Step Into Madame Web’s Parlor
Madame Web: “To wear the symbol of the spider is to become a Totem. Team or not, all of us are connected by the Web of Life and Destiny. Our paths are tangled together. Usually, this means little as spiders are solitary creatures. But sometimes, something happens that brings us together.”
Amazing Spider-Man: The Sins of Norman Osborn
A woman floats in a void. A vast spider web stretches before her, connecting everything in the multiverse. A deep joy blooms in her, watching all that is and ever could be. She gasps in pain as the web jerks. Something terrible has happened.
She sees Spider-Man unmasked. His legs are shattered and his left arm is gone. A man holds him by the neck. Spider-Man’s lifeforce flows into the figure’s mouth. His life, and something more. The man drops Spider-Man like an empty can and turns. Hellish red eyes stare into the woman’s panicked gray.
The woman screams as she wakes up. The monster knows where she is now. She slowly calms down. She is back in her world, but needs help. Her mind reaches out, searching for champions. She finds a woman defeating a group of soldiers. Another spies on criminals from a ceiling. A teenager joyously swings through a city. All three look up as a message enters their heads.
“The Inheritors are coming. We are all in danger. If you wish to survive, come to me. Come to Madam Web.”
Spider-Man is Marvel’s golden boy, but many are unaware he’s part of a larger Spider-Family. There are many women with spider powers, coordinated by the enigmatic Madame Web. So who are they? How did they get their powers? What connects them? And who wants them dead in 2024’s Madame Web? Let’s find out.
Madame Web: The Web of Life and Destiny
Played By: Dakota Johnson, Joan Lee
Spider-Man: “What do you need me for? You obviously have powers of your own!”
Spider-Man: the Animated Series “Make a Wish” (Season 3, Episode 2)
Madame Web: “Powers are nothing. More important is your tendency to question yourself. That is an interesting quality. Tedious, but interesting.”
Madame Web debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #210 in 1980. She was created by Denny O’Neil and John Romita Jr.
Cassandra Webb is a blind, paraplegic psychic. She can communicate telepathically and see the future, but is reliant on a life-support chair. Madame Web used her powers to help Spider-Man stop a doppelganger and became his distant mentor. He repaid her by acting as a champion who protected Madame Web from villains who wanted to exploit her powers.
Madame Web’s powers are linked to the Web of Life and Destiny, a force binding the multiverse together. She was the first to sense the oncoming threat of The Inheritors, multiverse travelers who feed on Spider heroes. Unfortunately, she was kidnapped by Kraven the Hunter’s family and tortured to death before she could warn anyone.
Julia Carpenter: Second Sight of Madame Web Characters
Played By: Sydney Sweeney, Jennifer Hale, Cree Summer
Julia: “My champion has learned the first lesson of Spider-Island. Even though he shoulders great responsibility, while he is here, all of his great powers are absolutely meaningless.”
Spider-Island
Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) debuted in 1984’s Secret Wars. She was created by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck.
Julia Carpenter was a college student who took part in a government study without knowing that the government was attempting to create their own superheroes. Julia was injected with a serum that gave her super strength, speed, and psychic constructs. She wanted to call herself Arachne, but was dubbed Spider-Woman.
Spider-Woman joined Freedom Force, an apparent superhero team made up of paroled supervillains. She betrayed them after learning that they had falsely imprisoned The Avengers. Spider-Woman joined several hero teams before going solo as Arachne.
Kraven’s family captured her and planned to sacrifice her in a ritual. That’s when Julia met Madame Web, who had been tortured into betraying the spider heroes and was dying. She transferred her powers to Julia, who became the new Madame Web at the cost of her sight.
Fun Fact: Julia’s costume (black with a white spider logo) subconsciously inspired Spider-Man’s black costume, which later became Venom. Plenty of female heroes base their outfit on a male hero’s costume, but this is one of the few to have a guy wearing a variant of a girl’s costume.
Mattie Franklin: The Gathering of Five
Played By: Celeste O’Connor
Mattie Franklin: “Don’t you see how it all comes together? This was meant to be! Me getting powers! MJ dying! We were made for each other!”
Amazing Spider-Man #14 (1999)
Mattie Franklin debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #441. She was created by John Byrne and Rafael Kayanan.
Mattie Franklin is J. Jonah Jameson’s niece and a Spider-Man fangirl. She discovered her father was planning to participate in The Gathering of Five, a ritual that bestows power, knowledge, madness, immortality, or death on the participants. Mattie took her father’s place and received powers similar to Spider-Man’s.
She became a new Spider-Woman and romantically pursued an uninterested Spider-Man. Mattie didn’t catch on with readers and appeared infrequently. She was featured in Alias where Jessica Jones and original Spider-Woman Jessica Drew saved her from a sexually abusive boyfriend. Spider-Woman became her mentor, but Kraven’s family eventually murdered Mattie as well.
Anya Corazon: The Sorceress Spider-Girl
Played By: Isabela Merced, Melanie Minichino
Anya: “My father once told me there’s no way to get a good story, to do a good job, without embedding yourself in the dirt. So for better or worse, I’m your girl.”
Spider-Island: The Amazing Spider-Girl
Spider-Girl debuted in Amazing Fantasy #1 in 2004. She was created by Joe Quesada, Fiona Avery, and Mark Brooks. Spider-Girl was inspired by then-recent storylines exploring a mystical connection to Spider-Man’s powers.
Anya Corazon was an ordinary high school student caught between the Spider Society and The Sisterhood of the Wasp. She was shot in the crossfire and saved by a magical infusion of spider powers. The downside is that Anya had to become the Society’s hunter, an enforcer doing their dirty work. In addition to the usual Spider powers, Anya can manifest an armored exoskeleton.
Anya became Araña and hunted the Sisterhood, eventually attracting Spider-Man’s attention. He convinced her that the Society was using her and she quit. Araña changed her identity to Spider-Girl and worked as Captain Marvel’s sidekick.
Spider-Girl was a central character in Spider-Verse because her magic allowed her to read several scrolls of lore related to the heroes’ powers. That lore was vital to unlocking an upgrade that helped defeat The Inheritors.
Ezekiel Simms: The Book of Ezekiel
Played By: Tahar Rahim, Mike Rianda
Ezekiel: “You cannot run. You cannot hide. You can only fight, and eventually die. That’s it. I’m sorry.”
Amazing Spider-Man #34 (2001)
Ezekiel debuted in 2001’s The Amazing Spider-Man #30. He was created by J. Michael Strazynski and John Romita Jr. to shake up Spider-Man’s story in a new millennium.
Ezekiel Simms learned about Totems, magical beings empowered by an animal spirit. He underwent a ritual to become a Spider-Totem, gaining weaker versions of Spider-Man’s powers. Ezekiel formed a company to serve as his base of operations, but used it only for power and wealth instead of good deeds.
Ezekiel revealed himself to Spider-Man and explained the Totem system. He also claimed that all of Peter’s animal themed enemies were false Totems, compelled to kill and usurp Peter. Ezekiel became a mentor figure to Spider-Man before faking his death against The Inheritor’s vanguard, Morlun.
He later lured Spider-Man into a battle with The Gatekeeper, a guardian of Spider-Totems that wanted to kill Ezekiel for being unworthy of his power. Ezekiel planned for Spider-Man to die so he could survive as the true Spider-Totem, but had a change of heart and sacrificed himself to save Peter.
Didya Get All That?
The Madame Web characters are a quartet of web weavers and a manipulative mentor.
Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.
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