THE TIMES WHEN SPIDER-MAN WAS ACTUALLY A ROBOT OR CYBORG. 

SPIDER-MAN MAY BE FRIENDLY, BUT THESE SPIDER-MONSTERS ARE HORRIBLE AND TERRIFYING.

Marvel also loves turning Spider-Man into a monster like some horrible Halloween costume mash-up. Easily the most famous is the Man-Spider, which was first seen in  Marvel Fanfare #2, as Peter Parker horribly de-evolved. This turned him into a creepy six-armed spider-monster. While most people probably haven’t read that one comic, the premise has been recycled in  pretty  much  every Spider-Man cartoon since. The creepiest Man-Spider goes to  Patton Parnel, who appeared in  Edge of Spider-Verse #4. When he turned into the Man-Spider he became a psychotic serial killer who  ate his victims. If that’s not creepy enough, his teeth contain spider eggs that hatch into thousands of baby spiders, which we find out after one embedded in his girlfriend’s neck hatches. Gross.

Then you’ve got your standard issue  Spider-Vampire, first seen in  What If? Vol 2 #24 . It’s a story that takes place where  Wolverine is the king of the vampires because it was written in a time where any X-Men story was a license to print money. Not much to really say here except for he got killed by the  Punisher who’s the Sorcerer Supreme of that world. No joke.

 Naturally, Marvel also turned Spider-Man into the most derivative horror monster of the 21st century: a zombie. During the hugely popular  Marvel Zombies run, Spider-Man was one of the many infected heroes who turned into a flesh-eating zombie. The poor guy couldn’t stop himself from eating Aunt May and Mary Jane. His grieving process didn’t last too long because apparently, the zombie virus reduces you to making bad puns about eating people. If that wasn’t wacky enough, the Spider-Zombie later became cosmic powered and helped eat the entire universe, and later was given cyborg limbs, because why the hell not? What is really gross about this character is when he ran out of webbing he shot veins out of his wrists. Barf.

They’ve even teased us with a  Spider-Werewolf in the incredibly ridiculous  Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness #5. Apparently, fans were clamoring for a version of Spider-Man that sheds.

If there’s one thing Japan is good at, it’s taking western pop-culture and turning it into something absolutely bug shit crazy (pardon the pun). In the 1970s, Marvel Comics licensed out Spider-Man to artists in Japan and what they pumped out was certainly unique.

 

Let’s talk about the Spider-Man Manga: Published in Monthly Shōnen Magazine and drawn by Ryoichi Ikegami (Crying Freeman, Sanctuary), it featured serialized adventures of Yu Komori, a Japanese boy who becomes Spider-Man. It’s most memorable quality was a wildly shifting tone. One minute the manga had slapstick humor, the next there was sex and gratuitous violence, all as it’s black and white format made everything super gloomy. It’s like Spider-Man being written by a manic depressive.

Next, we have Takuya Yamashiro who was the Spider-Man on the Japanese television show Supaidāman if you wanna romanize スパイダーマン. The series was a precursor to shows like Power Rangers and a complete departure from the source material. Takuya is a motorcycle racer who’s given a device by aliens from the planet Spider that turns him into Spider-Man so he can fight monsters. As is the fashion in Sentai shows, said monsters also grow to massive size, forcing Spider-Man to summon a massive robot named Leopardon, who is oddly not very spider-themed at all.

Fun fact about this show:  Supaidāman was so successful for Toei Studios that the studio used it as the template for creating  Super Sentai the series of shows that were later recycled into  Power Rangers. So next time you watch  Power Rangers, you can thank Spider-Man for helping make it happen.

Although Spider-Man has been in publication for well over 50 years, the character himself has pretty much been in his twenties the entire time. However, some intrepid writers created worlds where Spider-Man is getting on over the years. Nothing says excitement like a perpetually insecure adult going through the ravages of age.

In the early 2000s, Marvel pumped a trilogy of books under the  Earth X banner. It featured a Marvel Universe some 30 years in the future. Naturally, there was a big moment where Spider-Man had to get back into action to help save the world. One problem with that: Peter was quite overweight by this point and the only costume on hand was a cheap store-bought Halloween costume.

Not long after this, Marvel also decided to copy the success of the  Dark Knight Returns by creating a similar story where an elderly  Spider-Mangets back into crime fighting. Whereas  Dark Knight Returns features an elderly Batman kicking ass and taking names,  Spider-Man: Reign featured Peter Parker constantly mourning his dead wife, and being generally depressed. If you wanted to know the tragic consequences of Spider-Man’s love life and see him bawling his eyes out while fighting the corpse of his  greatest villain, this is the story for you!

And that concludes a look back at some of the weirdest alternate Spider-Men. In summary, just because comic books are the realm of infinite possibilities, doesn’t mean they’re all serious ones.