The Physics of Superheroes: Spectacular Second Edition by James Kakalios

technological web shooters that he wore on his wrists. 15
    After a lifetime of ridicule and abuse at the hands of his peers, Peter initially sees his newfound powers as a venue to fame and fortune. After testing his skills in professional wrestling, he creates a colorful blue-and-red costume and mask in order to enter show business. Feeling empowered on the eve of his television debut, he arrogantly refuses to help a security guard stop a fleeing robber, though it would have been easy to do so. However, upon returning home, he learns that gentle Uncle Ben has been slain by an intruder. Capturing the killer using his new powers, Peter discovers to his horror that this was the same robber he could have stopped earlier that day. Belatedly realizing “that with great power there must also come great responsibility,” Peter Parker dedicates himself to fighting crime and righting wrongs as the amazing Spider-Man.
    Not that he didn’t continue to complain about his life at least three times per issue. One of the novelties that Lee and Ditko introduced in the Spider-Man comic book was a host of real-life concerns and difficulties that bedeviled Spider-Man nearly as much as his colorful rogue’s gallery of supervillains. Peter Parker would contend with seething high-school romances and jealousies, money problems, anxiety over his aged aunt’s health, allergy attacks, even a sprained arm (he spent issues # 44-46 of the Amazing Spider-Man with his arm in a sling), all while trying to keep the Vulture, the Sandman, Doctor Octopus, and the Green Goblin at bay. But the greatest intrusion of reality, which would signal the end of the innocent Silver Age, would come in 1973 in Amazing Spider-Man # 121 with the death of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy—a death that was demanded, as we will now show, not by the writers and editors or by the readers, but rather by Newton’s laws of motion.
    The Green Goblin had first appeared in Amazing Spider-M an # 14 as a mysterious crime over-boss, and grew into one of Spidey’s most dangerous foes. In addition to enhanced strength and an array of technological weapons, such as a rocket-propelled glider and pumpkin bombs, the Green Goblin managed to unmask Spider-Man and learn his secret identity in the classic Amazing Spider-Man # 39 . Knowing that Peter Parker was really Spider-Man gave the Goblin a distinct advantage in his battles. In Amazing Spider-Man # 121, the Goblin kidnaps Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and brings her to the top of the George Washington Bridge, 16 using her as bait to lure Spider-Man into battle. At one point in their fight, the Goblin knocks Gwen from the tower, causing her to fall to her apparent doom (see figs. 6 and 7).
    At the last possible instant, Spider-Man manages to catch Gwen in his webbing, narrowly preventing her from plummeting into the river below. And yet, upon reeling her back up to the top of the bridge, Spider-Man is shocked to discover that Gwen is in fact dead, despite his last-second catch. “She was dead before your webbing reached her!” the Goblin taunts. “A fall from that height would kill anyone—before they struck the ground!” Apparently the Green Goblin, creator of such advanced technology as the Goblin Glider and pumpkin bombs, suffers from a basic misunderstanding of the principle of conservation of momentum.

    Fig. 6. Gwen Stacy’s fatal plunge off the top of the George Washington Bridge, as told in Amazing Spider-Man # 121. Note the “SNAP” near her neck in the second to last panel.

    Fig. 7. Continuation of Gwen Stacy’s death scene, where Spider-Man receives a harsh physics lesson, and the Green Goblin’s scientific “genius” is called into question.
    Of course, if it were true that it was “the fall” that killed poor Gwen, then the implication for the fate of all skydivers would suggest a massive conspiracy of silence on the part of the aviation industry, not to mention that this would make the attraction of