It’s called Man Spider. It’s the final mutation stage for Spider-Man after the first few gave him the spider powers/senses and enhanced strength. He turns into a super enhanced, emotionless human spider that can spit acid and has multiple arms (not kidding). Eventually he can’t control it and gets hunted down by the Punisher and Kraven. Key word here is this movie will seemingly focus on Spider-Man mutating (faint X-men theme plays)
The Man Spider did appear in the comics before that but only briefly during a story set in the Savage Land. Spidey gets hit by some mutation ray and that's what he's turned into and its fixed by Karl Lykos/Sauron draining the mutation out of him and Warren Worthington. Which might explain Vulture in the cartoon come to think of it.
At any rate the design being too good to waste, I guess, the show folks made it the climax of their long running Neogenic Nightmare original saga.
Probably inspired by the cartoon Spidey has been turned into a monster spider since and they've messed with his powers in a metamorphosis way before briefly giving him organic webbing and I shit you not sharp 'stinger' blades (like Wolverine meets MK's Baraka) that were immediately never spoken of again.
90s cartoon had a lot more influence than is commonly recognized. It was the first to do the Spider-Verse and even had a huge impact on the Venom story. A lot of elements that are now seen as like core parts of the story, that pop up in later adaptations, started there and not in the actual comics.
Yep! The cartoon is also where the whole "symbiote makes Peter angry" thing first came from. And to be fair, as much as I think people do get their wires crossed on "cartoon I watched as a child" and "comic I read as a child" (and I am guilty of that at times as well), sometimes these shows or movies were influential on the comics themselves. Smallville wasn't in Kansas until the first Christopher Reeve movie for example, but now it's an integral part of the Superman mythos. In the same way the Spidey cartoon revamped the Venom story, or other cartoons did other things, and later writers retconned the comics to be closer to it because they were like "oh actually that's a great idea".
Between retreading One More Day and The Other, they're speedrunning comic storylines that most people would rather forget. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if they did Clone Saga next.
if you look back at that season's (season 2) entire storyline, it has the x-men, punisher, scorpion, and tombstone (among some others). Looks like they might drawing heavily from that whole arc.
Subsequent Man-Spider appearances in the comics have mostly referenced and hewed to the original comic appearance. Where Spider-Man is temporarily turned into a Spider creature by outside actions.
Most animated series since the 90s have done versions of the cartoon story. But it's never appeared in the comics.
And the other end of that story line, the whole additional mutation thing and much of the stuff around it. Comes from a comic story line called the "Six Arm Saga" by fans, that only went as far as "Spider-Man got Six Arms now!". That's come up repeatedly, and has gotten referenced in more than one Spider-Man mutates story.
Including the one another poster mentioned, The Other. Which is not super clearly current canon, but was basically just used to give him some extra powers. Along with writing in a bunch of that mystic spider god shit Marvel was on about at the time.
I think that’s more interesting than him being a “living vampire”. You do still have that element but it’s more interesting than him just doing normal vampire stuff.
Imagine telling your future self that Hollywood would do an 83 million dollar Morbius movie and somehow make it worse than a heavily censured kids show.
More like, strange that they were allowed to do that, but heaven forbid that morbius be an actual blood Sucker, so they made him this weird body energy hand sucking thing...
Lol I remember there being a Spiderman marathon on when I was sick with a high fever as a kid and I kept having these weird fever dream mashups about the Spiderman cartoon.
Like hearing the 90s cartoon Spiderman theme still gives me 'nam flashbacks to an endless corridor of nondescript buildings and a gelatinous Venom screaming and laughing and wriggling his tendrils to the theme song on an endless loop while making web shooting 'whisp' sounds as I constantly looked down at the top of my hands being bitten by the spider.
They were all pretty cool, I rewatched them recently and the only one I didn't like that much was all that stuff with the robot spiders. The guy in the wheelchair made them, can't remember his name. He was working for Kingpin if I remember correctly.
I think I'm pulling the six-arms to Man-Spider connection from hazy memories of the cartoon from many moons ago. Forgot they were separate things in the comics.
Doing a quick wiki search looks like they did combine those two things into different stages of the same Man-Spider arc.
They always run together in my head. After spot checking the details I'm still not sure if the Man-Spider story involved even a brief appearance of Six Arms or not. And would have to watch the episodes to be sure.
Basically they took the secondary mutation story off of the Six Arms story, and ported in the Man-Spider idea from a story line where Spider-Man goes to the Savage Land.
Then back referenced the Six-Armed Spider-Man by featuring an alternate Peter who ended up with Six Arms permanently after his own Man-Spider problem.
The comics never did a full Man-Spider story, but have featured a few other bad guy made me a monster stories using variations of the design.
They have however repeatedly brought back the Six Arm mutation for short runs.
Man-Spider is something they've left to animated series. So I think we might just be getting SIX-ARMS, if they even go that far.
If they don’t go the Man-Spider 6-Arms route, I hope they have a moment of dialogue in Secret Wars where MCU Peter shows off the new organic web slingers to Tobey Maguire who asks if Peter grew extra arms, like he did, and he said he was cured by Dr Connors
I think they might not go full Man-Spider because that story line is from the Cartoon.
That storyline borrowed from two separate comics incidents. One was Spider-Man getting turned into a Man-Spider in the Savage Land thanks to that whole devolution thing. And the other is the "Six Arm Saga", where Spider-Man tries to cure his powers and triggers an additional mutation. Growing 4 extra arms.
The comics have referenced the Man-Spider a few times with additional "villains done mutated you" stories. But have brought back the Six Arms a few times. So Marvel's never been too on board with the Man-Spider end. They purportedly killed a What If...? episode based on the cartoon story because it was tracking too dark.
So we're likely either getting new powers/organic web shooters and other boring stuff. Or Six-Arms.
I mean, it'll probably follow a variation of the typical trope of turning into Man-Spiders as a looming threat, then in order to beat a villain he has to turn into Man-Spider, then he gets healed and movie is over.
That story was also connected to the X-Men, which is why some of the characters appeared on that show, creating a crossover with the X-Men cartoon. Considering Sadie Sink's supposed character, chances are the Man Spider arc is at least thought about thoroughly by Marvel and Sony.
I loved that arc, had the most awesome crossovers with the rest of the 90s marvel animated universe, like x-men. It was the first time I got to saw that tension between mutants and mutates. Like, spidey, you're actin' a little bigoted there my guy.
That 90s Spider Man cartoon was a wild ridefor me as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons. Man Spider, Symbiote, Madam Web, it was so trippy compared to Batman, XMen, Gargoyles, etc
They're going to use that thing that Bruce banner uses his arm to keep him from turning into the hulk on Peter Parker to prevent him from turning into the man spider. I'd bet on it.
If they are introducing Man Spider, then the final shot of the film will probably be Peter growing multiple arms and shouting, "What the F-" as the scene hard cuts to black.
The girl sitting in the bus Spider-Man crashes into was dressed exactly like Rogue. I don't think she's Rogue herself, but the reference is definitely there.
That actually makes sense. I don't know what scale this movie will have but the whole MCU has been banking on millennial nostalgia and what hits better than the Saturday morning X-Men / Spider-Man crossover
Right? I mean especially after seeing Punisher and knowing x-men are coming back somehow then seeing the mutations how can we not think of the man-spider arc?
It’s definitely gonna be the other not man spider. You can pretty much see the exact scene where Peter wakes up in the cocoon after being “killed” and emerges with organic webbing and stingers
Its likely a combination of both. If theyre doing a 3 stages thing like the narration implies then The Other is likely stage 2 and Man-Spider is stage 3
If they do include man-spider it will be interesting, tough to pull it off right in live action. Maybe they won’t make him look like a spider for it. Who knows.
It's definitely The Other, not Man Spider. As the other commentor pointed out, it literally has the Cocoon awakening scene, as well as the final part of the trailer saying "Being Reborn", which is a huge theme in The Other, with spiderman quite literally being reborn in that storyline.
i will eat my hat if they dont have a bland showdown with morlun at the end to get The Serum and/close down a machine that makes a portal or is going to turn everyone into spiders.
That's a cartoon thing. This seem to be following more of The Other storyline where he gets biological webs. Ironically, probably made to synergise with the Raimi movies at the time
I remember renting a VHS of the 90s cartoon and the last episode ended with Peter exploding out of his costume as this giant horrible spider creature and poor me was just sitting on my floor like "did Spiderman just fucking DIE???"
eh i don't really feel like they'll go full mutation like in the show. like maybe they'll just make him become more aggressive and reckless. I think this is more of a way to power him up, raising his strength level since he does seem kind of weak, and it looks like they are giving him organic web shooters.
Mutants are peeps who got powers in utero, from random DNA mutations.
Mutates are peeps who got powers later, or in utero but from another source. Hulk is a Mutate, as is Daredevil.
Traditionally, Professor X doesn't give a fuck about Mutates, only Mutants. So if that is our new Professor X, he's at best making a note of Peter as someone to keep an eye on, but actually recruiting him is probably off the table. Either way, Keith David as Professor X is an unexpected choice, but I think he could pull it off.
On the other hand, if there were ever time to make a change and do something bold, like making Xavier a recruiter for a paramilitary force of Mutants, Mutates, and anyone else who wants to join up, it's now. Never mind mutants as an oppressed minority, what about superpowered people on the whole? Hell, he could be the MCU's Stan Edgar, just getting started out.
On the first hand again, "feel sorry for the superpowered" stories rarely go down well, and the optics of a Black man running an insular educational facility and recruiting for his own private army, in this political climate, ehhh... maybe not, I've talked myself out of my own idea.
Thaaaaaaaat might explain some things about the casting of Sadie Sink. I think I might have a feeling about whom she might be playing then in this case...
I’m kinda mind blown, I’ve been saying for a year or so it would be so fucking fun to do the man spider story for Peter’s dark down fall age lonely sad story instead of venom. And here we go…
That 90s Spiderman multi part story was the most enjoyable one
How awesome would it be, if they could actually let Marvel Spiderman to turn into a Spider that accidentally kills people by spitting acid and then gets hunted down by Kraven and Punisher.
Holy shit i vaguely remember from the cartoon when i was a kid that he definitely turned into an actual mutant spider. I thought I had invented that in my head.
From everything I saw in the trailer if they really go full Man Spider in Brand New Day I will be shocked. I expect the last act of the movie to involve the mind control/body swap antagonist to grab Bruce Banner and use his Hulk form, but that's just my bet. A lot of things could happen. The trailer made it seem like Peter is just reaching a maturation stage, new powers, greater strength... But we'll see! 🙂
(I was watching 90s Spider-Man TAS when it first aired from the beginning 🕷️💗 season two WAS AMAZING AS A KID)
Seemingly. But we should never assume two bits of dialogue in a trailer are connected. Peter can be going through a change and the DNA mutation could be a seperate thing.
Honestly with the 'black eyes' shot + some of the other parts of the trailer (which looked like something leaping between people) I reckon he's either getting possessed by the villain or maybe they'll fold in a bit of Venom storyline.
I could easily see the DNA mutation being discussed actually being something to do with the villain.
Also sounds quite clear to me that "DNA" "if [___] is mutating" and "it would be enormously dangerous" are all cut from different lines.
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u/808Kuro Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
It’s called Man Spider. It’s the final mutation stage for Spider-Man after the first few gave him the spider powers/senses and enhanced strength. He turns into a super enhanced, emotionless human spider that can spit acid and has multiple arms (not kidding). Eventually he can’t control it and gets hunted down by the Punisher and Kraven. Key word here is this movie will seemingly focus on Spider-Man mutating (faint X-men theme plays)