Warning: contains spoilers for The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1!
One of Marvel’s darkest Spider-Man stories proves without a doubt that Peter Parker is destined for failure – but that’s why he’s one of the most-beloved heroes of all time. The superhero is known by many comic book heroes as an audience surrogate ever since his debut in the 60s, and that hasn’t changed in 2021. In The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1, fans see Peter’s biggest failure and his darkest story…and still root for him, despite his eventual turn to darkness.
The Darkhold series has delivered short horror-themed stories to the comic aficionados for the past few months. The stories often contain a world-changing event or a small, minuscule change, but the end result is the eventual transformation of a heroic figure into a darker and/or villainous version of the character. Iron Man’s suit slowly eats away his skin, Black Bolt may or may not be his evil brother, and the Wasp is slowly driven to madness, leading to her murder of Hank Pym. Spider-Man is more pure and heroic than any of the aforementioned heroes… so how does he end up with the darkest conclusion of all?
The Unravelling has plagued the entire city, and only Spider-Man can hold New York together. Citizens repeat rote motions as if in a daze, and only a few are barely aware of the horror happening around them…but the people begin to fall apart just like the buildings around them. Peter’s super-adhesive webbing holds the city and the people together…but the solution doesn’t last forever. Within hours, the webbing fails and Peter must create new connections all over again. At least in this universe, Gwen Stacy is alive – but she’s coming apart too. One day, Peter takes too much time to return to his apartment, and Gwen is nearly completely gone. Peter is despondent.
Reed Richards is one of the very few people unaffected by the Unravelling, and plans to develop a synthetic polymer to replace Peter’s webbing… created out of his severed finger. But Peter is desperate – he sleeps three hours a night at best – and uses Mr. Fantastic’s entire body to hold the city together instead. In using perhaps his only friend left, Peter has fallen almost completely, and yet readers still empathize with him.
This is the true power of Spider-Man; every reader sees themselves in him. He has relationship problems, money issues, and feels like the world is collapsing every day (and it often is). His failure to save Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, and so many others haunts him forever, but he still tries to become a better person and never make the same mistake twice. Spider-Man’s best stories are all about failure and learning from said failure, and that’s why he’s Marvel’s most famous hero.
