What is the Spider-Verse?

 
What is the Spider-Verse?

The Spider-Verse is a massive Spider-Man event occurring in 2014.  All the different versions of Spider-Man will join forces to a battle a threat that no one Spider-Man can defeat.

Background:
Years ago Spider-Man was introduced to one of his fiercest foes the devourer of totems Morlun.  Spider-Man learns he is a totem, a bridge between the world of animals and that of men.  Morlun is part of a family called the Inheritors.  The Inheritors are ancient beings who are close to being immortals, they hunt down totems and eat them.  Yes, they actually eat Spider-Men and other totem characters like Black Panther.  It is a bit morbid.  You would think that the inheritors would eventually run out of totems to eat.  However, the inheritors have a access to a massive supply of totems.  The Inheritors control a universal Web that links their universe (000) to all others.  This allows the inheritors to hunt down totems in all universes.

The Spider-Verse event has the spider totems from across dimensions joining together to fight off the inheritors.  Morlun has returned to the realm of the living and seems hell bent on eliminating all the spider totems.  He says in the beginning of the series:

"No more spiders"

The gauntlet has been dropped, how will the spiders respond!

My review so far...
I am loving this event.  I have not been this into a Spider-Man event in a longtime.  

The Spider-verse is intriguing because it allows the writers to tweak the well known spidey origin story and see how the world and Spider-Man himself change.  What would happen if the radioactive spider bit Gwen Stacey instead of Peter Parker.  What if Uncle Ben was abusive.  What if a different scientist became Spider-Man.  What if Captain Britain became Spiderman.  What if Spider-Man died? What if Spider-Man used a mech like suit.   In the Spider-Verse all of these scenarios are played out.  The other fun part of the Spider-Verse is getting more background on Morlun and his family.  We now get to meet his family, see where they live, and most disturbingly how they eat.

Some stories read like traditional super hero stories, some veer toward an anime style, some a cartoon style, some a dark mystery noire style and others are full on horror stories.  The spider-verse contains bits of everything mixed into the Spider-Man mythos.

I will warn everyone and say that parts of the Spider-Verse story are very dark.  It could be too morbid for some young readers.  That said it is really very well written, and the art is amazing.  If you are in a comic store any time I highly recommend picking up the Spider-Verse stories.