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Quote1 You define me. I define you. What you are, I am not. What you are not, I am. As you evolve...I evolve. Evolve or die. Quote2
The Other[src]

History

Origin

File:The Other (Multiverse) from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Vol 1 4 0001.jpg

After being mortally wounded by Morlun, Spider-Man transformed into a Man-Spider-like creature to protect his wife, killing the Inheritor with vastly augmented powers. After seemingly dying, Peter shed his skin and retired to a 'cocoon' under the Brooklyn Bridge. In a comatose state, he was confronted by a spider-like totemic entity, which told him that his human side had died but that he could return to life if he embraced his spider side. Peter agreed, and emerged from the cocoon completely healed of his prior wounds and with enhanced powers. Thus, Spider-Man had "conquered" death.[1]

Meanwhile, in Stark Tower, pirate spiders started to eat Peter's old shed skin. When Spider-Man returned, the top of Stark Tower was covered in webbing. Inside the tower, Spider-Man discovered that by using his shed skin as a base, the spiders formed a body of their own, albeit one that was distinctly female in shape. Declaring herself to be Spider-Man's "Other," the entity explained to Peter that Morlun should have killed him, but the Great Weaver had resurrected him. The entity stated she opposed this, and that she had manifested to kill him and restore the natural order.[2]

Calling herself "Ero" after the genus of spider comprising her body, the female creature claimed she was Peter's opposite, his nemesis and his significant other, and then escaped down a drain. Spider-Man later met up with Beast at an old church, where they discovered that Ero had spun a cocoon, but that it was empty; whatever gestated in there had been long gone.[3]

Miss Arrow

File:Miss Arrow.JPG

Miss Arrow (Ero's human form)

Taking on human form as "Miss Arrow" and posing as the school nurse at Midtown High School, the Other became infatuated with Flash Thompson. She chose him for mating because he had been in a coma for months, and the fact he hadn't "had his oats" in all that time meant he had built up a tremendous amount of tantric energy. This translated into more offspring for her. Once she shoved the egg sac down his throat, Flash would give birth to thousands of Ero's children, but die in the process as they ate him from the inside out. Arrow talked to another totemic spider deity in the church where she hatched from her cocoon.[4]

Civil War

During the events of the Civil War, Miss Arrow fought the threat of three Mysterios at Midtown High. During the attack Miss Arrow found herself in contact with Quentin Beck.[5] Beck implied that she was more than an innocent bystander, mentioning that he knew about Miss Arrow's "superiors," and that he could easily see through her charade. He told her that she must work to keep Peter at the school because his superiors wanted it, and so did hers, though Arrow claimed to not know what he was talking about. Beck later vanished, although Arrow found herself face-to-face with Francis Klum. Klum prepared to hold her hostage, telling that she was to become a pawn in a much larger game. Arrow revealed her true nature to him, extending large stingers from her wrists. Telling Klum she was no one's pawn, she plunged one of them into his chest. Before she could finish him off, he teleported.[6]

Arrow later convinced Spider-Man to stay at the school. However, when Peter became a fugitive for going against the Registration Act, he had to use an image distorter to disguise himself as "Ben Reilly" to continue his career at the school.[3]

Flash and Betty Brant went on a date, which clashed with Arrow's plans for Flash. When Betty had to use the restroom, Ero emerged from the toilet as thousands of spiders, frightening Betty. When Flash and the restaurant manager came to the scene after Betty had left the bathroom, only some cocaine and a straw was found, making the manager think Betty had used the cocaine. Later at Midtown High, Peter Parker was talking to Flash when Arrow walked into the room. Peter barely activated the image inducer in time to conceal his true face from her. Peter found it strange that his spider-sense hadn't warned him of Arrow's approach, since in the past it had always warned him when there was a risk of somebody seeing him and learning his secret identity.[7]

Betty Brant and Peter used a search engine to search for "spider" and "arrow". None of their hits seemed relevant, but Peter noticed that the search engine was asking if they meant to search for "spider" and "ero". Peter remembered the pirate spiders that had eaten his shed skin and came together in a humanoid form. He noted that one type of pirate spider was of the genus "ero", which sounded similar to "Arrow".[8]

Arrow, in the meantime, tracked Flash down at a bowling alley where he has gone with his friend, professional bowler Kelly Kulick, and the bowling team from Midtown High. Arrow insisted that the two of them leave immediately for a date, but Flash was reluctant to simply run off and leave Kelly and his students behind.[8]

When Kulick became annoyed with her behavior, Arrow gave her a violent shove. Flash, shocked, tried to see if his friend was hurt but Arrow grabbed him and continued to insist that they leave, telling him she was giving him "a singular honor." Flash was surprised that her grip was too strong for him to break free.[8]

When Flash expressed his displeasure with her actions and told her to go away, Arrow grabbed him by the throat. Before Arrow could drag him away by force, she was attacked from behind by Kulick, and responded by shooting thousands of spiders from her mouth that swarmed over Kulick. At that point, Spider-Man arrived on the scene and hit her from behind. Then she transformed into a stream of spiders which crawled into one of the gutters and left the building.[8]

The spiders that made up Arrow emerged outside, shooting up like a geyser from beneath the pickup truck Flash and Kelly Kulick had gotten into. The truck was propelled high into the air by the spiders. Flash commanded Arrow to at least let Kelly go, and she obliged by opening the truck's door and causing Kelly to fall toward the ground. Kulick was saved from death by Spider-Man, who then swung over to the truck to deal with Arrow. But by the time he got there, she had escaped into the sewer with Thompson.[8]

Ero took Flash to the church where she emerged from her cocoon and, after webbing him to the ceiling, removed an egg-sack from her stomach. Spider-Man, remembering the cocoon he had witnessed in the church earlier, tracked Ero down before she could impregnate Flash, plucking the egg sac from Ero's hand and sticking into a near-by wall. Ero dove from the ceiling to attack him, stingers shooting from her wrists. Spider-Man leaped to meet her with his own stingers drawn.[9]

As they battled, Ero revealed that Spider-Man's stingers only appeared when he faced someone whose being was rooted in primal forces of chaos and darkness. Ero then managed to stab Spider-Man in the shoulder, drugging him and slowing him down. Having the upper hand, Ero decided to impregnate Spider-Man instead of Flash, her logic being that while his offspring would be considerably less than Flash's, it would in the end ensure her enemy's demise. Just as Ero was about to implant her egg-sack into Spider-Man, Betty Brant arrived and blasted the egg sac with silver bullets fired from a shotgun. Enraged at the loss of her egg, and vowing revenge against Betty, Ero tried to escape. Spider-Man followed and lured her into an Aviary, where she was devoured alive by birds. Only a single spider remained, which Spider-Man stepped on contemptuously.[10]

One More Day

It was later revealed that after the events in which Mephisto rewrote history, Peter Parker rejected the Other's offer following his battle with Morlun out of fear of what he would become. Even without the Other's intervention Peter somehow survived, though both he and Morlun possessed memories of the timeline where he was its host. As a result, Ero was not killed, and instead chose Peter Parker's clone, Kaine, as its receptacle, resurrecting him after the Kravinoffs killed him and kickstarting his metamorphosis into the Man-Spider-like form dubbed "Tarantula" by the Jackal.[11] After being restored to human form, Kaine used the Other's wrist-stingers to tear through the Spider-Queen's head, mortally wounding her.

When Kaine was killed facing Carlos Lobo and his sister, his body was swarmed by thousands of spiders, which wrapped him in a cocoon. In a vision not unlike the one Peter had following his death at Morlun's hands, Kaine found himself talking with the Other in its Ero form. The Other unveiled itself as the spider-totem that had previously resurrected Peter, revealed it had resurrected Kaine after his murder at the hands of the Kravinoff family, and offered to resurrect him a second time if he agreed to embrace his inner spider and become its receptacle. Kaine initially refused, not wanting to become more of a monster than he already saw himself as being, but realized that Aracely still needed his help and that he had no choice but to embrace the Other. As a result, Kaine, like Peter before him, was reborn with a more arachnid-like appearance and augmented powers.[12] The Other prevented telepaths like Aracely from accessing Kaine's mind, manifesting as a Man-Spider-like monster and attacking them.[13] When Shathra returned, Kaine was forced to tap into the Other's power to deal with her.[14]

Spider-Verse

File:Peter Parker (Kaine) (Earth-616) from Amazing Spider-Man Vol 3 13 001.jpg

When attacked by Daemos of the Inheritors, Kaine retaliated by extending spines from his body, causing Daemos recognized to recognize him as the Other's avatar. During the Inheritors' hunt of spiders, Old Man Spider attempted to explain the nature of the Other to the Superior Spider-Man, but only got as far as it being a unique, extremely powerful totemic entity before Otto dismissed his statement as superstition. After being mortally wounded, Old Man Spider told Peter that the receptacles for the Other, the Bride, and the Scion needed to be protected at all costs.[15] Following Ben Reilly's death,[16] Kaine swore to avenge him and travelled to Loomworld, where he unleashed the Other's full power and transformed into a massive Man-Spider. In this form, he was able to hold his own against Solus, Morlun, and Daemos, easily killing the Inheritors' patriarch. However, this spurred Morlun into a rage and he ripped off one of Kaine's limbs and impaled him through the throat, killing him.[17]

During the ritual to ensure the destruction of the Spider Totems, Morlun made a cut in Kaine's still-transformed body, spilling his blood onto the Web of Life and Destiny. He and the Master Weaver both claimed that in doing so he had severed the Other's connection to the Great Web, making it so that the Other would never again be able to take a host.[18] While Kaine was reborn a third time, the Inheritors' ritual killed the Other, stripping him of the powers it had bestowed upon him.[19]

Attributes

Power Grid[24]
:Category:Power Grid/Fighting Skills/Experienced Fighter:Category:Power Grid/Energy Projection/On Contact:Category:Power Grid/Durability/Enhanced:Category:Power Grid/Speed/Superhuman:Category:Power Grid/Strength/Superhuman (800 lbs-25 ton):Category:Power Grid/Intelligence/Gifted

Powers

  • Spider-stingers: The Other could extend venomous stingers from its wrists when manifested as Miss Arrow, which were especially effective against malevolent totemic entities such as the Inheritors. It also bestowed this power upon Peter and Kaine when they became its receptacle. [20] [21]
  • Night Vision: The Other allowed Peter and Kaine to see at night.[20] [21]
  • Monstrous Transformation: If its receptacle's life is endangered or they are experiencing severe rage, the Other can transform them into a humanoid spider-like monster. The degree of transformation varies from fangs and glowing eyes to metamorphosis into a Man-Spider-like monster.[20] [21]

Abilities

When manifested as Ero/Miss Arrow, it could transform into a swarm of spiders and control them.

Notes

  • Due to the events of Mephisto rewriting history, the powers Peter developed during The Other (and the powers obtained from his incident with the Queen) have mysteriously disappeared. The manifestation of the entity known as Miss Arrow would never exist outside of The Other miniseries, though the Other appeared in its "Ero" and giant spider forms in the Scarlet Spider series.
  • Ero was introduced as an antagonistic spider totem opposed to the Great Weaver, who had resurrected Peter Parker, and manifested to kill him and restore the natural order.[1] However, a retcon implemented during Scarlet Spider (Vol. 2) combined Ero with aspects of the Great Weaver into "The Other", an entity whose nature has been expanded upon in Spider-Verse. The remaining aspects of the Great Weaver, such as weaving the Web of Life, were given to the Master Weaver.
  • According to Uatu, the Other is the manifestation of Peter's spider abilities and the representative of the Great Weaver.[22]
  • According to Old Man Spider, The Other, The Bride and The Scion are unique totemic entities in the Multiverse.[15]
  • The retcon that the Other was the spider-totem who resurrected Peter leaves its reason for manifesting as Ero and trying to kill Peter, and later attempting to use Flash Thompson to reproduce, unclear.

Trivia

  • Ero is similar in appearance to the Gatekeeper, though whether they were meant to be related is unknown.
  • Its appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #527 was based on Spider-Man's costume.
  • Miss Arrow (played by Alice Lee) was a member of the "Geek Chorus" in the original version of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and was the one who injected Swiss Miss into the narrative, feeling that the Sinister Six could use "a woman's touch".

See Also

Links and References

References

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