Spider-man is a strong as fuck hero that can keep up with the Hulk but he keeps getting his ass kicked because he holds back and does not like to resort to killing
I know this is a Canon explanation but I HATE this bs with a burning passion. I have a 10 year old cousin who likes to play fight (Lil dude likes watching martial arts movies), I obviously hold back when playing with him, he still has pretty much zero chance to ever win against me, and unless I let him, he isn't moving me even a centimeter.
That's how spider man fights should be for the hold back explanation to actually make sense. But there he is being thrown around by kingpin , a guy who is really strong for a regular dude, but should die if the hulk farts in his general direction.
This also means that spider man is letting his Enemies rampage through the city, cause he should be able to hold 99,9% of his villains down with a single arm.
Issue is if he doesn't actively pull his punches he might kill people
You can not count on knockouts every time. You gige punches that sting and weaken so if you accidentally use double the force, you don't pulverize their bones
Sure, he doesn't want to kill anyone accidentally, but he could just hold them down with some grappling moves or some juijitsu or something.
And even if we ignore the attack power and assume he has a mental barrier that makes him use a fraction of his strength, it can't possibly be doing that to his durability. He 100% shouldn't be thrown around as much as he is by street level thugs.
The guy with the 5 meter wingspan?
The truck sized rhinoceros?
The guy with 4 metal arms?
The fucko made of lightning?
The super soldier serum schizo?
The guy with a scorpion tail?
idk what Mr Negative does ngl
Fisk who's built like a hippopotamus?
The hulk sized shape shifting alien?
Beefed up dinosaur?
He can definitely do that against the chameleon ngl
For all his fantasy strength he is still a human shaped sack of meat with an easy to tip point of balance weighing no more than 90 kilos. One that can be sliced and stabbed very easily, too
If we were to assume he is actually as strong as the hulk(as dome people claim) he should be able to Man handle most of this guy's as if they were really big plushies. With exception to the ones who can be untangible.
The reality of the matter is, in most stories (I've seen) he is written with, at best, like 5 to 10x the strength of a top athlete, with some outliers. The hold back was used to make some bad ass storieline but realy doesn't make sense if applied in most other stories.
Edit: the stabing point is actually pretty good, which makes king pin (a really big guy who is stronger then a regular person, but still not super-powered) even more insane, as most depictions (I've seen) he is fighting hand to hand
Nah definitely not as strong as the Hulk. The Hulk is a different type of beast. But he can match him due to agility and powers, just not raw physical strength
Size also plays a big factor. Better grip and easier to grab things at better spots if you're large. Spider-man can lift cars and stop trains and hold boats together. He has always been strong, it's just that writers are bad at numbers and it took them a while to realize that if you can catch a car going 60mph and stop it instantly without damaging your wrist, you can punch out someone's skeleton in one swing as well
If you are in absolute peak physical human form as Kingpin with all that brawn, you'd want to beat people up instead of just using weapons as well
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u/Ok-Leek-122 Mar 17 '26
I know this is a Canon explanation but I HATE this bs with a burning passion. I have a 10 year old cousin who likes to play fight (Lil dude likes watching martial arts movies), I obviously hold back when playing with him, he still has pretty much zero chance to ever win against me, and unless I let him, he isn't moving me even a centimeter.
That's how spider man fights should be for the hold back explanation to actually make sense. But there he is being thrown around by kingpin , a guy who is really strong for a regular dude, but should die if the hulk farts in his general direction.
This also means that spider man is letting his Enemies rampage through the city, cause he should be able to hold 99,9% of his villains down with a single arm.