The series ends with the Kingpin being presented with what appears to be the Carnage symbiote, which brings to mind the " King Carnage ◊" trading card from The '90s. Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow #1 is scheduled for release in April 2021. That also happens to be the month Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman are wrapping up their Venom run with the Venom #200 anniversary special.

After an incident with the Hobgoblin, however, things begin to change: Reed Richards informs Peter that his costume is actually alive and he should probably leave it with the Fantastic Four to investigate further, but Peter doesn't want to do that. The costume chose him and he's choosing it. Hair-Trigger Temper: In Issue #1, Peter is shown to be incredibly agitated due to a mix of the symbiote's corrupting influence, several days without sleep, and being plagued by nightmares involving the symbiote. Take Up My Sword: Indirectly; after Reed is killed by the symbiote, Sue invites Peter to join the FF in Reed's place so that they can each help the other heal after the trauma of the symbiote threat. Anti-Hero: Peter dips into this after he kills Hobgoblin, going on to kill at least 19 other criminals, including the Sinister Six.Unscrupulous Hero: As described by Peter, the symbiote isn't entirely evil. It genuinely wants to help people based on what it knows from Peter. The problem is that it has zero understanding of morality. Then the thing with what happens with Sinister six and finally the final battle when he discards and who the symbiote takes over next and its an epic battle between Spider-man and the forces that are and its something plus such a great emotional impact and showdown but regrets and all for sure but the ending is fantastic and the cliffhanger! Kingpin with the carnage symbiote holy shit!! The design of his suit after Hobgoblin kills Aunt May is also very terrifying, as he adopts the claws, tendrils, and a bit of the added bulk typically associated with Venom and changes his mask into a more arachnoid visage, with four spider-like fangs painted on.

It stars with Peter getting the Venom symbiote but the question is what if he kept the symbiote even after Reed told him not to and then you see what happens to Aunt may and then he snaps and what he does to the Hobgoblin and how everyone is after him and in particular Kingpin and when they fight its something but then things get violent as he takes out many villain and its like a dark path and really lives up to what if and its bloody, dark and violent and gory even and I love how the artist brings it out. That symbiote is a ride-or-die to the fullest, and I love reading it's subversive thoughts and seeing the way it lures Peter into trusting it, while pushing away those he loves. It's like the textbook version of schizophrenia. Keystone Army: While the symbiote has removed its traditional weaknesses from its offspring, the original symbiote is still vulnerable to fire and sonics, and its link to the junior symbiotes it has spawned means that killing it kills all of its offspring, although this required Johnny Storm to basically hit it with a point-blank flame blast. Well, according to this collection of five issues, Peter Parker would become public enemy number one, slaughtering multiple members of his rogue's gallery along the way because the Hobgoblin kills Aunt May. There's always been a bit of a dark undercurrent to the story of Spider-Man, though many writers haven't really explored that side of things. Zdarsky did that over the course of Peter's life in Life Story and maybe part of my issue here is that the timeline is simply too compressed to make for a satisfying story like the original collection was. Seeing Peter slowly descend into darkness makes sense and the question of "what if" Spidey had a really bad day and was pushed too far is an intriguing one. That said, I did find the writing a bit linear and two-dimensional. There doesn't appear to be much subplot here, pretty much nothing at all really, which does leave it sitting somewhat flat.

‘X-Men’ #4 is a mostly decent filler issue

Chip Zdarsky delivers a modern 'What if?' story here with some sadness and dark tones - at least by the standards of a Spider-Man book. Trilogy Creep: The series was intended to be a four-issue series, but it got bumped up to five issues. Point of Divergence: This issue starts during Amazing Spider-Man #258 , but there's a small change: instead of going to the Baxter Building immediately after his nightmare, he gets distracted by a fight with the Hobgoblin, where he ends up giving into some of his darker impulses and beats and unmasks Hobgoblin, warning him that he's "playing for keeps." This allows the suit a little more control of Peter and when he finally does have Reed Richards examine the suit and learns it's alive, he doesn't remove it like in the original story, but keeps it.

Moral Event Horizon: The symbiote driving Spider-Man to begin killing his rogues gallery and trying to infect New York with its spawn makes it a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but it goes too far upon murdering Reed Richards and trying to kill Mary Jane for undermining its attempts to corrupt Peter.And then when there's no psychoanalyzing that portion of the story, enter Hobgoblin acting a fool and getting his shit subsequently pushed in because he took the "ca t and mouse" crap too far.