Panel of the Day #1090 (Ditko!)

4 Comments

1. @hornacek — Ah, I gotcha. And I didn’t even need the tug-of-war simile. Ordinarily I’d say Otto would take that into account and stop pulling in that case, but you’re right — Spider-man is super close to him and could just stick his foot out and take care of the problem. In the next panel, Otto just drops Spider-man, right? I guess the webbing did the trick.

2. @Evan – I mean, in this panel alone, Spidey is only a few feet from Otto. The metal arms are trying to pull him towards Otto but Spidey is pushing against them. But if he suddenly stops pushing then the mechanical arms will suddenly have no resistance and pull Spidey right into Otto’s body.

   It’s like if you’re in a tug-of-war. If you suddenly stop pulling the rope, the other person/team won’t be prepared and end up falling backwards from pulling the rope with suddenly no resistance.

3. @hornacek — I’d always assumed the risk there would be that the arms would suffocate and/or crush you before you could reach Otto to punch him. Not to mention the danger of losing an eye or some other body part due to those talons.

   In the Spider-man 2 videogame for PS2, if I remember correctly, you could just use your spider sense to easily avoid the arms and then punch Otto when he was winded.

4. I mean, if the mechanical arms are pulling you towards him, why not let them? Otto has no powers besides the arms – get close enough to him and then knock him out with one punch.