Spider-Man is one of the most popular superheroes in the world in no small part due to how versatile he is as a character. He has proven to be an extremely relatable character in ways that other heroes like Batman or Superman often have not: he has down-to-earth problems. He’s essentially a young adult who’s trying to figure his life out while trying to balance that with the fact that he was gifted extraordinary powers by accident.
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Speaking of Spider-Man’s powers, they’ve been somewhat fluid over the years. Of course there’s the classicwall crawling, spider sense, super strength and speed, however, he’s also had some weirder powers that many people may not be aware of. Here is a list of some of those stranger powers that Spider-Man has had.
6Organic Webbing
This ability is pretty widely known but whenthe firstSpider-Manfilmcame out in 2002, this was a brand-new idea. Up to this point in the character’s publication and T.V history, Spider-Man had exclusively used home-made web shooters to spin webs like a spider. In Sam Raimi’s film, trilogy Peter Parker generates webbing organically in own body without the need for web shooters.
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Hilariously, this is a source of amazement for both Tom Holland’s and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men inSpider-Man: No Way Home, both of which need web shooters to spin webs. This power found its way into the comics for a time duringThe Otherstory arc.
5Communication With Spiders
Spiders don’t generally come off as being good conversationalists, however, that didn’t stop Peter from utilizing a rather short-lived ability to talk to them duringThe Othercrossover which ran from 2005 to 2006. After being seemingly killed at the hands of Morlun, Spidey was brought back by the Great Weaver, resulting in some new powers; one of them being the ability to talk to spiders. Peter is not the only Spider-Man to have had this ability either.Peter’s clone, Kaine Parker also used this ability to find and disarm a bomb under Houston once. This ability was featured in the comicSpider-Man Talks to a Spideras well.
4Retractable Stingers
The Otherstoryline is pretty out there when it comes to giving Spider-Man new powers. One of the more gnarly ones peter gets are stingers that extend from his wrists. In a way, this makes himsimilar to Wolverine, who has a set of bone claws underneath the Adamantium coating, although there doesn’t seem to be an indication that the stingers are quite as painful for peter to use (whereas Logan’s claws rip his skin open every time).
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These stingers are razor sharp and will cause temporary paralysis on contact. Peter obtained these stingers after Mary Jane had been attacked by Morlun, causing them to release due to his anger and fear for his wife. Like many of the powers from this story arc, this ability was later retconned.
While spiders, being arachnids, have eight limbs, Spider-Man obviously only has four. Well, normally he has only four. There have been times, however, when the web head ended up gaining four extra arms for one reason or another. Most notably, Spider-Man got his extra arms in the very same comic series that featuredthe first appearance of Morbius. Funnily enough, the circumstances that led to Peter growing more limbs was actually born out of a desire to give up his spider powers. After ingesting a chemical what he thought would remove his radioactive spider blood, Peter would fall into a fever sleep, only to then wake with a few extra arms, which, if anything only made him more spider-like.
2Cocoon of Webbing
The big thing that allowed Peter to get so many odd powers duringThe Other,other than being nearly killed, was the cocoon of webbing that engulfed the hero. This ability strangely has no basis in spider biology, as they are distinct from butterflies and moths, however this did not stop Spider-Man from using this web cocoon to go through an evolution of his own.
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After conversing with the spider god known as The Great Weaver, Peter began to embrace his arachnid side, gaining extra powers and healing his mortally wounded body in the process. Whether Spider-Man can still do this or not is unknown.
1Devolution Into Man-Spider
The Man-Spider form is a power that Peter has received somewhat infrequently. It isn’t something he has control over, nor is it necessarily a biological certainty over time or anything like that (unlike Wolverine’s devolved form). Spider-Man was initially cursed with this monster-like form while battling Brainchild in the Savage Lands. Using some kind of genetic device, Brainchild forcibly mutated Spider-Man into Man-Spider, a monstrous arachnoid form that lacked Peter Parker’s greatest quality; his humanity.
Eventually Peter was able to turn himself back into his old self, but in the years since this incident the Man-Spider form would appear a few more times and inconvenience the web slinger. Most notably during his battles with Plantman, the Queen and even Baron Zemo. Man-Spider also made appearances in the various Spider-Man cartoons over the years such asSpider-Man: The Animated SeriesandUltimate Spider-Man.
