Tis the season for all manner of monsters, so for today’s
post we will be taking a look at one monstrous transformation in the MC2:
the Attack of the 50 Foot Spider-Girl from Spider-Girl #90. Who
knows, maybe we will have some fun with this?
As I mentioned and as the cover to Spider-Girl #90 depicts,
May ‘Mayday’ Parker transforms into a giant monstrous spider-creature…or
so it seems. After an encounter
with the villain Misery, May unknowingly finds herself trapped in
a nightmare in which she changes into various forms reflecting her subconscious
fears. After apparently confronting Misery, Spider-Girl is
overpowered and begins to change into a giant humanoid spider creature. She is
then attacked by helicopters who shooter her down. Turning back to normal, May
soon begins to shrink to miniscule size. Eventually, after a pep talk from the
spirit of her namesake great-aunt, May realizes she is still trapped within
her nightmare and busts out of Misery’s Grief Machine and stops
her with a
single punch, for real this time.
The cover of Spider-Girl #90 proclaiming ‘Attack
of the 50 Foot Spider-Girl’ is a homage to the 1958 science fiction
horror movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, complete with similar pose.
Additionally, the aircraft shooting down a giant hairy monster
is a nod to the classic 1933 movie King
Kong and may also be influenced by various Godzilla films. Furthermore,
monstrous transformations in pop culture are often used as metaphors for a
person’s feeling of alienation, self-destructive behaviour, and loss of
humanity.
Let’s dive even deeper here, because Mayday’s father Peter
has not only sprouted extra
limbs before but has also been transformed into a Man-Spider by the Savage
Land denizen Brainchild in 1982’s Marvel Fanfare #2 and
later underwent a second Man-Spider ‘Spider-Morphosis’ thanks to
the machinations of the Plantman in 1998’s Amazing Spider-Man #437
(the latter of which is also written by Tom Defalco, coincidentally).
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This is a fun little story that looks at some of Mayday’s
fears and worries. It is not the last time May would think of herself as
a monstrous spider-creature, either. Nor her last encounter with her great-Aunt
May for that matter! I look forward to covering more of these ‘transformations’
in a later post someday but for now, that is all I’ve got!
Until I mess with the Plantman and get all bug-eyed
and hairy, I remain
frogoat