What's The Story Of Madame Web?

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While we know that the protagonist’s mother died while looking for spiders in the Amazon (a trailer quote that Twitter can’t stop mocking), we still don’t know much about Sony Pictures’ upcoming “Spider-Man” character study “Madame Web.” Led by Dakota Johnson, the film got its first trailer ahead of its early 2024 release, and in it, we see Cassandra Webb (Johnson), an emergency medical professional, realize that she’s experiencing random and unexpected visions of future events — which only happens after an accident where she’s trapped in a car that hurtles off a bridge and into a river. (It’s worth noting here that the name Cassandra is pretty important, considering she made prophecies in ancient Greek mythology.)

Since she can’t predict when she’ll see the future (somewhat ironically), Cassandra has to figure out how to harness this power, and before long, she’s joined by her young cohorts Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Martha “Mattie” Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney). The four then have to decipher exactly why Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), the man who was with Cassandra’s mother on the previously mentioned (and doomed) Amazonian investigation, is trying to kill Cassandra. And not only that, but she has mysterious previous connections with Anya, Mattie, and Julia to boot.

So besides the stacked cast and the fact that the film is yet another entry into Sony’s collection of “Spider-Man”-adjacent films, like “Venom” and “Morbius,” what do we know about this standalone “Madame Web” movie? Well, we know it wildly diverges from the source material where fans first meet Madame Web.

Madame Web’s story in Marvel Comics, explained

Here’s the thing. In the original Marvel comics, Madame Web is also named Cassandra Webb, but to put it politely, she’s not quite as young or as spry as Dakota Johnson. The original character is an elderly blind woman — and because she suffers from a long-term neuromuscular disease known as myasthenia gravis, she’s on a life support machine. That machine? It happens to look a lot like a spider web.

Madame Web, unlike the stars of previous Sony movies, like Morbius and Venom, isn’t an antagonist where Spider-Man is concerned. Rather, her first collaboration with the plucky teenage hero in the comics is when she uses her clairvoyance and mental powers to track down a kidnapping victim. Still, she knows that Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker, so armed with this information, she cements herself as one of his allies.

They end up helping each other during her run in the comics, although eventually, Madame Web is written out when her character is killed by Sasha Kravinoff, daughter of Kraven the Hunter. Before dying, she passes her powers to Julia Carpenter, the vitally important Marvel character played by Sydney Sweeney in the 2024 film, who, in the comics, also bears the mantle of Spider-Woman.

The original Madame Web story in the Spider-Man animated series

The character shows up on the small screen for the first time in the animated “Spider-Man” series from the 1990s, where she’s voiced by Stan Lee’s real-life wife, Joan Lee. In Season 3 of the series — which follows the comic arc “The Sins of the Fathers” — Madame Web arrives at an important time in Peter’s journey, anointing him the “chosen one” as he wonders if he even wants to be Spider-Man anymore.

Though she seems like a possible antagonist at first, she’s actually working with the Beyonder to identify the superior Spider-Man and stop the Spider-Carnage, meaning she’s still working with the hero in the end. She does that by leaving cryptic, mysterious messages that Peter has to solve, culminating in a battle with the “two-headed monster” she warned him about in the form of Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin.

The younger take on the character, “Madame Web,” swings into theaters on February 14, 2024.