Spider-Girl's First Web-Shooters

I haven’t done a May ‘Mayday’ Parker focused post in a while and thanks to some recent difficulties with other projects I’ve been trying to complete, I figured I should try and shine some light on everyone’s favourite arachnid hero of the MC2, the Stunning Spider-Girl. So, for this post I wanted to start with something from May’s first appearance: Spider-Girl’s First Web-shooters.

 

The MC2’s primary protagonist Spider-Girl makes her debut in the pages of What If #105, where we first witness May suit up in a familiar webbed costume which is stated to belong to her ‘Uncle Ben’ aka Ben Reilly, the Sensational Spider-Man. It’s this costume’s web-shooters I want to focus on, as presumably they are a pair of Ben’s own design.

 

Here’s Mayday as Spider-Girl swinging into action for the first time against Normie Osborn’s Green Goblin, where she uses a double-tap to first a web-line. In fact, the web-shooters play a key part in the battle’s climax. However, at the story’s conclusion, the Parker family have an impromptu ceremony in their backyard, seemingly burning both Ben’s Spider-Man costume and web-shooters. Or did they?

In Spider-Girl #1 -which takes place shortly after the events of What If #105- we learn May secretly stashed a pair of web-shooters and a handful of web-cartridges. So, are these Ben’s web-shooters? Initially I was going to rely on visual design or details to discern the truth. We have a ton of information about how both Ben and Peter’s web-shooters are designed, look and work thanks to the wonderful technical art of Eliot R. Brown from both the Jackal Files and the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol. 9.

 

 Unfortunately, there was absolutely no artistic design consistency during the Clone Saga and nor should there be, really. So, do May’s original web-shooters look the same as Ben’s own web-shooter design from that era? Sure, sometimes, sometimes not, it really depends on who was drawing them back then and if that’s consistent with how Pat Olliffe draws them in the Spider-Girl series. With that option gone, what else can we use to determine if May is wearing a set of Peter’s or Ben’s web-shooters?

 

Jumping ahead to Spider-Girl #17, we have the now-classic return of Spider-Man when Peter confiscates the web-shooters Mayday has been using in an attempt to prevent her from confronting Kaine. Peter explicitly states ‘Taking your costume away doesn’t work, but those web-shooters belong to me. And I want them back!’

 

Let’s jump back a bit now for some more context: Peter took May’s costume away in Spider-Girl #5 and though she briefly retrieves it to stop Spider-Venom she remains without her costume and web-shooters until Mary Jane returns them to her in Spider-Girl #7. All evidence seems to strongly indicate that Peter not only confiscated the only existing web-shooters in the Parker home, but also uses these same web-shooters when he suits up in the aforementioned Spider-Girl #17, during which he symbolically and literally hands them down to May.

 

That was the long answer, here’s the short version: it appears that if May was indeed originally using Ben Reilly’s own web-shooters they were really destroyed in What If #105. Curious about if I had this straight, I reached out to Ron Frenz for his thoughts on the matter and he had this to say:

‘Honest answer: I never knew there was any difference between Pete and Ben’s web-shooters. Having said that, Mayday used Ben’s web-shooters as Pete’s were always available to him whenever he decided to climb into the monkey suit.’

 

With all this in mind, my personal interpretation is that after What If #105 Mayday can only have gained her own set of web-shooters after the events of Spider-Girl #17. Prior to this, she only had access to the one pair which Peter identified as his own. After this Peter either made May a new set based on Ben’s or modified his own design to reflect his brother’s additions. It’s also possible Peter had a set of Ben’s web-shooters stashed someplace May was unaware of, but this doesn’t seem likely without supporting evidence.

A huge thank you to Ron Frenz for his input and to arias-98105 for always throwing me a helping hand when I need it. Don’t dispose of pressurized metallic objects in fires, kids.

 

Until I figure out what the composition of artificial web-fluid actually is and retire a billionaire, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

Raimi-Verse References in the MC2

 

Following on from the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home villain posts, for no specific reason today’s post will be about the various Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie trilogy references, easter eggs and connections in the MC2, including those I consider too coincidental not to mention. For short, here’s Raimi-Verse References in the MC2.

 

First up, here’s one I’ve always thought was ahead of it’s time and almost certainly unintentional. In Spider-Girl #5 we first meet the MC2’s Venom symbiote. When the symbiote bonds to it’s former original host Peter Parker we get a variation on both the Spider-Man and Venom’s costumes combined dubbed ‘Spider-Venom’. Now, to me this looks way too similar to Spider-Man 3’s Venom costume design for it *not* to be an inspiration. Of course, it’s more than likely a huge coincidence but it’s amusing that this comic was published in 1999, a whole seven years before the film was released. On an unrelated note, as far as I’m aware this may also be the first example of the symbiote replacing a host’s lost limb using it’s own bio-mass over a decade before ‘Agent Venom’ was a concept.

 

When a mysterious new Spider-Man first showed up at the Daily Bugle in Spider-Girl #32, he was rocking a new costume design which included classic eye-pieces and a red and black colour scheme. Additionally, the stylized spider emblem on both the front and back of the costume bore a very familiar design. While the front is a larger, modified version of Peter Parker’s own, the back with the red colour is remarkable for it’s strikingly similarity to the one first seen on screen a year later in the first Spider-Man movie.

 

Another fun detail -again more than likely unintentional- is the fact that this new Spider-Man (actually Gerry Drew, the son of the original Spider-Woman) is capable of producing organic webbing much like the Raimi-Verse’s version of Peter Parker (Spider-Girl #37). Meanwhile Peter’s ability to produce organic webbing wouldn’t be introduced in the Main Marvel Universe until 2004’s Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #20 in what was most likely an attempt at synergy between the comics and films.

 

This next one is probably my personal favourite. While attending an engagement party for Normie Osborn and Brenda Drago, Mary Jane points out to Peter a fellow partygoer’s uncanny resemblance to someone he should know all too well. Needless to say, Peter doesn’t see the resemblance and instead thinks he looks like Tobey Maguire (Spider-Girl #82). Of course, the man MJ points out is Reilly Tyne aka Darkdevil aka the son of Ben Reilly aka the clone brother of Peter Parker himself which makes this joke all the more amusing.

 

Okay, this one was so obvious I really have no idea how I nearly missed it when compiling this post! After hanging up her webs as Spider-Girl months prior, May ‘Mayday’ Parker suddenly finds herself in need of make-shift disguise. Thus, the short-lived adventures of the Red Hoodie Girl begin (Spider-Girl #1-#2, Avengers Next #1). Obviously, this look will seem very familiar to anyone who’s watched the original Spider-Man movie as it’s Peter’s ‘Human Spider’ wrestling costume.  

Calling back to the concept of producing organic webs, Peter’s second child, Benjy is shown to have developed just that ability, first in Amazing Spider-Girl #9 and later in Amazing Spider-Girl #30 when the infant manages to save himself and his mother from a deadly fall at the hands of a returned Norman Osborn. This is nicely foreshadowed in a scene where Peter and Mayday discuss organic webbing while producing a fresh batch of web-fluid together in Amazing Spider-Girl #20).

 

There’s also a nice little Raimi-Verse Spider-Man costume reference on the cover of Amazing Spider-Girl #11 featuring Peter Parker strung-up by Carnage’s tendrils, his Spider-Man costume adorned with the spider-design of his film counterpart.

 

That’s all I have for now, if you think I’ve forgotten or overlooked a reference to Sam Raimi trilogy, let me know! I thought this would be a nice little bit of fun to close things out for now.

 

Until I learn they’ve brought Tobey’s Spider-Man back… with a daughter in tow, I remain

 

frogoat

Where is Cletus Kasady in the MC2?

 

While I’ve been busy lately, it’s perhaps a good thing I already jumped the gun and detailed Carnage in the MC2 years back when the first Venom movie came out. That said, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage out in cinema (well, in some parts of the world! Not here yet, sadly) I figure I should at least try and put out something to tie-in. One question not specifically addressed in my previous post is the whereabouts of Carnage’s first and most iconic host: Where is Cletus Kasady in the MC2?

 

Cletus Kasady made his very first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #344, cameoing as Eddie Brock’s prison cellmate. When the Venom symbiote busted Eddie out, it left behind it’s offspring which bonded with serial killer Cletus to become the mass-murdering Carnage and the rest is history (Amazing Spider-Man #345, #359-#361). 

 

When a splinter of the Carnage symbiote (specifically Specimen 297 of 300) appeared in the MC2 starting in Amazing Spider-Girl #9, Cletus was nowhere to be seen. To explore why, we should look to the last published appearance of Cletus Kasady prior the MC2’s own publication history, a two-part story in Amazing Spider-Man #430-#431. The story starts out as a fairly standard ‘Carnage on a rampage’ plot until the Silver Surfer shows up and the Carnage symbiote abandons Cletus and bonds with the Surfer (Amazing Spider-Man #430).

 

While at first it seems as though Cletus is merely suffering a kind of withdrawal in the absence of his symbiote ‘other’, when Spider-Man takes Kasady to a hospital it’s discovered that he is suffering from an advanced case of stomach cancer and that the symbiote has been keeping him alive (Amazing Spider-Man #431).

 

By the story’s conclusion, the Surfer allows the Carnage symbiote to re-bond with Kasady…only to leave him encased in an unbreakable shell of ethereal energy ‘for the rest of his life’. Ironically, the Main Marvel Universe never really addresses Cletus’ situation, either how he escaped this seemingly permanent imprisonment nor recovered from his terminal cancer. Instead, the next time we see him he’s just in prison and shortly afterwards has his symbiote eaten by Venom with almost no ill effects. Wasted potential.

 

While we also don’t have an explanation for how the Carnage symbiote escaped the Silver Surfer’s encasement (though perhaps I could present a theory on that someday?) we can assume that Cletus Kasady is probably long dead in the MC2. The interesting thing to note is that both stories here were written by Tom Defalco and both refer to the symbiotes ability to keep a host alive even with a terminal cancer diagnosis, with the Carnage symbiote promising to help save new host Moose Mansfield’s father in exchange for his co-operation (Amazing Spider-Girl #9-#12).

 

Well, hopefully you got something out of this. I know I was pleasantly surprised when I realized the similarities between the two Defalco Carnage stories. I’m also fairly sure Defalco was the first person to associate symbiotes with cancer in anyway.

 

Until I find another tangential connection to the Venom films, I remain

 

frogoat