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.
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.
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’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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
![Savior [Light Roast]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0d701124-5d9b-4ac7-95d4-a5bc943c39fe.jpeg){kind=link}
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.
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.
Edit: https://youtu.be/ZnZqB5Z75zI?si=41ohBuk03Xuy5RGl
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.
I mean if you catch the person like you catch an american football ball, it should greatly reduce the effect of the impact.
Cool Meaney (O’Brien) reversed the polarity on the inertial dampener.
Hope that was just a typo. “Colm”, lol.
Autowrong fixed my “typo…”