The Web of Life and Destiny is a three-dimensional construct in five-dimensional space which acts as a model of the entire Multiverse and enables travel between realities.[4] Located on Earth-001, the Great Web was created by Neith[5] and unifies the Spider-Totems and their avatars across the Multiverse.[1]
Origins[]
The Web of Life and Destiny was created on Earth-001 by Goddess Neith, daughter of Elder Goddesses Gaea and Oshtur. As a child, Neith begged her sister Shathra to play with her, but Shathra boasted that their mothers had tasked her with designing a celestial map of the multiverse. Shathra created the "Great Nest", but Neith noted to her sister that she was overthinking the assignment, and created her own design in the form of a web. Their mothers were unimpressed by Shathra's design and offered Neith the opportunity to try her hand at the task. Neith created the Great Web to chart humanity's destiny, also creating spiders to repair, maintain, and expand it, as she sought more time to herself, while Shathra dismissed her sister's creation as too chaotic and disorganized.
Oshtur and Gaea were greatly impressed by Neith's Great Web, showing off her creation to the other Elder Gods and nominating her as the shaper of the Multiverse. Neith only agreed on the condition that Shathra would not mind, and Shathra wished her well even though her own heart had become blackened with spite. By the time Neith finished building the Web of Life and Destiny, Shathra became so consumed by envy and hatred that she transformed herself into a wasp-like dark goddess, determined to one day have her spider-wasps take revenge on Neith and her spiders, and make her Great Nest a reality to supplant the Great Web. Shathra had her spider-wasps infect several of Neith's spiders, corrupting the very first strand of the Great Web and leaving it waiting for a future Spider to come by and unleash upon the Multiverse.[5]
Spider-Totems[]
The Web of Life and Destiny reached and touched all other realities as strands on the Web. Neith herself was the first Spider-Totem but not the last; her mystical, magical, genetically-engineered and radioactive Spiders would go on to bite chosen individuals on various Earths across the Multiverse, granting them Spider-powers and transforming them into totemic avatars who could navigate her Web. Not all Totems were equal, and some were unique and had special significance: these were The Bride, The Other, The Scion, The Patternmaker and The Master Weaver. These always existed somewhere across the Multiverse and would claim their avatars until their death; should the host later return to life these Totems would not come back, but claim new avatars. The Master Weaver sat the center of the Web and could view any strand of it, as well as send those they wished to any of those realities. Several other totemic spider deities also existed and were responsible for maintaining different aspects of the Web of Destiny.[3] The true origins of the Great Web were eventually lost to time. Ezekiel Sims and the Ashanti tribe of Earth-616 claimed that the Great Web was first created by Kwaku Anansi.[6]
The Coming of Inheritors[]
The Inheritors were the totems of the Leech, the lowest of all Animal Totems and able only to parasite on the powers and life force of other Totems. Eventually they specialized in Spider-Totems to access the Web of Life and Destiny.[7] To defeat the current Master Weaver, the clan mother and her offspring Bora, Verna, Brix, Daemos, Morlun, Jennix and Karn attacked him at the center of the Great Web. But when Karn got a chance to strike, the Weaver revealed Karn had no pleasure with death and wished he could create and not destroy. Karn hesitated and his mother attacked the Weaver and was killed. While Karn was in shock, his father, Solus, arrived and subjugated the Master Weaver with his siblings. Karn was confined to wear a mask to hide his shame and became an outcast. Seeing that the Weaver's power could be used, the Inheritors used chains designed by Jennix to control the Master Weaver's power over the Web of Life Destiny in order to travel between dimensions and hunt all Spider-Totems in the Multiverse.[8] They transformed Earth-001 into the Loomworld which would serve as their base which they would plunder the Multiverse.
Affecting the lives of Spiders[]
Adriana Soria was able to produce a mutagenic enzyme that connected those infected to the Web of Life - and amplified the connections of those already linked to the Web - while simultaneously amplifying her own connection.[9] Using a tissue sample of Peter Parker when he was mutated by this enzyme, Miles Warren engineered a "Spider-Virus" that was administered to the majority of Manhattan Island and transformed them into spider-monsters, empowering the Queen to the point where she hijacked the Web of Life and underwent a metamorphosis into a monstrous spider-like creature.[10][11]
The Web of Realities appeared on the sky of Earth-12041, when The Goblin of Earth-TRN457 used the Siege Perilous which caused disturbances to the multiverse. The Siege was shattered by Miles Morales and spread across multiple realities.[12] The Siege fragments began pulling themselves together along with the worlds they reside on, causing residences of each reality to be displaced into each other. The Madame Web of Earth-12041 conjured the Web of Realities to allow the Spider-Men of her world to find and restore the shards before the worlds collide in on each other.[13]
With the last shard located on Earth-TRN457, Wolf Spider stole the fully restored Siege Perilous and used it to be able to construct the Great Web to ensnare and siphon off the energy and power of Spider Totems from across the multiverse. Spider-Man tricked Wolf Spider into taking his energy which allowed him to communicate with the other Totems on a spiritual plane where he encouraged them to fight back using their combined positive energy to overload and poison Wolf Spider and destroy him from the inside, thus freeing every Spider Totem.[14]
The Totem War[]
The Bride was for a long time locked way in an inpenetrable bunker on Earth-616 and was hidden from the Inheritors. But when she was finally released, Solus sensed it and declared a Great Hunt that would spell the end of all Spiders, everywhere. The Inheritors needed the Bride, The Other and The Scion to perform a ritual that would sever the connection of all Spiders to the Web of Life forever. The Inheritors would have the Master Weaver transport them to different realities where they would hunt down the local Spider-Totems and feed on their life force energies.[8] A Spider-Army from different realities was assembled to oppose the Inheritors and despite them having all three Totemic Avatars at some point, their ritual was disrputed and the Inheritors were trapped on radioactive Earth-3145 with no way back. The Master Weaver himself was killed, and Karn took his place, realizing that the Master Weaver already was his older self due to the time-twisted nature of the Great Web.[15]
Web Warriors[]
After the Totem War was over, some Spiders stayed on Loomworld and formed the Web-Warriors to protect the Great Web as well as those worlds that lost their Spiders in the war. In his new role as Master Weaver, Karn initially struggled with untangling the Web, though he eventually managed to repair it. Pavitr Prabhakar also designed Dimensional Travel Watches for the Web-Warriors that allowed them to navigate the Web without directly asking Karn each time.[4] During this time the Web of Life and Destiny was briefly hijacked by an army of Electros, and it was discovered that feedback from the portal devices the Web-Warriors were using was damaging the Web, causing dimensions to bleed into each other — though eventually both issues were resolved, and the Web was restored.[16]
Spider-Geddon[]
The Inheritors eventually found a way to escape their prison on Earth-3145 by resurrecting themselves in cloned bodies on Earth-616.[17] Preparing to exact their vengeance upon the Spiders, they returned to Loomworld and killed Karn once again, while also obtaining the watches of several slain Spiders that enabled the Inheritors to once again navigate the Web at will.[18] To try and stop their movement, Norman Osborn, Spider-Man of Earth-44145 blew up the Web of Life and Destiny, but not before cutting a piece of it for himself. This instantly disabled all Dimensional Travel Watches and allowed further multiversal travel only through mystical means.[19] The Spiders eventually defeated the Inheritors again, this time resurrecting them as babies. Anna-May Parker of Earth-18119 was revealed as hitherto unknown avatar of Patternmaker and predicted that the Web of Life and Destiny would eventually be restored and that a new Master Weaver would emerge.[20] This duty was eventually taken up Spider-Zero.[21] The Patternmaker herself was lost in the tangle of the Great Web itself, and Spider-Zero had Miles Morales gather up Spider-allies to find and rescue her.[22]
End of Spider-Verse[]
As Annie was doing repairs on the Great Web, she unknowingly touched the primordial strand which released Shathra to the present. Shathra send her spider-wasps along the Web to sting Spider-Totems, which would transform into her obedient servants.[5] She was opposed by a small team led by Madame Web and Spider-UK, but their war against Shathra was a losing one, and she managed to convert, capture or kill almost all Spider-Totems in the entire Multiverse. The Inheritors faced her wrath as well, as her minions had all except Morlun killed, while Morlun himself found that the life force of all Spider-Totems he consumed has made him into one himself,[23] just as Karn before him.[15] Morlun reluctantly joined the Spider-Army, as Shathra's forces moved at her last goal: Earth-616 whose native Spiders were immune to the wasp-stings. To deal with them, Shathra gave her minion Spider-Man Noir the Totem Dagger that could entirely erase Totems from existence, severing their connection to the Great Web and causing them to unravel.[24]
The Totem Dagger was used on Spider-Boy, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Woman and eventually Spider-Man himself.[25] However, Peter Parker of Earth-616 was not fully erased but merely had his life rewritten so that he was never bitten by a Radioactive Spider.[26] The remaining Spider-forces made a desperate infiltration of the Loomworld, during which Silk was revealed to be not the Bride of the Spiders, but their Queen - a Chosen One who could stand against Shathra. She stabbed Morlun with the Totem Dagger, releasing the life force of millions of Spider-Totems he consumed back into the Great Web, reweaving and reshaping it.[7] Loomworld was blown apart, but the Web of Life and Destiny was stronger than ever, and all Spiders transformed into servants of Shathra had their transformation reversed. Shathra was blasted with the strand of the Great Web itself that Norman Osborn of Earth-44145 had preserved, shifting her into another place of existence and cleansing the rot she had accumulated over millenia. Neith herself then revealed her face to her Spider-Totems, gifting them an idol of herself that brought all erased Spiders from Earth-616 back to life as they were.[25]
Destruction and recreation[]
Following his arrival to the Battlerealm, Spot was driven insane by Kindred with nightmarish visions of the Web and Spider-Totems.[27] Spot connected with Mister Negative and Doctor Octopus, who aided him in developing the Dimensional Extricate Catalyst to destroy the Great Web. Meanwhile, a Sorcerer Supreme version of Spider-Man detected that the Web was threatened and traveled to the Battlerealm to find the perpetrator. Spider-Man Supreme worked with the Summoner and another Spider-Man to track down leads that lead them to confronting Doctor Octopus in his lab, who revealed they were too late. Spot destroyed Web using the Catalyst in the time it took for the sorcerer Spider-Man to open a portal to him.[1]
Although Spot was apprehended by the Summoner, the totemic avatars across the Battlerealm were weakened by the Great Web's destruction. In a moment of epiphany, Spider-Man Supreme declared that the Spider-Verse was better off without the Spider-Totems influencing their actions and began vehemently opposing any efforts to restore the Web.[1] This sparked debates between the former totemic avatars on whether the Web and the Spider-Totems were ever beneficial to their lives.[28] As a compromise, Silk suggested streamlining the Web of Fate by directly linking the totemic avatars together without the Spider-Totems. After agreeing to Silk's plan, Spider-Man Supreme began casting a spell to recreate the Web under those conditions when Kindred intervened in an attempt to hijack the process. Ultimately, Kindred was thwarted by the Summoner and the Web of Life and Destiny was restored without the Spider-Totems, granting the former totemic avatars freedom over their own destiny.[27]
Targeted by the Sinister Squadron[]
A variant of Aunt May that operated as Madame Web led the Sinister Squadron in targeting the Spider-Totems and the Web of Life and Destiny. It was mentioned by Web-Weaver to the spider-based heroes that avoided capture that he hid the Web of Life and Destiny.[29] It was revealed that the Web of Life and Destiny was hidden on Earth-71490. After the Sinister Squadron members that came with Madame Web to Earth-71490 had defeated the spider-based heroes sent to procure it, Madame Web was told by an unidentified reality version of Vermin that the Web of Life and Destiny has been secured.[30]
- The Web of Life is the source of Madame Web's precognition, as well as the precognitive "Spider-Sense" ability exhibited by various totemic avatars.[15]