#especially the mental image of norman getting yanked into freefall by the consequences of his own actions

[winterinhimring]

I had to figure out comparative Raimi-verse and Webb-verse character strength for a fic once and found out that this scene:

has absolutely bonkers implications (and is also physically impossible).

For reference, the thing that's attached to the other end of that cable he's holding is a pre-2010 Roosevelt Tramway car. It weighs 18,300 pounds, or 9.16 tons, when empty, and it is currently loaded (though I'll be ignoring the weight of the passengers in this post for the sake of easier math). That is an absolutely insane amount of weight to hold one-handed, and he's not bracing or shifting his weight to counter it at all.

This means that Norman is much, much stronger than the 800% increase in strength promised by the performance enhancers. I don't know exactly how the ratios translate, but if Norman can hold 9 tons without effort in one hand, he can probably bench press two or three times that. Eight times the current unequipped bench press record is 6,256 pounds, or 3.12 tons, roughly a third of the weight he is currently supporting. And Peter is capable of beating Norman hand-to-hand, which requires a rough parity in strength. Therefore, Peter is also absolutely insanely strong. They're both closer to Thor's weight class than to Captain America's.

So much for the overanalysis of what this single shot means for Norman and Peter's abilities. Here's where we get to what makes the scene impossible: weight ratios. Norman is not sticky, like Peter. He does not have foot clamps on the bridge like he does on his glider. There is no physical way that a 180-190 pound dude, however inhumanly strong, can hold that much weight without skidding right off of the bridge into freefall. By all rights, this should not be a shot of the Green Goblin standing menacingly over Peter Parker, it should be a shot of a green blur getting yanked off the side of the Queensboro Bridge by the force generated by 9.15 tons of falling metal, and that absolutely cracks me up laughing.