In a truly dark time of Spider-Man tradition, the Squadron Sinister comes together to destroy the Spider-Society, following the example of a evil version of Madame Web, whose true identity is a stunning revelation. With Spider-Man 2099, the original Madam Weber, and Prime Spider-Man captured, the Spider-Society struggles to stay afloat. When Through the Spider-VerseSpider-Woman calls the evil Madame Web a monster, the villain reveals her own origin and the origin of her Squad.
In Spider-Society #4 by creative team Alex Segura, Scott Godlewski, Matt Milla and Joe Caramagna, the Spider Society faces the evil Madame Web and her Sinister Squad in a final showdown. This Madame Web is a twisted variant of none other than Aunt May.
In May of this year, she began her own quest for power after suffering the death of her husband Ben Parker and also discovering that her nephew was Spider-Man. Tired of the torture of seeing her loved ones hurt, she sought out Norman Osborn, who helped her gain omniscience. Discovering the multiverse, May realized that countless innocent people like her were being subjected to emotional hell by the Spider-Heroes..
Evil Aunt May becomes the supervillain Madame Web
This variant of Spider-Man’s aunt assembled the Ultimate Sinister Six
Like an evil Professor X, the new Madame Web recruited a Squadron Sinister that could neutralize the Spider Society without killing them.erasing the multiverse’s Spider-Heroes without giving their realities the cue to create replacements. May makes it clear that she has assembled the perfect team to neutralize the multiverse’s spider-heroes, summoning them with the phrase, “For me, my Squad.”
This is an obvious play on Professor X’s signature line, “For me, my X-Men.” Web uses Prime Madame Web’s powers to detect villains, much like Charles Xavier uses Cerebro to find mutants across Earth. Tragically, however, this evil Aunt May goes even further…
May Parker’s Madame Web is more powerful than the original
May doesn’t just see the future – she changes it to create villains
A key difference between May Parker’s Madame Web and Professor X or Prime Madame Web is that She doesn’t just find her villains for her squad – she creates them. After the evil Madame Web found the candidates she knew would make the perfect spider-smashing army, she went through the process of teasing the origins of each individual villain.
This makes this Madame Web variant even more powerful than the one in the main Marvel Universe, playing games with causality to change the timeline of multiple realities. She used omniscience to mass produce her own spider-destroying army, ruining the lives of innocent people to turn them into the ideal villains to be her army. Fortunately, his arrogance leads to his downfall – once Squadron Sinister’s Gwen Stacy Green Goblin discovers she has been manipulated into becoming a monster, she sacrifices herself to defeat Web.
Spider-Man Lore Now Has an Evil Aunt May
The most endearing character in the franchise makes her debut as a villain
While the powers of the evil Madame Web and her Sinister Six are fascinating, the villain is more interesting as a commentary on May Parker. Since 1962, May has been Peter Parker’s elderly aunt – the person who raised him after the deaths of his parents and uncle. May has suffered countless times because of her connection to Spider-Man, from being kidnapped (and even killed) to having her workplace destroyed, to feeling like her beloved nephew is keeping a dangerous secret.
Madame Web takes this idea to the limit, showing a version of Aunt May who can’t handle the uncertainty and pain that Spider-Man brings into her life. This is a May Parker whose moral outlook has been destroyed by the experiences that Spider-Man has brought into her life and who has become a threat to all Spider-Hero because of her desire to save people like her from the same fate.
Spider-Man tradition is usually careful to only take Aunt May so far, turning her suffering into an expression of her stoicism, kindness, and dedication to Peter Parker. However, Spider-Society uses the advantage of multiversal variants to go further, focusing on how much the character goes through because of Peter’s secret – a secret he claims to keep to ‘protect’ her.
It will be interesting to see how Marvel uses the evil Aunt May in future stories, because while she may be a misguided villain, the idea of ​​an enemy who actually thinks Spider-Heroes make the lives of those around them worse is something with a lot of merit. potential – especially since this is often how Spider-Man he himself feels about his heroic personality.
Spider-Society #4 and available now from Marvel Comics.