Spider-Man Family #1
Old Enemies Never Die!
Mayday Parker is walking through the halls at school when he friends approach her with a video the found, a cartoon parody of Spider-Man called Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham.[2]
May gets a copy of her own and watches it at home when her father comes into the room to see what’s she’s watching. He tells her that there were many cartoons, comics, and movies based on his adventures but he never saw any royalties from them.[3] That’s when he notices that she’s watching Peter Porker and is not happy to see it again. He remembers first hearing about the cartoon years ago when he used to work for the Daily Bugle.[4] J. Jonah Jameson was furious to learn that they were making a cartoon based on Spider-Man, even if it is a silly pig themed parody. Peter also didn’t like the idea of his likeness being used and was able to learn from Jameson that the cartoon was produced by Heartland Entertainment, and was able to get the address.
He decided to pay a visit to the animation studio as Spider-Man. There his spider-sense started going off, but he wasn’t overly concerned. That’s when he ran into Araña and her sidekick Miguel Legar.[5] Hearing this, May asks what happened to Araña, but her father admits that he doesn’t know. Getting back to his story he recalls how he, Araña and Miguel found a room filled with a bunch of statues of Spider-Man representing various points in his career.[6] Suddenly, the statues came to life and started attacking them. They are all mostly easy to destroy but when a Spider-Man wearing Spider-Armor tries to attack Araña she summons her carapace. Miguel eventually destroyed the rest of the robots with a single spell. He also uncovered their true foe Jack O’Lantern. When Peter refers to Jack as a female, he pauses his story to explain to May that she was Maguire Beck, the niece of Mysterio and how she took his place as a criminal illusionist after his death.[7] Concluding his story, he writes off the fact that Beck called her character Peter Porker out of coincidence. As her father leaves the room, May checks who distributed Peter Porker and discovers that it is still Heartland Entertainment.
Changing into Spider-Girl, May swings over to Heartland Entertainment’s studio and as she enters the building her spider-sense begins going off just like her father’s did years earlier. Inside Spider-Girl is greeted by what looks like an ordinary secretary. She is surprised that her re-release of Spider-Ham attracted attention so quickly. The secretary then transforms into her true form, revealing her to be Jack O’Lantern. Jack is upset when Spider-Girl asks if she’s too old to still be a super-villain, complaining about a double standard between male and female super-humans. As they fight, Spider-Girl also asks if Jack had anything to do with the disappearance of Araña, although Jack O’Lantern is surprised to hear Spider-Girl knows about Araña, she doesn’t know where the heroine disapped too.
Realizing that Jack’s illusions are messing with her perceptions, Spider-Girl closes her eyes and focuses on her spider-sense and punches what she thinks is Jack O’Lantern. When her foe’s head gets knocked clean off she discovers that she had been fighting a robot the whole time. Wondering if Jack O’Lantern was really responsible or not and who might be setting this up, Spider-Girl decides to head home. She is unaware that she is being observed by Araña and Miguel who put this all together as a test of Spider-Girl’s abilities. Araña is impressed and figures Spider-Girl will be worthy of working for their organization.[8]
Recurring Characters
Spider-Girl. Peter Parker, Davida Kirby, Courtney Duran, Araña, (in flashback) J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson
Continuity Notes
This story takes place in the MC2 Universe, an alternate future of Earth-616. It has been designated as Reality-982 in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005. This universe diverges from Earth-616 circa Amazing Spider-Man #418. Instead of having a miscarriage, Mary Jane gives birth to her daughter May Parker. Peter and Mary Jane are also still married in this reality.
Although presented as a cartoon here, there are multiple realities that exist in the Marvel Multiverse where there is a Spider-Ham. The most well-known reality is Earth-8311 which first appeared in Marvel Tails Starring Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham #1.
Earth-982 has a mostly parallel past with Earth-616, that said heroes in the Marvel Universe have had their adventures adapted into comic books since Fantastic Four #10. How the adventures of Spider-Man get adapted into a comic book on Earth-616 is told in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #37.
Peter states here that his memory is a little fuzzy on how many years ago his memory is from. This is a vague reference to the fact that Earth-982 (like Earth-616) operates on a sliding timescale so the passage of time operates on a 4:1 ratio (four years of publications = 1 year in universe) A measurement that’s a little harder to peg down since MC2 have been less frequently printed than mainstream stories. That said, this story would be over 16 years old at the time of this story.
Mayday states here that she thought Araña started her career after her father retired as Spider-Man. On Earth-982, Peter was forced to retire as Spider-Man after losing his leg in battle, requiring him to get a cynbernetic leg as explained in What If? (vol. 2) #105.
The various versions of Spider-Man that are depicted here include….
The six-armed Spider-Man, from whe Peter accidentally gave himself six arms back in Amazing Spider-Man #100-102.
Spider-Man’s black and white costume patterened after the Venom symbiote, first seen in Amazing Spider-Man #252.
The Bombastic Bag man outfit, a Fantastic Four costume with a paper-bag for a mask that Peter was forced to wear when he discovered the symbiote was alive and turned it over to the Fantastic Four. It was first seen in Amazing Spider-Man #258.
The Spider-Armor that Peter wore briefly in Web of Spider-Man #100.
The Scarlet Spider costume worn by Ben Reilly starting in Web of Spider-Man #118.
The Spider-Man costume worn by Ben Reilly when he took over the role from Sensational Spider-Man #0 to Spider-Man #75.
Lastly there is the Spider-Man costume worn by Miguel O’Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099 first seen in Spider-Man 2099 #1.
On Earth-616, Mysterio committed suicide in Daredevil (vol. 2) #7. His cousin Maguire took over the role of Jack O’Lantern to follow in his footsteps. She first operated as Jack O’Lantern in Spectacular Spider-Man #243. Presumably, events on Earth-982 happened in a similar fashion.
Araña goes on to test Spider-Girl further starting in Amazing Spider-Girl #19
Topical References
Davida and Courtney are depicted having a DVD of Peter Proker and said they got it from a video store. Both of these facts should be considered topical references as DVD’s are not as ubiquitous as they were when this comic was published in 2005 thanks to the proliferation of digital downloads and streaming services. Likewise, video rental stores are virtually non-existent now, because digital media has made them nearly obsolete.
