Marvel’s all-new, all-different universe, the horror-infused Midnight Universe, looks to entirely redefine several of the House of Ideas most popular characters when it launches in November. And according to writer Philip Kennedy Johnson, Peter Parker will be undergoing to most terrifying transformation of them all, even moreso than one of the most disturbing and radical changes in his long history.
According to Johnson, comparisons of Midnight Spider-Man to Man-Spider, the horrifying mutation that Parker evolved into in a 1980s run, don’t come close to how terrifying the new character will be.
“Ijust want to laugh in their face,” Johnson told AIPT. “Man-Spider is like the kindergarten version of what we’re doing. It just goes so much harder than that. It’s more complicated than that. I think it’s more interesting than that.”
Whereas Man-Spider represented a change to Peter when he lost connection to his humanity, the changes to Peter in the Midnight Universe aren’t temporary; they are who he is.
“What’s happening to Peter in this book is much more complicated and gross, and there’s more of an arc of where it’s going,” Johnson explained.
Johnson made it clear that one of his goals was to shock fans which he says happens early in often in the new series.
“I just want some kind of like a ‘holy shit, I can’t believe I just saw that in a Marvel comic’ every single month,” Johnson said. “By the end of issue two, they’re like, okay, we’re already past Man-Spider. Issue three, it’s like I want people’s minds to be blown.”
In the Midnight Universe, Peter Parker is subjected to sinister Oscorp genetic experiments that mutate him into a terrifying, half-human, half-arachnid hybrid struggling to retain his humanity.
Midnight Spider-Manwill be in stores on October 7th, alongside Midnight Fantastic Four and Midnight X-Men as Marvel launches its new universe as part of an unprecedented release strategy.
