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Spider-Man’s radioactive spider origin is “a little dishonest” to Phillip Kennedy Johnson, so he’s revising it with Midnight Spider-Man
Spider-Man’s radioactive spider disappeared after one bite. Marvel’s new horror universe is finally asking what happened to it.
NewsbyChris Arrant, Editor-in-Chief
Published on Thu Sep 03 2026
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If a man were to be bitten by a radioactive spider and receive weird superpowers as a result, you’d think that spider would become a key part of the story. But for Marvel’s Spider-Man, it never did. Phillip Kennedy Johnson is about to change that in a creepy, crawly body horror revamp of the wall-crawler called Midnight Spider-Man.
“I think [that the story of where Spider-Man received his powers is] a little dishonest,”Johnson tells AIPT’s David Brooke. “I’d like to see what would really happen.”
“It’s the moment in which the spider comes into the story,” he continues. “The spider just comes along and bites him on the hand, and Peter, nerdy Peter with the glasses, kind of squawks and slaps it, and then we don’t see it again.”
That modern revisitation of the spider that made Spider-Man also continues in Midnight Spider-Man with an exploration of the man that made Spider-Man, Uncle Ben. Johnson says that Ben’s role in Peter Parker’s origin story is reworked in ways that are “way worse,” and he’ll also be applying that horror-tinged approach to all of Spider-Man’s major villains as well.
“The world around him shows that power makes monsters, like, invariably. He believes it, but the world is different,” says Johnson.
Midnight Spider-Man #1 launches October 7.
Marvel’s most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just ‘whatever a spider can.’ Swing into Spidey’s history with Popverse’s…
Just watch out for that radioactive blood.
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Chris Arrant: Chris Arrant is the Popverse’s Editor-in-Chief. He has written about pop culture for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher’s Weekly, Marvel, Newsarama, CBR, and more. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. (He/him)
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