatbelts are about adding extra inches, rarely even full feet, and they are shockingly effective.
What’s the old saying? It’s not the fall that kills you, but the abrupt stop?
I disagree, the difference in deceleration from hitting concrete vs being caught could make a difference.
If Superman (or whoever) uses the remaining distance between you and the ground to reduce the impulse on your body. But they also have to be careful about their speed coming in to grab you, because they could easily substitute your impact with the ground for an impact with them.
Superman could do it. Spiderman could not.
Spiderman could web the falling person from above like a bungee cord, or even catch them in a safety net style web.
Tell that to Gwen Stacy.
That was a bit of a deep cut for me, but TIL.
But he’d have to do this before she is 2 feet above the gound.
Eh, Spiderman is both insanely fast and strong compared to a normal person, still. He can canonically catch cars and punch concrete and the like. Not sure how much spidey sense plays a role, but he’s nigh impossible to shoot, too. He’d likely be capable of the feat just with his strength and speed, let alone his other options.
Superman is still waaaay stronger and faster but he’s pretty much cheating even for a super hero. lol
I think their thought was if Spider-Man came swinging in for the catch, at that point it’s basically out of his control how hard he hits. But he could potentially save the person via other spidey means
Ahhh yea, the cliche swing and nab IS a pretty tough one. Not sure he’d be accelerating anyone slowly enough mid-air! At least Superman can just kinda’ will himself what ever direction, or how ever his flying works.
Can Superman rip off his own head?
See, that’s how you know people here have never touched grass. Otherwise they’d know how big of a difference it makes to fall on grass vs concrete. All over a few mm of yield.
Also anecdotally I’ve seen videos of people catching falling children (back in the day in/r/DadReflexes). It works, empirically.
My favorite thing like this, even though I love the movie, is The Iron Giant. His hand is fucking metal and he caught them like 6 ft before they hit the ground anyways.
I recall that scene. Didn’t he lower his hand as they fell into it so it slows them? I remember appreciating that detail when I saw it
Yes he does but… still. Like two stories onto metal lol.
Penny: Yes, I know men can’t fly.
Sheldon: No, no let’s assume that they can. Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of 32ft per second, per second. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Ms. Lane, who is now traveling at approximately 120 miles per hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces.
Leonard: Unless Superman matches her speed and decelerates.
Sheldon: In what space, sir, in what space? She’s two feet above the ground. Frankly, if he really loved her, he’d let her hit the pavement. It would be a more merciful death.
Superman should just fly completely under Lois, grab her and instantly match her speed, and crash through the concrete and the layers below (protecting her with his Super Bod), decelerating slowly enough that Lois is saved without harm.
Yeah, she still dies. He would have to actively dig that concrete away, in quite a high speed.
Superman just needs to push the earth away from Lois, duh
Your forgetting about his Tactile Telekinesis.
The sheer amount of cardio in panel 2
This is why Gwen Stacy’s death was so confusing to some people
Well in Spiderman’s case Gwen would’ve survived if she was caught before. Spidey’s web is stretchable so it would have decelerated her fall. It even stretched on catching her but she was too close to the floor and hit her head.
Is that in the movie? This is the image I have in my mind but I forgot that she hit her head. I think that’s not the case in the comics IIRC. Instead it’s unclear whether her neck was already snapped before she fell, or the late web catch caused the snap.
I read a fan theory somewhere that Superman’s actual powers are matter manipulation, able to change things like densities, speed, and energy with just a touch. It was interesting to think about.
How does the light from a different star give him all those powers? The original story is that the gamma rays from our star feed his cells, giving him super strength and speed. His power creep over the decades has truly become ridiculous.
Spiderman knows this all to well
What if he redirects the momentum by doing a cool flip
He needs to roll him. Redirect that energy by 90°
This is why all super heroes have inertial dampeners.
Also Billy now have two arms less than before.
Incorrect. There are additional lateral acceleration forces due to SuperDude flying at the speed of sound to catch him. At least the sidewalk doesn’t need to be cleaned.
The same forces but concentrated onto our heroes arms. Very efficient way to slice
The slicing forces would actually be helpful, because the resistance of the arms would spread the impulse out over a longer time period. So maybe you get decapitated, but your head doesn’t just instantly splat. So you get… a few seconds? more of life.
our hero’s* arms
I came here looking for a The Boys comment about the plane, but noone talked about it 😓
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