Edge of Spider-Verse #3
Aaron Aikman: The Spider-Man
Previously….
Doctor Aaron Aikman is a brilliant molecular biologist at the Ikegami Medical Institute, a world-class medical facility with cutting-edge research laboratories.[1] There he worked exclusively on finding medical applications for spider venom. Three years ago he experimented upon himself, fusing his DNA with that of a spider. This process gave him extraordinary powers he used to fight crime as the Spider-Man.
He had gained enhanced strength and agility and the ability to crawl on walls. Using his scientific genius he developed webbing as well as a suit of armor with various technological devices to assist in his crime-fighting activities. His first foe was Redeye, who was an astronaut that was transformed into a powerful creature during a botched mission to Jupiter that exposed him to radiation.[2]
About a year ago, a new foe named Naamurah appeared in the city. Naamurah began kidnaping people in the middle of the night. Spider-Man’s powers proved no effect on her. Nammurah claimed that she came through a door in the dark and more like her wait and that this world will fall.[3] Since then, Akiman has been working each night at his lab to come with new methods to deal with Naamurah when they meet again.
The only meaningful relationship in Akiman’s life was with Dr. Kaori Ikegami, who was his boss at the Ikegami Medical Institute. Kaori’s expertise was in robotics which she used to make the world a better way. Seven years ago, tragedy struck when Kaori’s daughter, Hannah, was hit by a car. She survived but was suffered severe brain damage and that she would be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life. Unwilling to have Hannah live like this, Kaori stepped down from her position to focus all her time on finding a cure for her daughter. Aaron assisted Kaori and the two grew closer until one day Kaori moved her daughter to a separate facility. Although they are still together, Kaori is becoming more distant and has refused any further assistance from him.
Now
In the following months, Aaron has been spending his free time tracking Naamurah’s movements in the hopes of stopping her kidnapping spree. As Aaron prepares to go out there is a knock at the door. It is Kaori who has come to ask Aaron to run away with her, but he declines because of his responsibilities. She then asks for his help. He agrees but tells her it will have to wait until the morning because he has to give a lecture at the Panacea Institute in the morning. However, Kaori knows that he is lying and asks why he never asks how she or Hannah are doing anymore, as though he doesn’t care. That’s when Aaron points out that she pushed him out of their lives and assumes that Hannah is dead. This deeply upsets Kaori who then flees his apartment. He tries to apologize, but she refuses to listen and drives away.
Aaron wants to help, but can’t be expected to drop everything just because she is asking for his help out of the blue. With that in mind, Akiman goes out as Spider-Man and continues his hunt for Naamurah. He quickly finds someone who resembles his foe, but when he attacks them he discovers that this kidnapper is a male named Darroh. Like Naamurah before him, Darroh speaks of coming through a door. He tells Spider-Man that in the corridors between their worlds death is coming for him.[4] That’s when Spider-Man recognizes Darroh as one of the kidnapping victims. When he demands answers from Darroh, his foe slips into a coma.
Aaron Aikman rushes Darroh to the Ikegami Center where another doctor examines him. She believes his coma had to do with the machinery wired into his body as it was attached to his brain stem. Aaron is allowed to examine the machine itself before it is handed over to the police as evidence. It is a bio-engineered neural interface similar to the one that Aaron himself was developing. When she asks if he’s seen it before, Aaron instantly recognizes it as the work of Kaori Ikegami.
Aaron goes to Kaori’s private lab as Spider-Man where he confronts her with the neural interface and demands to know what happened to Hannah. She explains that after Aaron told her to accept her daughter’s condition she decided to continue her work alone. One night, her work bore fruit and Hannah woke up. However, not long after she began talking to something else in the room that only she could see. Hannah was afraid of the entity because she thought it was just a dream. This entity then took possession of Hannah. Hearing this, Spider-Man realizes that the entity in question was Naamurah. From there, Naamurah had forced her to build more machines and graft them to the kidnapping victims. When Aaron asks her how many she has done this to, Kaori reveals she did it to all of them and they are all out seeking new victims for the second wave.
Spider-Man races out of the room, realizing that these entities are from another dimension that are using the bodies of their victims to invade this world. Spider-Man is the only one that can stop them and as he thinks about what Darroh said earlier he runs into a man standing at the exit of the building. When Aaron asks who he is this man — Morlun of the Inheritors — says that he is the end of Spider-Man’s story and mankind is doomed.[5]
Recurring Characters
Morlun
Continuity Notes
This story takes place in Reality-31411 per Secret Wars: The Official Handbook of the Multiverse #1.
Redeye’s profile is designed to look like the first series of Marvel Universe trading cards that were released in 1990.
Here was are provided a profile for Nammurah that is designed like the reverse side of the 2nd series of Marvel Universe trading cards that come out in 1991.
Even when they are correcting things they’re inept. Pro-tip: A correction doesn’t go in the trivia section, morons.
4. A certain poorly maintained wiki suggests that Nammurah and Darroh are Inheritors like Morlun and his family. Which, if you have proper reading comprehension skills you’d know that this story does not even remotely suggest that. More to the point, neither character is seen beyond this issue. I point this out because I like pointing out how inaccurate and sloppy their work is. They should be embarrassed.
5. It should be noted that this storyline remains unresolved as of January 2021. This is despite the fact that, following Spider-Verse, a team of multiversal Spider-Men remained to assist realities that lost their spiders.
