[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #69.] Spider-Man is dead. Long live the Spider-Naut! Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness’ Spider-Man run began with Doctor Doom — Sorcerer Supreme and Emperor of Earth — delegating his responsibilities as Earth’s Champion of the Covenant to Spider-Man. Doom granted the wall-crawler arcane armor and eight of the life-restoring Reeds of Raggadorr to save the world from the eight scions of Cyttorak, the most powerful of the Octessence: eight of the great mystic entities of the Marvel Universe.
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Millennia ago, the eight entities — Balthakk, Cyttorak, Farallah, Ikonn, Krakkan, Watoomb, Valtorr, and Raggadorr — entered into the Wager of the Octessence, each creating totems containing a fraction of their vast cosmic power. Any human who touched the totem would be transformed into an exemplar, the living embodiment of that power.
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Cyttorak’s Crimson Gem turned Cain Marko into the unstoppable Juggernaut, power Cain used for evil before he joined the X-Men. But even the unstoppable Juggernaut couldn’t stop the Blight: a destructive, cosmic energy that exists solely to extinguish life. Cyttorak’s eternal enemy, if left unchecked, would destroy the world, so Stephen Strange — once the Sorcerer Supreme — made a bargain with Cyttorak that resulted in the covenant.
Only the Crimson Casket of Cyttorak could spare Earth from the chaos and destruction of the Blight, and so Earth’s Champion would be challenged to defend the Covenant and the Casket from Cyttorak’s eight scions: Cyttorak’s children.
As Sorcerer Supreme, that duty fell to Doctor Strange and then Doctor Doom, who failed to uphold the covenant when he selected Spider-Man to take his place as Champion. By refusing to suffer, Victor von Doom has doomed the universe to destruction — unless they reach the Crimson Cosmos to convince Cyttorak to restore the Casket.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man used all eight resurrection Reeds: four on himself when he died battling the scions Cyntros, Cyperion, Cyrios, and Callix, and the final four to resurrect Aunt May and three other civilians killed by the Blight. Spider-Man died a final time at the hands of the Scion Callix, who then slaughtered his siblings except for his twin sister Cyra and set out to claim Cyttorak’s throne in the Crimson Cosmos.
As the Blight’s “soul rot” infected the X-Men and turned them against the Juggernaut (the only X-Man not affected by the Blight because he’s Cyttorak’s avatar on Earth), it seemed that there would be no stopping the Blight’s destruction of the universe.
But in Amazing Spider-Man #69, Spider-Man’s sacrifice convinced Cyra that there is a force more powerful than even Cyttorak. Phil Coulson, the living avatar of Death, then helped her realize why Cyttorak wasn’t fighting the Blight-possessed Callix despite the deaths of his scions: Cyttorak couldn’t feel loss unless he felt love for his children.
“That’s what your father is feeling — what you are feeling,” Coulson tells Cyra. “Love for life is the only meaning that can be found in a meaningless universe. The weight of it is unbearable to some. Spider-Man is dead, Cyra. Life, and the care of it, is a job for the living.”
Cyra then commits her own heroic sacrifice: she will relinquish the power and immortality of a scion of Cyttorak to restore one indomitable human spirit. And so Cyra, last daughter of Cyttorak, transfers her crimson essence to Spider-Man’s mortal form. It’s an act born of sacrifice and love — “Spider-Man’s love for us, all of us,” Coulson says.
As Spider-Man is restored to life, Cyra tells the mortal to become what he must to save the world from Blight. “Become a weapon and shed the role of pawn. Become strength incarnate. Become unstoppable. Become… a JUGGERNAUT.”
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The unstoppable Spider-Naut takes on Callix, conqueror of the Crimson Cosmos, when 8 Deaths of Spider-Man concludes in Amazing Spider-Man #70 (March 26). The volume-ending issue will be followed by a new Amazing Spider-Man #1 (April 9), featuring a new villain and a new creative team (written by Kelly with art by Pepe Larraz and John Romita Jr.).
