While Peter Parker will always be
my #1 Spider-Man, he’s had a few fairly competent successors to his role of
Web-Head. When most folks talk about Spider-Man’s successor, they think about
Miles Morales, who inherited the title after Peter’s death in the Ultimate
Universe Timeline. But for me, the first other Wall-Crawler that comes to mind
is the Spider-Man of 2099, Miguel O’Hara. Let’s set the stage. 2099 is a pretty
dystopian future, where most of the world is run by mega-sized corporations.
Also, most swear words have been replaced by the word “Shock” for some reason.
The modern era of Marvel is known as the Heroic Age, where costumed superheroes
and villains were plentiful. Nowadays, the only hero anyone talks about is
Thor. And that’s by a group of crazy cultists, Thorites, that believe that the
Thunderer’s return will herald the end of days. Yeah, pretty depressing. Now
that we’ve set up the time, we’ll set up the man, Miguel O’Hara.
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| The skulls are a nice touch. |
Miguel grew up in New York City,
with his parents, George and Conchata, and his brother Gabriel. Pretty much
from the get go, Miguel was shown to be a prodigy. But, he’s about as arrogant
as he is intelligent, so he comes across as a bit of a jerk. As an adult, he’s
quickly made head of the genetics program at Alchemax, the huge corporation
that pretty much owns New York. He’s given the incredibly important and
incredibly dangerous job of trying to create super-powers for Alchemax’s
corporate controlled super-soldiers the “Corporate Raiders.” Alchemax wants to
recreate the abilities of heroes from the Heroic Age. Miguel is 100% okay with
this, since he’s pretty fixated on recreating Spider-Man. The first test subject
of his genetic procedure, a prisoner looking to get some time off his sentence,
is horribly mutated and dies in agony. Disgusted by what happened, Miguel goes
to his Boss, Tyler Stone, and tells Stone he wishes to resign and quit his
genetic research. Stone, who is basically the Norman Osborn of this era,
doesn’t take kindly to Miguel’s plan. He tricks Miguel into drinking a highly
addictive drug called Rapture. It bonds to the user’s DNA, making them addicts
for life, and Alchemax controls the only legal supply. He gives Miguel his
ultimatum, either keep working or die a junky. He gives Miguel a few hours to
think about it.
Miguel, rather than allow himself
to be blackmailed, does think of a creative solution. He had uploaded a sample
of his DNA into his genetic manipulation machine a few days before. His plan,
use the pure sample in the machine to rewrite his DNA to purge it of the
Rapture. After starting the procedure, his jealous and abused subordinate sneaks
in and sabotages the machine. He changed the Genetic Profile to be “50%
spider.” The machine overloads, causes a huge explosion but Miguel survives. His
subordinate tries to play it off like the explosion was Miguel’s fault, and
that he’d just stumbled upon Miguel. He quickly drops the rues when he notice’s
Miguel’s new fangs and talons. He shoots at Miguel, whom easily dodges it,
before knocking the SOB out of the new hole in the lab. Miguel tries to save him, but his subordinate
ultimately falls to his death, because Miguel now has retractable claws. The
claws ripped right through the lab coat. Stone, who’d detected the power surge,
hires a bounty hunter name Venture, and sends Venture and his security force to
take care of the possible superpowered being. Miguel quickly adapts to his new
powers, and escapes his pursuers. He was helped by a passing Thorite. Said
Thorite preaching the Thunderers return in costume using a new age glider.
Miguel pilfers the glider’s mesh, which looks suspiciously like webbing, and
heads home. He grabs an old costume he’d worn for a Day of the Dead Festival he
and his brother attended in Mexico the previous year. The suit is made from
unstable molecule fabric, making it largely shred resistant. He combines the
costume with the mesh he took from the Thorite, making a pretty unique and kind
of intimidating Spider-Man costume. Venture track him down, but he’s bested by
the fledgling Spider-Man. Afterwards, Miguel begins trying to find a cure for
his condition. Why do science types always want to get rid of superpowers? So
stupid.
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| It is kind of hard to stand out with this many spider-men/women running around. |
But, Miguel quickly learns how
ignorant he’s been about the suffering of others in New York under Alchemax and
mega-corporations like it. While in costume he publicly vows to do his best to
protect the average citizens of New York and fight the mega-corporations. He is
hounded by Stone and his lackeys, and his own rogue’s gallery. Some are 2099
versions of Spider-Man villains, like Vulture, Green Goblin and Venom, and
others are your typical cyborgs and bounty hunters that populate the future. One
adventure took him to “Valhalla” Alchemax’s floating city. Once there, he runs
into two men that claim to be Thor and Heimdall. It’s quickly revealed that
these two were somehow created by Alchemax to be their minions and to undermine
the popularity of Spider-Man and other new heroes. By joining forces with his
era’s version the X-Men, Punisher, and Dr. Doom, they’re able to send Valhalla
crashing down. He’s able to meet his predecessor, Peter Parker, during a time
travel adventure, and does his best to make the world a better place. Standard
hero story.
Miguel has a number of powers
similar to and yet completely different from the Original Spider-Man, Peter
Parker. He’s incredibly strong, fast and agile. He’s able to cling to walls,
thanks to talons he has on his hands and feet. He can also use these as weapons,
in a pinch. Said talons fold against his skin automatically when he touches
himself, to prevent injury. He can heal fast, but not fast enough for it to be
classified as a healing factor. He has spinnerets in his forearms, being the
original Spider-Man to have organic webbing. He doesn’t possess a traditional
“Spider-Sense,” but he does have improved vision and hearing that let him react
to things at almost that level of precognition. Miguel is also incredibly
intelligent, a genius in genetics and something of a savant when it comes to
fighting. He also has venomous fangs, because reasons. Or they’re trying to add
a few more spidery traits to Spider-Man.
Miguel’s version of Spider-Man
hasn’t really been used outside of the comics. Which isn’t surprising, seeing
how his original comic series was only just over 40 issues. Not much to go on
there. But, he’s gotten a new comic line, so perhaps we’ll see more of him on
the small screen at some point.
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| His most recent look. I like the white, but miss the webbing cape. |
Since he only has one TV
appearance, I’ll also mention his one major game appearance. He is one of two
Spider-Men in Spider-Man: Edge of Time.
Fun fact, this version of Miguel is played by Christopher Daniel Barnes, who
played Spider-Man in the 1994 TV show.
In it, Miguel attempts to stop Walker Sloan, an Alchemax Scientist that
built a time machine. Miguel is just a step behind Sloan, who travels to the
past, and rewrites history so that Alchemax is founded years before it should
be. So now, Peter Parker lives in an Alchemax mini-city tower, and Miguel lives
in an even more advanced world controlled by Alchemax. Miguel is unaffected by
the change because he was in the time machine while things were changing. He
gets a sample of Peter’s DNA, which creates a weird time-link between the two.
A unique mechanic of the game is that because of the time travel distortions,
either Spider-Man can help the other. The best example being that in the past,
Peter destroys plans for a prototype security drone that Miguel is fighting in
the future. When this happens, the Robot is replaced by several smaller
machines instead of one supersized version. It’s because of wibbly wobbly,
timey wimey stuff.
Miguel O’Hara is an interesting
successor to Peter Parker’s legacy. He’s a bit more arrogant, a little more
intelligent, and a little spiderier. I’ve only seen a little of him, in the two
instances outside the comics listed above, in his initial comic run, and when
he became a supporting character in Superior
Spider-Man. He was forced to travel back in time to stop some event that was
erasing Tyler Stone from existence. Why would he want to do that? Because it
turns out that during his adventures he learned that Tyler Stone is his
biological father. Tough luck Miguel. His whole utopia/dystopia landscape, while
having been done to death, still looks really interesting. I found it rather
odd that he wasn’t one of the guys to figure out that something was up with Spider-Man
after coming to the Heroic Age. You model yourself after the guy, but don’t notice
his complete personality shift? What the heck Miguel? I will admit, while Ultimate Spider-Man is more miss than hit for me, they did have Miguel give a pretty good speech about what being Spider-Man means to him. That the very idea of Spider-Man is akin to legend in his time, a legend that he's doing his best to recreate, all be it poorly. His words, not mine. A hero using a name while still aspiring to live up to it, it's a concept that I like a whole lot. He’s the futurist Spider of
the future, Miguel O’Hara the Spider-Man of 2099. Next time, we'll continue this Spider-Man train with another member of the sinister symbiotes, Toxin.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/Sman2099.jpg
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/b/b0/Spider-Man_2099_Vol_2_8_Textless.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141020231614
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