Marvel Introduces New Spider-People in ‘Vault of Spiders’ and ‘Spider-Force’

Marvel’s Spider-Geddon event is upon us, and it’s proving how many ways the Spider-Man mythos can still get a twist.

Spoilers for Vault of Spiders #1 and Spider-Force #1 below!

This past week of comics saw multiple new tie-ins for Spider-Geddon, which set up the even wider world of Spider-People that exists within the Marvel universe. While it’s unclear exactly how each character will factor in to stopping The Inheritors, fans have still been treated to an array of new origin stories along the way.

So, which new webslingers were introduced in this week’s comics? And what do you need to know about these new characters? Read on to find out.

Spider-Kid

Spider-Force provided an introduction to Charlie Parker/Spider-Kid, who hails from Earth-218. While details around that Earth are relatively vague, it’s clear that Charlie has a bit of a pessimistic outlook on things, with an attitude that feels reminiscent of New 52-era Billy Batson.

Charlie can be seen stopping a group of drug dealers in broad daylight, before he gets recruited by Old Man Logan‘s Ashley Barton and sucked into a universe-hopping adventure. 

Astro-Spider

The tail end of the issue introduced another new Spider-being, who is known simply as Astro-Spider.

Based off of context clues, it seems like Astro-Spider hails from Earth-3145, which has been a sort of nuclear wasteland after Doctor Octopus nuked the planet. To survive, Astro-Spider wears a sort of spacesuit, which definitely gives off a sort of Agent Venom vibe.

Web-Slinger

Vault of Spiders took a more standalone approach to introducing its new Spider-beings, and it told some pretty interesting stories in the process.

The first of these is Cullen Bunn and Javier Pulido’s Web-Slinger, which reimagines Spider-Man as a sort of classic Western hero. This version of the character starts out as a gunslinger in a traveling medicine show, which Dr. Michael Morbius uses to sell a magic elixir. Web-Slinger soon realizes that the Doc has become Morbius the Living Vampire, and the pair duke it out. 

Spider-Byte

Arguably the highlight of Vault of Spiders has already been Spider-Byte, a character who puts a digital twist on having great power and great responsibility.

Created by Nilah Magruder and Alberto Alburquerque, Spider-Byte exists on a Ready Player One-like Earth, where a large majority of social interactions are done in a virtual reality world. In the real world, Spider-Byte is an ordinary college student named Margo, who transforms into a digital hero to take down various virtual bad guys.

Just judging by this first story, it doesn’t seem like Margo has any spider powers in the real world, so it will be interesting to see how she factors into the larger world of Spider-Geddon.

The Savage Spider-Man

While a Savage Spider-Man has briefly made its way into the animated world, Vault of Spiders expands on that concept in a pretty major way.

As the story from James Asmus and Juan Gedeon explains, this version of Peter Parker landed into Savage Land as a baby, and was given a Tarzan-style upbringing by a bunch of giant spiders. As Peter has gotten older, he’s developed a very particular set of powers, and he uses them to protect Savage Land. In this particular story, Peter goes toe-to-toe with Wilson Fisk, who is wanting to poach the land.