When Thanos met Spider-Girl

 

Back in 2003, legendary comic writer and artist Jim Starlin, now best known for his creation of the Mad Titan Thanos, worked on a six-issue mini-series called Marvel Universe: The End. In short, the story details the Main Marvel Universe’s Thanos encountering the Pharaoh Akhenaten who was imbued with the power of Heart of the Universe by the Celestial Order and had targeted the Earth. Unable to defeat him head on, Thanos used the aid of the Defenders and Genis-Vell to stealthily acquire the Heart of the Universe for himself, time-travelling back to erase the Celestial Order and thereby stop the Pharoah’s attack before it began. In doing so, Thanos rendered the reality wherein Akhenaten was abducted by the Celestial Order and all the events that followed it into the divergent Reality-4321 (Marvel Universe: The End #1-#4, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol. 12 – Thanos Profile).

 

Now at one with this ultimate power source, Thanos discovered that the universe itself held an imbalance between the barrier between life and death which would eventually lead to its own destruction. When the Great Powers of the Universe including the Living Tribunal attacked Thanos, they summoned an army of heroes to battle the Titan. Amid this mighty assemblage of heroes, if you look ever so carefully, you can spot May ‘Mayday’ Parker’s alter ego Spider-Girl (Marvel Universe: The End #5). Considering every other hero seen in attendance appears to be from the Main Marvel Universe (or Universe-616) this does raise a few questions. But we’ll talk about that shortly.

 

Thanos easily bests all who oppose him and destroys the entire universe, absorbing even abstract and conceptual beings like Eternity, Infinity and the Living Tribunal into his very being in the process. With nothing but a void remaining where the universe had been, Thanos was convinced by a (previously out-of-reality) Adam Warlock and the manifestation of Death to sacrifice himself to recreate the universe as it was minus the Celestial Order’s influence, with the dangerous imbalance between life and death repaired. A side effect of this apparent sacrifice was the removal of any memory of Thanos’ actions (Marvel Universe: The End #6).

 

There is some debate about whether or not this story took place partly or wholly or at all within the Main Marvel Universe aka Universe-616, but the fact that we see an unparalleled power source (the Heart) used to rewrite time and diverge reality, and the fact that the events of this story are recalled by both Thanos and Adam Warlock of Universe-616 after the fact would seem to confirm this (Thanos (vol. 1) #1). Your mileage may vary, but my intention with this is to preference what’s on the published page as canon. Some would disagree.

 

But what does this all have to do with Spider-Girl? Well, the big question is why would she be present in the Main Marvel Universe (or even an alternate version of it at that point in time)? Well, I think the best explanation lies with the Living Tribunal, who is a vastly powerful multiversally-transcendental conceptual being and the one responsible for summoning the army of superbeing that briefly fought Thanos. Considering these factors, I think we could infer that the Tribunal simply pulled Mayday from her own reality -either the MC2’s Earth-982 or one very similar- into the Main Marvel Universe to participate in this assault. Additionally, as the entirety of the universe’s reality was erased by Thanos and subsequently restored with no one remembering (save Thanos himself and Adam Warlock as noted above) it’s impossible for anyone to know for sure.

 

This post was originally intended to be an extremely quick one mentioning that Jim Starlin once drew Spider-Girl but I felt the background and confusion attached to this entire mini-series warranted a bit more of an in-depth look. Hopefully I haven’t lost you all to the void! Anyway, Thanos and Spider-Girl in the very same comic, in a big battle, even!

 

Until I find a way to avoid deep dives into obscure stuff no one really cares all that much about, I remain

 

frogoat

 

Spider-Girl 2020

With the futuristic year 2020 ushering in a new comic event commemorating the characters of Earth-8410 aka 2020 A.D. - most notably Iron Man 2020- I figured now would be a perfect time to acknowledge the overlooked superheroine in the room: May Parker of Earth-8410 aka Spider-Girl 2020.

While I may have briefly touched on the 2020 in the distant past, this will be a more focused look at the character. To begin with, the character is not a comic book native, making her first (and to date, only) appearance in a novel. Written by Tom Defalco and eluki bes shakar (now legally known as Rosemary Edghill) with interior chapter art by penciller Tom Grummett and inker Doug Hazlewood, X-Men & Spider-Man: Time’s Arrow Book 3: The Future was first published in 1998 with a September release date listed on its interior pages. This third and final book in the Time’s Arrow trilogy of novels by Defalco (paired with a different co-writer for each book) marks the debut of Spider-Girl 2020 in its fifth chapter which takes place in -you guessed it- the year 2020 A.D.!

The story sees Spider-Man (the Main Marvel Universe or Earth-616 version, according to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005) on a mission with Cable of the X-Men and Aliya of Earth-9870 to prevent Kang’s destruction of various alternate worlds.  Having been hired by Kang to stop the heroes, Earth-8410’s Arno Stark aka Iron Man of the year 2020 recruits his reality’s Spider-Girl under the pretext of protecting her territory Queens, New York.

It’s here we learn that this world’s May Parker had lost her own father, and had followed in his heroic footsteps during her freshman year of high school, aged only 14 years old. May notes she can’t remember a time when she didn’t know her father was Spider-Man, and recalls how he died with his secret identity intact, leaving some people mere years later to believe the web-swinger was still alive. May, now ‘twentysomething’ still lived with her mother Mary Jane Watson-Parker due to the housing crunch. Mary Jane was initially not pleased when May announced her intentions to suit up as Spider-Girl at such a young age. May works as a ‘page designer’ for Cadence Communications Corporation… which I guess makes her a web designer, right?



Operating as one of 2020’s last lone vigilantes or ‘Independents’, Spider-Girl protects her territory of Queens, New York from ‘incursions of Wreckers, Illegals, rioting Vidiots or worse’. As for powers and abilities, this Spider-Girl has inherited her father’s spider-like ability to stick to walls, strength, speed and agility, which are described as being equal to the original web-head’s own. May also utilizes ‘gold bracelets of cylinders’ on both wrists that fire explosive ‘venom blasts’ that produce a poisoning effect in their targets. Presumably these are dual-purpose web-shooters, as Spider-Girl is also seen spinning webs. It’s not clear if this May Parker possesses a spider-sense, though she does appear to detect people rather quickly.

As for her costume, I think it’s worth using some direct quotes to demonstrate how the chapter illustrations by Tom Grummett (though absolutely beautiful) do perhaps differ from the books text descriptions. Spider-Girl is first described as wearing a ‘tight scarlet-and-blue combat suit’ with a ‘spill of red hair down [her] back’ beneath which ‘her eyes were invisible behind the white shields of her mask’. For the most part, Spider-Girl is referred to while in action as a ‘red-and-blue figure’ and angrily notes when seeing Spider-Man that his costume is an echo of her own. When Spider-Man catches clear sight of Spider-Girl we get a more detailed portrait spelled out: ‘Her costume was red and blue, just like his, with a black pattern of webbing against the red. Around each wrist she wore a gold bracelet of cylinders-possibly the source of the blasts she’d bracketed him with-and a half-mask above which her long red hair whipped around her face like Medusa’s snakes.’

 This combined with the mentions of the costume being red and blue (rather than blue and red) and Peter noting it’s ‘so like his own’ make it seem as the design is meant to more closely resemble the original Spider-Man design. That said there is this one quote that might balance out the artwork somewhat; ‘May Parker had always known that she’d grow up to wear the webbed mask and the famous blue and scarlet garb.’ When added to a brief mention of the first two Spider-Women, it might help explain the potential discrepancy. Either way, I’ve grown to like the Tom Grummett's Spider-Girl 2020 design, even if it does seem to be missing the gold web-shooters.

As for the actual story, accompanying Arno Stark’s Iron Man and his Iron-Bots into the sewers beneath Queens, where they encountered Spider-Man, Cable and Aliya, Spider-Girl is shocked and angered to encounter an apparent imposter posing as her deceased father. When the trio of dimension-hopping heroes briefly escape, Arno brings a subway stop’s ceiling down on them, against the heroic Spider-Girl’s protests. However, Spider-Man and company are rescued from the rubble by Machine Man and his friends, the Midnight Wreckers. When Arno returns to finish the job, Spider-Girl again battles Spider-Man until he unmasks and convinces her of his good intentions. With Iron Man knocked out of commission, Spider-Girl orders his Iron-Bots to retreat, allowing Spider-Man, Cable and Aliya to complete their mission.

Unfortunately, that’s it for this Spider-Girl, except to say her appearance in the Time’s Arrow novel was later confirmed as taking place in the same 2020 A.D. as various other characters in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005. That is, Spider-Girl 2020 shares the same universe as not just Arno Stark’s version of Iron Man but also Machine Man, Death’s Head and Wild Thing (no, not that one! This one’s name is Nikki Doyle). The coloured image of Spider-Girl 2020 originates from the aforementioned handbook as part of a composite image of various denizens of that reality by various artists. The composition, colouring and art reconstruction were (I believe) the work of Scott Elmer under the pseudonym Pond Scum. I mention this as there only exist two official images of the Spider-Girl 2020 character, and this is, to date, the only one reproduced in colour.

Notably, writer Tom Defalco is the co-creator of the world and various characters of Earth-8410’s 2020 including Arno Stark, the Machine Man of 2020 and the Midnight Wreckers and afterwards would frequently reference them in his other work. Or at least he used to, before he conceived the MC2 Universe with frequent collaborator and handsome devil Ron Frenz. I’d absolutely love to see a small crossover with these two Tom Defalco-created Spider-Girl’s, especially because they have such varied stories, ages and costumes and present very different iterations of May Parker.





Until I stop living in the far-flung year of…erm…. the present, I remain



frogoat

Quick Facts: MC2 Edition No. 4

This factoid will be the fast and furious fourth in the series of facts.

Did you know that the MC2 was the originator of both the Revengers (A-Next #12) and Savage Six (Spider-Girl #25) teams. A Revengers team led by Wonder Man would later be used in the regular Marvel Universe in  New Avengers Annual vol.2 #1. The Savage Six name would also be used in the MU by the Crime Master's team of villains starting with Venom vol. 2 #17.

The MC2 Revengers.

Until Tom Defalco gets the recognition he deserves, I remain

frogoat

Quick Facts: MC2 Edition No. 1
Quick Facts: MC2 Edition No. 2
Quick Facts: MC2 Edition No. 3