When director Sam Raimi tackled bringing Spider-Man to the silver screen he had the daunting task of bringing his sense of danger to life. How can an enemy hope to be any threat if they can't even hit the hero? Naturally villains with enhanced strength and reflexes like the Green Goblin or lightning-fast mechanical arms like Doctor Octopus are worthy opponents being their abilities are too fast even for spidey's senses. However why are there moments in the movies where Spidey seems to just lose the power all together? One of the most egregious moments comes halfway through Raimi's first film. Spider-Man hears a woman's screams from a burning building and leaps in to save her. Surrounded by flames, he sees a shrouded figure through the smoke. He carefully reaches for her when the figure turns around and it's the Green Goblin. Spidey sure didn't see that one coming, only he totally should have. It was established earlier in the movie that Spider-Man doesn't even have to see the danger coming when he easily dodged Flash Thompson's punch from behind him. How is it then that the Green Goblin can simply throw on a bed sheet and catch Spider-Man completely off guard? The burning building is only one of several examples of when spider-sense seems to all but vanish when our hero needs it most. Raimi considered it such a constraint on his storytelling abilities that he even scrapped the power completely in the third movie without any explanation. Bet Spidey didn't see that one coming either.
Daniel is a writer/artist/filmmaker currently overseeing post-production on his film Avenging Disco Vampires. He is also the co-creator of the all-ages comic book series The Adventures of Nightclaw & Prowler published by Old World Comics.
