Spider-Man gets caught in his own web of lies with new Darkhold special

The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 excerpt
The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 excerpt (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Spider-Man is one of Marvel's most heroic heroes - but the upcoming one-shot The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 imagines a world where he isn't.

This all started in the previous The Darkhold: Alpha #1 one-shot (which set-up this overall 'The Darkhold' event), where the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom were vying for ownership of the Darkhold; Wanda enlisted a group of heroes including Spider-Man to help her, but in the initial struggle the heroes accidentally read a page from the storied black tome themselves. As Marvel puts it, it drove Peter Parker "insane" - but from looking at this preview of The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 here, it's more complicated than that.

Writer Alex Paknadel and artist Dio Neves have imagined a world where Spider-Man's webs are the only thing that'll keep the world from falling apart. From the preview, it feels like one-part zombie apocalypse and one part just plain classic apocalypse - with Peter Parker at wits end to try to save everyone, and solve everything.

Check out this preview of The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1:

James Harren has drawn the primary cover to The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1, with variants from Josemaria Casanovas and Cian Tormey - the latter which shows off a monstrous design for SPider-Man that will presumably appear later in this issue. Check them out here:

The Darkhold: Spider-Man is the penultimate chapter in this Darkhold event, which has included similar one-shots for Iron Man, Blade, Wasp, and Black Bolt.

The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 goes on sale on December 22, followed by the finale of The Darkhold: Omega on January 5, 2022.

If you think this Spider-Man is different, check out our list of the weirdest versions of Spider-Man in the Marvel Multiverse. 

Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)

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