Amazing Spider-Man: Fear Itself #3

[sherkahn]

Issue #3 of Spidey's stories during the Fear Itself event continue, and this time he fights one of his own.

Angrir (Ben Grimm), the guy who just knocked Red Hulk out and flattened Avengers tower. One more time, Peter faces the David vs. Goliath scenario.

(It's nice to see the true Spider-Man show his face every now and then.)



Out-classed, out-gunned, WAY out of his league, and having just had his heart stopped with a lightning blast from Angrir, the people at the hospital where Spider-Man and Ben Grimm have been fighting have come to his rescue, while a wounded Peter looks on, frozen in cardiac arrhythmia (heart beating irregularly and out of control).

Shocked back to "barely functioning" status by the doctors, Spidey realizes people are about to get killed unless he intervenes.





And then Spidey repeats the *SMvsFL feat.

Spidey pounds relentlessly on Angrir/Ben Grimm and manages to stop him and hurt him, and then uses a little scientific know-how to redirect another charged hammer swing at Ben, and manages to have Angrir run off.

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

Yes. Two prime examples from the early-mid 80s were Spider-Man against the Juggernaut and later against Firelord. He used his brains against the Juggernaut, but I'm still not sure how he was able to beat a Herald of Galactus unconscious.

[skalja]

To be honest, even though I am about as diehard a Spidey fan as you can get I have to say the Firelord fight makes no logical sense at all... I think the official explanation is that Firelord was half-assing it and then got taken by surprise, but even that doesn't really make it work.

Still love the story, though! And Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut is one of my favorite Spidey stories ever.

[crinos]

Yeah, on CBR (which I used to frequent before being banned), we used the term "Spidey vs. Firelord" during rumbles threads (Basically debates on who would win a fight if both characters were going all out, based on previous feats and portrayals) as a term for power feats which are way out of a characters normal ability and basically don't count when debating.

[arilou_skiff]

The entire thing started over Firelord wanting a pizza. I doubt he was very into it.

[skalja]

Yeah, but then why wouldn't he be like, "Okay, you're a bigger pain in the ass than I expected, so *finger flick of death*"?

[arilou_skiff]

Dunno, the only thing I can think off is him kind of wanting Spidey to get a fair fight so he turned off most of his cosmic powers.

[sherkahn]

Against Firelord, it's THE definition of Plot Induced Win (stupidity).

Like when he took down Kingpin...
Firelord continued to underestimate Spidey until he cornered Spider-Man. Spidey got in one shot that caught Firelord off guard and NEVER stopped overwhelming the herald of Galactus from various angles until Captain America pulled him off. Peter never even knew that Firelord was knocked unconscious.

While all the Heralds can achieve FTL flight speed, the argument is that they must charge up/accelerate to achieve such speeds. Otherwise they would operate at Flash++ level speeds in everything they do.

[freezer]

Firelord continued to underestimate Spidey until he cornered Spider-Man. Spidey got in one shot that caught Firelord off guard and NEVER stopped overwhelming the herald of Galactus from various angles until Captain America pulled him off. Peter never even knew that Firelord was knocked unconscious.

Which, TBH, is like Spidey doing that to Superman. (read: He shouldn't be able to do more than annoy Firelord.)

[crinos]

Okay, THAT is what I call a speedblitz. Ouch.

[skalja]

I'm not sure that Spidey vs. Kingpin fight is the one you want to compare Spidey vs. Firelord to, really. Spidey has been out of Kingpin's weight class for decades (his threat is more political/logistical than physical, by far), and this particular fight was Spidey making a point of beating Kingpin down in the most brutal, humiliating way possible just to show Fisk how far he was out of his league. The opposite of the Firelord fight, in other words.

The problem with your explanation is even IF Spidey managed to catch Firelord by surprise, it still doesn't explain how he actually managed to do any damage instead of, idk, annoying Firelord into submission. (Which would be a really hilarious fight, actually.)