Spider-Verse #1

History

The series was developed as a Secret Wars 'Warzones!' tie-in, spinning directly out of Dan Slott's landmark 2014–15 Amazing Spider-Man 'Spider-Verse' event, which had assembled virtually every variant of Spider-Man in Marvel history against the Inheritor family. Writer Mike Costa, who had already worked on Spider-powered characters in the 'Scarlet Spiders' tie-in miniseries, was tapped by editor Nick Lowe to continue the story of the surviving Spider-team on Battleworld; he was paired with artist Andre Lima Araujo, who brought a clean, slightly European line style to the book after his work on 'Inhuman' and 'Avengers A.I.' A notable production complication involved the cover: Mayday Parker appears on the original solicited cover art by Nick Bradshaw, but was not actually a member of the main team in the story — that slot was filled by Anya Corazon, an error Marvel later acknowledged and corrected in subsequent printings. The series was collected in the trade paperback Spider-Verse: Warzones! (ISBN 978-0785198871), making it accessible as a standalone Secret Wars artifact.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published May 20, 2015 as part of Marvel's Secret Wars 'Warzones!' initiative; written by Mike Costa, penciled by Andre Lima Araujo, with cover art by Nick Bradshaw.
• The series is set in the 'Arachnia' region of Battleworld — a domain ruled by Mayor Norman Osborn — and follows Spider-Gwen, Spider-UK (Billy Braddock), Spider-Man India (Pavitr Prabhakar), Spider-Ham (Peter Porker), Spider-Man Noir, and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl) as they try to uncover what force brought them together and what happened to that domain's own Spider-Man.
• Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy of Earth-65), one of the book's two narrative POV characters alongside Pavitr Prabhakar, had debuted only months earlier in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (2014), created by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez — making this one of her earliest extended starring appearances beyond her own solo book.
• A key in-story detail: Gwen discovers that Battleworld's history records her as someone who should have died on the Washington Bridge, forcing her to operate in a world that has effectively 'fridged' her alternate self — a pointed meta-commentary on Gwen Stacy's traditional role in Spider-Man lore.
• Despite appearing on the original solicited cover, Mayday Parker (MC2's Spider-Girl) is not a functioning member of the team in the story; her cover slot was filled by Anya Corazon, an acknowledged production error that Marvel later corrected.
• The series includes a back-up Spider-Ham story in issue #1, written by Costa with art by Steven Sanders, giving Peter Porker one of his most prominent showcases since his MC2 and animated appearances.
• The five-issue run (May–September 2015) was collected as Spider-Verse: Warzones! and fed directly into the formation of the Web Warriors — a team launched in its own ongoing series by Mike Costa and David Baldeon later in 2015.
• The broader 'Spider-Verse' event that preceded this series is credited as a primary inspiration for the Academy Award-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its sequels, as well as the MCU's Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Cast · 11 characters

Full credits

Variants (4)