Spider-Man General Discussion

According to Wells and Nick Lowe it was their idea to kill her since Krakoan resurrection had already been established, as had her presence in the Spider-Man comics.

Wow Lowe is just constantly making terrible decisions.

He's certainly gonna live in infamy as among the worst of editors.

I also don’t like her being a mutant so I’ll boo and shame as I please

She may have been intended to be a mutant originally, but I think she was fine as she was.

I get it. Boo Inhumans, but Kamala being one of them gave her something unique.

In both the 616 universe spectacular spider man did Otto become evil on his own?

Edited by Godwriter on Apr 17th 2024 at 2:00:21 AM

So, hey, awhile back someone suggested the idea of a "House of X"-style story/realignment for Spider-Man and we had a discussion suggesting our own ideas for how to do that. I REALLY like the idea, so me and my best friend spent some time sketching up our take on the concept.

Tenative title: Web of the Spider/Fang of the Spider

Split between five years/timeline:

• Year 1 - The Emperor: In the present day, Peter is Spider-Man and decides that Otto may have had the right idea about expanding the reach of the Spider and that his experiences with the "worldwide" idea can be used to do it again but better, so with help from his various friends and allies, he founds the Spider-Clan, a shinobi-esque organization dedicated to defending New York and spreading the Spider-Man brand across the world (think Batman Inc from the Grant Morrison run of that book).

• Year 10 - The Shogun: An older and embittered Miles is Spider-Man, with Mayday as his Robin-style sidekick Spider-Girl, trying to hold together the Spider-Clan after the death of Peter (and many of New York's other heroes) at the hands of "the Enemy" while a new Sinister Six lays siege to their resources in a crime ridden New York. Ultimately the Six launch an attack on the Spider-Clan headquarters, with Dock Ock (Carolyn, not Otto) gloating that Miles is just a pale imitation of the previous Spider-Man and will die because he never adapted for himself... to which Miles agrees and responds by ripping her head off with his bare hands and announcing to the shocked onlookers that things are about to change.

• Year 100 - The Daimyo: New York has become Nueva York, a vast cyberpunk Mega City where the brutal Spider-Clan rules. Spider-King Miguel O'Hara trying to maintain the city's independence and neutrality amid a second American Civil War that is destroying the nation, while also trying to crush a rebellious terrorist group known as V.E.N.O.M. that seeks to overthrow the Spider-Clan. On the eve of a night celebrating Nueva York's transformation into the Spider-Protectorate, a night Miguel has insisted will change everything for the city, V.E.N.O.M. launches an attack on the Spider-Citadel personally directed by their leader and founder, the new Madame Web. Miguel and Web fight, with Miguel managing to mortally wound Web. As she lies dying, it's revealed "Madame Web" is actually an aging Mayday, kept alive by cybernetics, who decries how the Spider-Clan has destroyed everything her father and Uncle Miles stood for and says that V.E.N.O.M. will never stop fighting. Miguel declares that this is incorrect because she led the organization right into his trap and reveals WHY this is such a special night; he is performing a ritual that will summon Kwaku Anansi into the mortal world, giving the Spider-Clan more power and resources than ever... and the numerous members of V.E.N.O.M. are the blood sacrifice to complete the spell. As the rebels die, a portal tears open and the gigantic weaver of the Web of Life Anansi steps out to perch on the Empire State Building.

• Year 1000 - The Samurai: Takuya Yamashiro is a SP//DR mech commando in the army of the Spider-Empire, which is slowly expanding across the American continent and at war with rival polities also ruled by superheroes and those descended from them; superhumans have become the new nobility in an After the End Feudal Future (think Alan Moore's Twilight of the Superheroes pitch). One day, Takuya is scouring a nest of Doppelgangers (feral genetic monsters created by a long-dead Jackal which are now an invasive species) when he gets the order to investigate an incursion on the coast. He arrives to find a ship of soldiers from Delvadia led by a new Tarantula making landfall and proclaiming their desire for vengeance over the Burning of Delvadia at the hands of the Empire's forces. Takuya begins brutally dispatching the soldiers, laughing at Tarantula's accusations that he's nothing more than a pawn for an imperialist government of Anansi-worshippers who use pretenses to feed their Spider God tribute through conquest. Right as Takuya is about to kill the blasphemer, Tarantula reveals that he and his men were just distractions as mage-scientists on the boat finished preparing the Ritual of Vengeance. At that moment, the Spot - long driven mad and warped into a black hole-like super-portal - bursts out of the ship and into the air, screaming as the Ritual warps his body into a gateway through which Shathra and a legion of other Spider Totem-eating demons come pouring out.

• Year 10000 - The Ronin: Max Borne is a former member of the Spider Corps, a Nova-esque legion of planetary protectors who defend the colonized solar system at the behest of the Living Brain - the end result of countless Spiders merging their souls into a gigantic Magitek supercomputer to replace Anansi after he was killed by Shathra long ago. Max was expelled from the organization for accusing the Brain of being a false god perverting the Way of the Spider and damaging the Web of Life by mining it for resources to ensure their dominance. Now he is an aging wreck ranting about his life story and the history of Spider-Men to a young scholar on the steps of the Spider Corps headquarters. When the scholar asks what Max is planning to actually do about all this, Max grins and says that he's going to do what he has to do because with great power comes great responsibility. He then opens up his jacket to the reveal the miniaturized Prometheum-X nuke strapped to his chest. It detonates and consumes the city...

And we cut back to the present day, where Julia Carpenter is watching the announcement of Peter's Spider-Clan. She has been watching one of MANY possible futures spinning from this event and wonders whether she should wait to see how things develop... or cut the head off the potential snake.

Early on its implied the accident gave him brain damage that made him evil, but they dropped that because it would take away his agency.

In fact, when he gets his body back in Superior, Mephisto explicitly removes any neurological issues he may have, so every time he does something bad it's on him.

Heck, there was even a panel in the 2017 Superior series' first issue where Anna Marie states that all the accident did to his brain was rewire it to interface with the tentacles better.

: I was the one that kept pushing for "House of X"-style story/realignment for Spider-Man, if only because it renewed interest in X-Men after constant stagnation and weird runs by Bendis and Rosenberg that readers would rather ignore.

Now I'm starting to have second thoughts about it because at the end of the day, I just want to see the marriage and Mayday again. (And Mephisto getting socked in the eye.) So Spider-Man doesn't need to get high-concept and cerebral to be liked again. The guy just needs some f*cking positive stuff going on in his life, FFS.

That being said, immortaleditor's concept still sounds really cool. Top marks for integrating the Toei Spider-Man, too.

Yeah, I don’t know that it’s what I’d want from the main spider book but it was very imaginatively put together

Thank you both, I really appreciate your comments.

That was awesome immortaleditor.

I would say Spidey is in need a big refurbish, not only to define a new place in his life but also the placement of the spider characters.

If Peter's going to be undergoing some major changes to get him back on track, that also means showing what will happen to Miles along with it.

Also the Spider-Women, and Silk, and Spider-Boy. And maybe a new Spider-Girl, as that names currently vacant. Tbh I feel like we’re just collecting characters like pokemon but I do like it. They just need to clarify why Peter's the best and that he doesn’t need a team or anything.

On another note I am glad the Spider-Boy title is being used. It’s weird it hasn’t been used before. I think the main franchise characters that haven’t really existed or been used before are Spider-Boy, Superwoman, and Batboy. Wonder Boy and Wonder Man are weird rights wise.

Edited by GateStarX on Apr 17th 2024 at 1:01:24 AM

It was used before, but for a character that Marvel couldn't really use without getting DC involved (hence why the Amalgam Universe's Spider-Boy was only able to be shown partially-obscured in a crowd shot in one ancillary part of Spider-Verse, or to have his severed arm displayed in End of the Spider-Verse without also showing Morlun popping into his home universe to take said arm). I'm guessing that Bailey was a character Slott really wanted to make for a while, but he needed to wait for the lawyers to make sure that the name "Spider-Boy" was something Marvel could legally use without DC, even without using anything else from the other Spider-Boy.

Edited by TrashJack on Apr 17th 2024 at 4:09:27 AM

There was another Spider-Boy before that, Oliver Osnick, who goes by Steel Spider now. He was the first to use it and still makes sporadic appearances. Amusingly, his entire thing was being a big jab at kid sidekicks of the sort Bailey is.

I should have clarified I knew about the amalgam Spider-Boy aka the mix between Kon-El and Peter Parker. But thanks for the info. I meant is I’m glad it’s being used in official capacity. Also whatever happened to Steel Spider? Last I heard he lost an arm in maybe Civil War?

And speaking of forgotten or underused Spiders, how many are there?

Ollie's last appearance was way back in the Warren Ellis Thunderbolts run during Dark Reign. He gets on the bad side of Norman and winds up arrested by the Thunderbolts, but it's mentioned that after Siege and HAMMER getting shut down, he was released along with a lot of other people that got arrested during that period. No mention of him since.

For obscure and forgotten Spiders, there's also poor Mattie Franklin, who unlike the other Spider-Women (Jess, Anya, and Julia) got killed off in Grim Hunt and didn't get to come back like Kaine nor do anything important after. Anya is a borderline example, as she keeps showing up but is rarely major.

Ai Apaec, the really cool Peruvian spider deity that was in Dark Avengers, disappeared after Dark Reign. Weirdly, despite the obvious potential, he was never tied in with the Spider Totem stuff.

For a villainous Spider, there's the Thousand from Garth Ennis' Spidey comic from way back when, though he was a one-off and seemingly died at the end of that. Quite possibly the only Ennis comic I like, largely because you can tell Spidey is one of the only superheroes Ennis doesn't have some creepy hateboner for and couldn't be too explicit, meaning he had to tell an actually interesting story instead of stroking himself off over gore. Plus it was a very horror-themed arc and I absolutely adore when Spider-Man goes into Superhero Horror, same as I do with Hulk and X-Men.

Similar in gimmick to Thousand is the Gatekeeper, the spider totem spirit that Ezekiel was planning to feed Peter to only to be killed by it when he went back on the deal at the climax of the JMS run.

Ezekiel himself is long dead and rarely mentioned, as is the original Madame Web. Ditto Spider Queen who got headshotted by Kaine at the end of Spider-Island. Ditto ditto the Brian Kornfield/Spider-X guy, probably the most obscure of them all.

Finally there's Gwen Warren from Avenging Spider-Man, who's a weird clone of Gwen and a Spider Totem and was shipped off to Xavier's.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 17th 2024 at 2:36:24 AM

Read Spectacular Spider-Men #2. I found it stronger than the first issue. Peter came off less annoying and childish and the "elsewhere" segments feel more cohesive now that the main plot is becoming clear.

Loved that Shift took on the Vermin clones and is raising them to protect homeless people in the sewers. Oh, and looks like Arcade's not the only villain behind the VR scheme.

It’s a VR scheme? I totally didn’t pick up on that. I thought there were all just more clones kicking around screwing with people.

While they haven’t been used in awhile, wouldn’t being in the Madame Web movie mean they atleast are remembered? That would be Mattie, Anya, and Ezekiel being used. Also the Gatekeeper thing is kind of weird and I don’t get it, because Dan Slott took Straczynski's original idea and went in a different idea. Also also you forgot that that actual radioactive spider resurrected as a spider-hulk giant spider that can talk and fights crime by eating people. I seriously don’t know how that hasn’t been implemented beyond one comic.

I blame the absolutely horrid ways Slott butchered the Spider-Totem lore for how many people dislike it. JMS wrote it as much more inscrutable, mystical, and eerie, which was a big part of what made it really cool and appealing to me, similar to how Al Ewing wrote the Green Door/gamma stuff in Immortal Hulk. Slott turned it into a lame excuse to have action figures bang together and slaughter any Spider-Person he didn't personally make or care about, while also completely upending JMS' version and making the continuity of it a mess. Best exemplified by how the deity at the center of it all went from being a horrifying Eldritch Abomination that looks vaguely like a spider to a hot pseudo-Egyptian lady who is totes a god we swear.

In fairness, the warning signs were already there with stuff like The Other. The Spider-Totem lore getting shafted and twisted into something utterly convoluted was one of the many tragic casualties of the onset of OMD.

I did indeed completely forget about the Spider-Hulk thing. Mercifully.

I didn't think to include the Madame Web movie because, well, it's not like that exactly shot the characters into the popular consciousness.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 17th 2024 at 3:52:58 AM

He did show up during Spider-Verse and was eaten.

How strong is Rhino?

Like, where does he stand in the Big Guy / Brute Super-Strength hierarchy?

Does he get stomped by The Thing? Can he give Colossus a good fight?

I'm curious because I know he was briefly a Hulk rogue, but that didn't really work out for him, and he's been back as a Spider-Man enemy ever since.

He's strong enough to survive a fight with Hulk at the very least.

Rhino's more like Kingpin in that Spidey has joint custody with another hero for his Rogues Gallery. Hulk is number two on Rhino's shit-list behind Peter, and when he doesn't fight one, he fights the other.

But to answer your question, in terms of power level, he's probably about as strong as Thing. Very big and tough, but not like, outrageously so on the larger scale of the setting. He can and has taken punches from Hulk without issue, but he in a straight fight, he's probably gonna lose just from attrition, like how Thing and Hulk's rivalry is Ben not being as strong as Hulk, but making up for it with smarts and Heroic Willpower... the former of which Rhino very much lacks.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 17th 2024 at 5:46:29 AM