MOVIE NEWS – The changes to Madame Web in the new Sony Pictures movie will almost certainly alienate her fans who may have known the character from the original comics… (WARNING: danger of spoilers!)

Sony Pictures’ new Madame Web movie will more than likely alienate many of the title character’s existing fans due to the changes made from the original Marvel comics.

In the film, Cassie Web is a paramedic who begins to see the future. At the same time, fate brings Cassie into contact with Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweenie), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), who are all preparing to become the Spider-Woman of the future. However, this trio is in danger due to the super-powered Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). He saw his own death: these girls will kill him in the future when they become heroes.

To that end, Madame Web (and all of these characters) will undergo several drastic changes from their comic book counterparts, which fans will likely find very frustrating.

Madame Web’s new origin story and an explanation of the changes in the comics

In Sony’s Madame Web, it is revealed that Cassie studied spiders in Peru during her mother’s pregnancy, hoping to find a rare spider with fantastic healing properties to cure her unborn daughter, who was diagnosed with a muscle disease. After being joined by Ezekiel Sims, Ezekiel only wanted the powers that spiders offered, according to ancient legends and myths. To do this, Cassie’s mother was shot by Ezekiel as soon as he found one of the spiders.

Thanks to a tribe of spider-powered warriors known as Las Arañas and the bite of one of the rare arachnids, Cassie Webb was born without the muscle disorder, though her mother died anyway.

The spider’s bite also manifests Cassie’s visionary ability many years later, in 2003. This is quite a drastic change from Cassandra Webb’s origin seen in the original comics.

In the comics, Cassandra Webb was born simply as a precognitive and clairvoyant mutant capable of impressive telepathic feats. At the same time, Cassandra was born blind and disabled, although her husband built her a net-like life support system. Using her remarkable abilities to help heroes like Spider-Man and several supporting characters such as the aforementioned Spider-Woman, Cassandra Webb is also considerably older than Johnson in the comics.

Johnson’s Cassie doesn’t become blind or disabled until the very end of Madame Web , a plot point that was quickly tacked on to make her look more like her comic book counterpart at the eleventh hour (though not by much).

It’s also quite a drastic change that Ezekiel is Peter Parker’s mentor on the pages, rather than the villain he’s portrayed as on screen. Similarly, the origins of all three future Spider-Womans in the comics are entirely ignored in favour of the ambiguous idea that they all ultimately derive their powers from the same Peruvian spider (though specific details are never revealed).

Are Las Arañas “spider-men” from Marvel comics?

The Las Arañas tribe is not from the original Marvel Comics. Peruvian Warriors and Their Spiders is an entirely new creation by Madame Web, a contrived device to explain the source of all the characters’ powers, those who have powers in the film and those who will eventually receive them at an unspecified time in the future those. Also, there’s no indication if a Peruvian spider is responsible for biting this universe’s Spider-Man in the future, or if a radioactive spider’ll still bite him like in the original comics.

Why did the movie change the character’s backstory?

Outside of their MCU productions and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Sony Pictures was bizarrely noncommittal when it came to introducing Spider-Man in SSU, the “Sony Spider-Man Universe.” Shared with the Venom movies, Morbius, and soon Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web’s universe next hints at Peter Parker by showing his birth towards the end of the film (so it doesn’t really matter).

It is unknown which live-action Spider-Man exists in this universe, or perhaps it is a completely new Spider-Man. Regardless, it seems that all of Madame Web’s changes from the comics probably played a role, along with the fact that they probably couldn’t make Cassie a mutant.

All of these changes to Cassie’s origin and backstory are still pretty extreme. They diverge from the page much more than seems necessary. However, Madame Web’s abilities could have been less ambiguous.

How will Madame Web’s backstory change affect Sony’s Spider-Man universe?

Henceforth, it seems as if a bite from one of these Peruvian spiders is enough to confer any ability. This explains how Cassie, Ezekiel, and the trio of future Spider-Woman’s got (or will get) their various powers.

However, given his comic book origins, it’s still maddeningly unclear what this means for Peter Parker in the future of Sony’s Spider-Man universe.

All in all, Madame Web’s Peruvian spiders are just a massively convenient way to explain the various abilities. Without having to delve into the uniquely different origins and backstories from the comics. Or they should be referred to. As such, this idea will no doubt be frustrating and rather alienating to fans of all these Spider-Man characters from the original Marvel comics…

Source: Time