Spiderman: The Other
Peter is having dreams about Morlun, a villain who was hunting Spiderman for his spider-related powers some time ago
The dreams involve him being dead in a morgue with Morlin pulling out the body
Steve Rogers gives him advice about it and tells him not to rely on pure instinct but a focused, calculated plan
Morlun spies on Peter in his apartment from a rooftop
Peter has a debilitating illness of some kind and falls down into an alley. Morlun appears and warns that he’ll kill Peter soon. Morlun is supposed to be dead
Spiderman stops a robot called Tracer from killing Aunt May. Before Tracer is decommissioned, it reveals that Peter has an illness in front of MJ and May. Peter must now confess the truth
Reed Richards and Hank Pym and Bill Foster study Peter and deduce there’s cellular degeneration that may be tied to his radiation-based abilities. They seek out Bruce Banner for more expertise
Bruce refers Peter to T’challa. He gives him the HSH to see if it will help. It does not
Spiderman hallucinates seeing Morlun again when he beats up a crook named Fat Teddy back in an alley in NY. Daredevil stops Spidey from inadvertently killing Fat Teddy
Even Doctor Strange tells Spiderman that his death is inevitable after sensing Peter’s illness with the mystic arts
Peter and MJ look at Earth from space in a Stark Inc shuttle that Tony loaned to them so they can enjoy Peter’s final moments
Morlun confronts Spiderman and declares it’s time. Their battle begins
Spiderman gives his best effort and fights hard buT Morlun is much stronger. He relentlessly beats Spidey
Morlun pulls Spiderman’s left eye out and continues to beat him to a pulp
Peter is taken to the hospital where the doctors declare he’s in the ICU
As Morlun hovers over Peter, MJ tries to stop him. Peter awakens as a spider-creature with red eyes, sharp teeth, and spurs protruding from his wrists
Peter kills as Morlun disintegrates
MJ screams as Iron Man, Cap, and Luke Cage rush to the scene
Peter dies in MJ’s arms
Mary Jane tells May the heartbreaking
Tony Stark offers options to Mary Jane to make Peter’s death seem like it was a common cause of death including making the body disappear either hit by a ship’s propellor or burned to avoid suspicion that it was involved in superhuman-related activity to protect Peter’s identity
Mary Jane is very distraught
Wolverine provokes MJ by telling her he’s available now that Peter is dead but deliberately played that card so that Mary Jane can let some rage out by slapping him
MJ makes the decision of not making it look like an accident and instead that he turned up dead after missing for some time
An intruder alert is activated from the mortuary where Peter’s body is stored. His body has a hole where it appears as if something came out of it
MJ, Tony, Steve, Luke, and Jessica Drew all see it. They believe someone cut Peter’s body open
Steve deduces by the broken window that someone was trying to get out, not in. Stark surmises that a smart and dangerous individual must’ve done this but thinks more logically that it may have been Peter
A huge spider sac is seen by a kid on a field trip under an underpass
Peter is in an afterlife of some kind and is communicating with a spider who tell him him The Spider has been inside him always but Peter chose to put the spider on the outside by wearing a costume and becoming Spiderman
The spider explains that the spider was just cloth that Peter could take off and become and feel like a regular human again and now the spider has taken Peter off in a sense. Peter was bitten and chosen by the spider
The spider tells Peter that he only possessed the most basic of his gifts and treated them like a toy as a child would (spider-sense, adhesion, strength, agility) because they were what he had on the surface
The spider reveals what happened to Peter in the hospital was the merger and the spider. Peter died but the spider did not and did to Morlun what Morlun intended to- take his life energy
A spider emerges from the sac in the underpass with Peter’s face scaring people. It is a possibility of what may happen
The spider explains to Peter that his secondary gift is being able to shed his former skin and begin life anew but he must not repress the spider this time. He must embrace the spider, The OTHER
Peter embraces the spider as they become one and Peter is reborn as he emerges from the sac
Peter returns to MJ and May at Avengers Tower where they reunite along with the New Avengers
Back in his and MJ’s apartment he thinks deeply about what the Other said just before his resurrection: is he himself or is the other?
As Peter is being studied by Stark, he’s positioned akin to The Vitruvian Man who appears to have 8 limbs. The Vitruvian Man is based on the theoretical architectural writings of Vitruvius who stated all buildings should have 3 attributes: firmitas (strength), utilitus (utility), and venustas (beauty). Peter being positioned like The Vitruvian Man is an allusion to spiders being architects
Hundreds of spiders web up scientists studying Peter’s former husk and eat it
While swinging through Manhattan with MJ, Peter senses the spiders and heads to Avengers Tower to find the top portion webbed up
He goes to the lab where his body was stored and finds the spiders have formed into a humanoid creature. Peter’s wrist stingers are instinctually activated
He follows the creature across the city who tells him one must live while the other dies and that it was Peter’s time to die but the Great Weaver decided it wasn’t time. Another cosmic entity decided there must be a price
The creature disbands and retreats somewhere as Peter returns to Avengers Tower where he is to be subjected for more tests
Peter ponders what the creature meant by telling him “evolve or die”
Peter consults with Doctor Strange who confirms he is at the center of a cosmic web
Peter asks if he is the man or the Other and Strange cryptically tells him he could be either or both
Strange tells him there is a cosmic connective response at work because Peter survived
Peter develops two new abilities: night vision and hair-sensory
Peter confesses to MJ that he was afraid to study more in-depth about his powers after being bitten because was afraid of what a man and spider merger would completely be like