Spider-Verse: Marvel Introduces New Spider-Hulk and Spider-Prowler

There’s new blood in the Spider-Verse. Marvel has been teasing a multiversal war between the Spider-Verse and Venomverse, with the fate of each at stake: the outcome of the five-issue Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse will determine whether every Spider or Symbiote in the multiverse survives or is forever erased from existence. The Web-Heart (the essence of the Great Web of Life and Destiny that weaves together the Spider-Verse) and its symbiote counterpart must select their champions — choices made in a pair of corresponding one-shots: Web of Spider-Verse: New Blood #1 and Web of Venomverse: New Brains #1.

First up is Web of Spider-Verse, which sees the Web-Heart scour the Web of Life and Destiny after choosing its first combatants: a leader (Peter Parker of Earth-616), a wild card (Spider-Ham), a revolutionary (Recluse), a weapon (Weapon VIII), and two as-yet-unrevealed champions: “an artist” and “an orphan” (potentially Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk and the timeline-displaced Gwen Stacy/Ghost-Spider).

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With one last selection to make, the Web-Heart sends its consciousness out across the threads of the Web of Life and Destiny to consider three candidates…

Spider-Hulk

In 1990’s classic Web of Spider-Man #70, by writers Gerry Conway and David Michelinie with art by Alex Saviuk, Spider-Man turned into the rampaging Spider-Hulk after a device doused him with bio-energy from the Hulk. Spider-Man tracked down the device and then reversed his condition by issue’s end, but “Spider-Hulk,” from writer Greg Pak (Incredible Hulk) and artist Alan Robinson (Deadpool vs. Wolverine: Slash ‘Em Up), is set in a reality where Peter Parker kept being the strongest Spider there is.

Because Spider-Hulk is strong enough to protect his wife, Mary Jane, from Spider-Man’s enemies, he no longer has to hide his secret identity. The raging Spider-Hulk smashes the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, but when he nearly kills the rampaging Rhino, he’s left as a fugitive on the run. One can practically hear “The Lonely Man Theme” as Peter, like Dr. Bruce Banner before him, learns that the Hulk’s strength comes at a cost: “You won’t lose fights anymore… just everything else.”

Count Parker

“Count Parker,” by writer Jordan Morris (Youth Group) and artist Sumit Kumar (Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood), is set in the year “198X” and follows vampire hunter Mary Jane van Helsing to Count Parker’s mansion to slay the titular Fang. According to local legend, Count Parker tried to save his dying uncle by experimenting with the venom of an eternal vampire spider and became a living vampire Spider-Man.

Mary Jane van Helsing finds Count Parker’s lab filled with animal-human hybrids — test subjects entombed in tubes include the Vulture, the Scorpion, Doctor Octopus, and Rhino — and then finds Count Parker. When MJ experiences a vision of herself with Peter Parker in countless other universes, she hesitates to plunge her stake into his heart and is bitten and turned. At least in this universe, Count Parker and MJVH have their unholy happy ending for eternity.

Spider-Prowler

In “Spider-Prowler,” from Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse co-writer Mat Groom and artist Federico Vicentini (Miles Morales: Spider-Man), the Web-Heart travels to the New York of Earth-2501. This apocalyptic reality saw a Kree armada invade and conquer Earth, which has seen most of the population exterminated and all of its enhanced individuals killed.

All except for Aaron Davis, the Prowler, and his nephew, Miles Morales, who was bitten by a mysterious spider while scavenging for supplies. He took the name Spider-Man and later Spider-Prowler after his uncle was killed during a mission to deactivate a people-hunting scanner aboard a Kree control ship. His uncle’s death and the war with the Kree hardened the idealistic Spider-Man into the anti-hero Spider-Prowler, who the Web-Heart chooses as his final champion.

The Symbiote-Brain will make its own selections in Web of Venomverse: New Brains #1, on sale April 2. The Arachnid War kicks off when Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse #1 (of 5) swings onto stands on May 14.