" Are you the One... Or are you the Other..."
The Other is a 2005 Spider-Man storyline written by Peter David, Reginald Hudlin, and J. Michael Straczynski with art by Mike Deodato Jr., Pat Lee, and Mike Wieringo. It spans from The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #525–528, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1–4, and Marvel Knights Spider-Man #19–22.
Peter Parker must come to terms with whether or not he is the spider who dreamed of being a man, or the man who dreamed of being a spider.
The Other provides examples of:
- Almighty Mom: Aunt May does this to Tony Stark and Reed Richards when they want Peter to take more tests instead of going out with Mary Jane. The two most brilliant men in the Marvel Universe are no match for Aunt May's stern reprimand.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: After being resurrected by the Other, Spider-Man has retractile stingers in his forearms.
- Combat Cue Stick: Mary-Jane uses a pool cue to fight off a Loony Fan who had been stalking her.
- Eye Scream: Morlun plucks out one of Spidey's eyes and eat it as he beats Spider-Man to close to death.
- Fantastic Fragility: Morlun is vulnerable while feeding, so much so that he is forced into a temporary retreat when the police begin to swarm him while he is in the middle of eating Peter.
- The Hero Dies: Spider-Man sheds his body and gets a new one out of a cocoon, with many teammates and his loved ones believing he has died.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Morlun eats one of Spider-Man's eyes during their second battle. Possessed by the Other, Spidey then repays this and the beating by eating Morlun's face.
- Next Tier Power-Up: After becoming the receptacle of the totemic spider-deity called the Other, Spider-Man develops night-vision and venomous stingers in his forearms, and his strength gets boosted a second time to 20 tons.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Morlun dishes one out to Spider-Man, first by tearing one of his eyes out and eating it, and then literally beating him to a bloody pulp. By the time he's done and is chased off by the police, Peter's face is so bloody and swollen that not even Mary Jane, his own wife, can recognize him.
- Super-Strength: After being resurrected by the Other, Spider-Man's strength is boosted to 20 tons.
- Too Many Mouths: Morlun has glowing suckers on his palms, comparable to ones Morbius was given in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
- Wolverine Claws: After being resurrected by the Other, Spider-Man developed poisonous hand stingers that he even calls a case of Logan Envy. When Peter protested that spiders don't have stingers, The Other responded that they will... in the future. Even before the Cosmic Retcon of One More Day removed the stingers, they weren't used all that often (with some writers claiming that they only came out around "fellow totemic beings" as a defense mechanism). Peter's clone Kaine, the second Scarlet Spider, got his own stingers after dying and coming back to life in Spider-Island.
