10 Times Spider-Man Won A Fight He Should Have Lost
9. The Original Spider-Slayer
J. Jonah Jameson is a veteran newsman, but that doesn't mean he has a firm grasp of journalistic ethics. He's never been shy about making the news instead of simply reporting it, for example.
Consider his obsession with capturing Spider-Man, and the long string of Spider-Slayer robots that he spent good money to help him do so.
During the earliest days of Amazing Spider-Man, Jameson routinely hired crackpot inventor Spencer Smythe to build robots designed specifically to capture Spider-Man. The first of these robots debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #25 in 1965.
That first robot sported coils designed to trap Spider-Man, could climb walls, and its metal skin was designed so that Spidey's webs slipped right off it.
Spider-Man is smart, fast and strong, but this robot was built specifically to capture him. During the first encounter with an equally fast, nearly indestructible robot Spider-Man should have been defeated.
And he was... sort of. The first Spider-Slayer did eventually trap Spider-Man, ensnaring the hero in its coils. But Spidey found a not-so-well-hidden control panel, popped it open and disabled the robot, escaping before Smythe and Jameson arrived on the scene.
To sum up: If Smythe had been nearly as clever in hiding his robot's control panel as he was in designing it, Spidey would have been captured and defeated. The scientist wasn't, and Spider-Man caught a lucky break.