The wackiest Spider-Man story is now the Madame Web movie

polygon.com:

Spider-Man arguably has one of the best supporting casts in comic books, a collection of friends and enemies nearly as iconic as he is. It’s one of the reasons he’s so popular, and why Sony is content to make movies like Venom, Morbius, and Kraven the Hunter based on his rogues’ gallery, with no connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and nary a hint of Spidey himself.

Spider-Man’s villains and allies are almost as iconic as he is. Madame Web and its antagonist, a guy named Ezekiel Sims, however, are not. Instead they suggest that Madame Web is quietly adapting one of the most controversial and out there Spider-Man stories printed in the last 20 years, one that I’m frankly thrilled to have people ask me questions about.

But first, the basics. The trailer for Madame Web introduces us to Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), a paramedic who, after a near-death experience, discovers she can see the future. That future is haunted by a man named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a violent man who dresses like an evil Spider-Man and seems to have it out for three other young women destined to become Spider-People — Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Conner), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced).

Each of these characters has extensive ties to Spider-Man lore, some more bonkers than others (Mattie Franklin’s Wikipedia page is a lot) but Ezekiel is where things get truly wild.

A central pillar of Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski’s six-year tenure on Amazing Spider-Man, Ezekiel Sims is a wealthy older gentleman who rocks Peter Parker’s world when he not only shows up with similar spider-powers, but seems to know everything about him. He then poses a question, which Straczynski would tease out over the