How One Marvel Story Transformed Spider-Man's Webs Into the Stuff of My Actual Nightmares

How One Marvel Story Transformed Spider-Man’s Webs Into the Stuff of My Actual Nightmares


Spider-Man usually presents himself as a friendly neighborhood hero, but it’s not lost on most people that the general idea of Spider-Man is pretty creepy. Spiders are scary in general, and someone who can crawl on walls and web people up has the potential for legitimate horror. I never really found the basic version of Spider-Man scary, but one story took Spider-Man’s webbing and turned it into my own personal nightmare fuel.




I first saw this nightmare version of Spider-Man in Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 by Alex Paknadel and Dio Neves. In this story, New York and the world have suffered an event called the Unraveling. Every physical thing in the world is unraveling and completely falling apart, including both buildings and people.

It’s a horrific situation, and Spider-Man does everything he can to literally hold these people together. Using his webbing, Spider-Man swings through New York City every morning, using his webs to hold the buildings and people together for the day.



Spider-Man Is the Only Thing Keeping New York City Together

The Darkhold: Spider-Man by Alex Paknadel, Dio Neves, Jim Charalampidis, and Clayton Cowles

Comic book panel: Spider-Man Uses His Webbing To Hold Together Dr. Otto

Unfortunately, Spider-Man’s webbing dissolves after a certain period of time. Even with a better formula that lasted 24 hours, Peter still had to swing through the city and make sure that no one has fallen apart. It’s an incredibly disturbing situation. Body horror is a pretty common horror trope in the stories that I’ve read and seen, but people literally falling apart and having to be held together each day is a something brand-new, and it’s absolutely terrifying. Spider-Man has had a lot of horror spins in the character’s history, but this one puts the perfect twist on his sense of responsibility that turns this story into a true nightmare.

The idea of being webbed up by Spider-Man has always been fairly scary…


Spider-Man has a lot of powers, but natural webbing isn’t one of them. Instead, Spider-Man has had to create a fluid that he keeps in canisters around his wrists, allowing him to spray webbing at anyone or anything he needs. His webs are pretty strong too, with the strength and durability of steel. The idea of being webbed up by Spider-Man has always been fairly scary, but this nightmare world took the notion to the next level. The part that really disturbs me is that Spider-Man’s webbing has that pesky flaw of dissolving, meaning that Peter is forced to find a longer-lasting solution to hold his world together.


All Spider-Man needs is something to hold the world together; it doesn’t absolutely have to be his webs. Because of the constant pressure of keeping the city together, Peter eventually goes insane. Wanting to find a permanent solution, or at least a better one, Peter eventually attacks and captures Reeed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He then transforms Reed into his own personal living web.Since Reed is capable of stretching remarkably far, and he never dissolves, Spider-Man seems to have found the most horrific possible solution to his problem, managing to hold the city together with a new living web.

Spider-Man Can’t Hold the City Together Forever

Despite How Far He’s Willing to Go to Save Others

Comic book page: Reed Richard's Uses His Finger As Webbing

There are so many terrifying versions of Spider-Man. There’s Spiders-Man, a Spider-Man variant who is made up of a thousand spiders. There’s Patton Parnel, a cannibalistic serial killer version of Peter Parker, and there’s, of course, the black suit Spider-Man. I think it’s truly undeniable that Spider-Man lends himself to horror. He’s a terrifying character in the right hands, and Marvel has no shortage of terrifying versions of the iconic web-slinger, from zombies all the way to demented serial killers. But this interpretation of Spider-Man in Darkhold is the scariest one, I think, for one simple reason.


Comic book art: Ultimate Spider-Man swinging through the city.

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All the other versions of Spider-Man that I’ve mentioned are intentional horrific twists on the Spider-Man character. Patton Parnel is a serial killer who is explicitly designed to be the exact opposite of everything Peter Parker is. While that change in character can certainly be terrifying, it’s not exactly as scary as a Spider-Man who is still everything Peter Parker stands for, but twisted in a demented direction. Spider-Man is all about responsibility; he often feels like he has to hold the world together all on his own. In this twisted world where the Unraveling happened, that’s taken to a horrific literal conclusion for him.


Reed Richards Is Transformed Into Spider-Man’s Living Web

Mister Fantastic Makes a Great Spider-Man Accessory

Comic book page: Spider-Man Captures Reed Richards And Turns Him Into A Web

Usually, Spider-Man is one of the most hopeful and upbeat characters in the Marvel Universe. No matter what happens to him, he always tries to respond with a joke and is always there to help anyone he can, no matter what. But this intense sense of responsibility is one of the scariest things about Spider-Man. No matter what happens, he feels like it’s his fault, and in a world where he’s one of the last heroes capable of holding people together, he’s going to do anything he can to save them – including going to absolutely horrific lengths about which I will surely be having Spider-Man themed nightmares for months to come.

Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 is available now from Marvel Comics.


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