7 of Spider-Man’s Biggest Transformations in the Marvel Comic Books

“What is happening to me?” That’s the biggest question heading into Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in which Peter Parker (Tom Holland) undergoes a transformation that might turn the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man into a Spider-Menance. Peter turns to bioscience professor Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) — alter ego of the Hulk — for answers about his sudden onset of “spider-puberty,” a physical change that enhances his amazing arachnid abilities.

Peter learns that his DNA is mutating to grant him new powers, including heightened senses, increased agility, and the ability to spin organic webs like Peter 2 (Tobey Maguire‘s Spider-Man). What causes these mutagenic changes? Does it have something to do with Sadie Sink and her mystery character? Or the powerful new villain no one can see? Is it the result of being forgotten by old friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), or even a side effect from dealing with sinister villains Scorpion (Michael Mando) and Tombstone (Marvin Jones III)…?

The mystery won’t be solved before the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed movie swings into theaters on July 31, but until then, here are seven of Spider-Man’s shocking transformations from the Marvel comic books.

7. Six-Armed Spider-Man

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1971’s Amazing Spider-Man #100 promised “the most-shocking unexpected ending Spidey has ever had.” It was writer and co-creator Stan Lee and artist Gil Kane who had Peter Parker ponder his future in the comic’s milestone 100th issue, which asked the question: “The Spider or the Man?”

Peter planned to propose to girlfriend Gwen Stacy and give up being Spider-Man, using an untested serum of his own making to strip him of his spider powers. (The potion was a contingency to make him normal in case his radioactive blood ever became dangerous.) Instead of rendering him powerless, the serum made him more spider-like as Spider-Man sprouted four extra arms from his sides, which came in handy when the eight-limbed Spider-Man was caught between two other men-turned-monsters: Dr. Curt Connors, aka the Lizard, and Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire.

Fearing he would become a monstrous menace, the six-armed Spider-Man sought Connors’ help in developing a cure for his condition. An enzyme in Morbius’ fangs was the key ingredient in a serum that removed Spider-Man’s extra limbs and helped the Lizard revert back to his one-armed human form in Amazing Spider-Man #102.

6. Spider-Lizard

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Connors’ attempt to regenerate a lost limb transformed him into the Lizard, the reptilian villain often defeated by Spider-Man’s scientific acumen. When Spider-Man was exposed to energy from Connors’ enervator device he used to cure the Lizard, it triggered a sudden mutation in Spider-Man’s radioactive blood, turning him into the savage Spider-Lizard in 1980’s Spectacular Spider-Man #39-40.

As the rampaging reptile terrorized Manhattan, Connors created a derivative of the anti-Lizard formula Spider-Man first used to turn the biochemist back to normal in his debut appearance (1963’s Amazing Spider-Man #6). Connors tailed the bestial Spider-Lizard into the sewers and administered his antidote, and Spider-Man shed his scaly skin just before the cold-blooded change became permanent.

5. Cosmic Spider-Man

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1989’s Spectacular Spider-Man #158 made Spider-Man “the strongest hero in the Marvel Universe” during Acts of Vengeance, a crossover event in which Marvel villains including Doctor Doom, Magneto, and Loki plotted their revenge against their respective archnemeses. Trading enemies, the vengeful villains would have an advantage over the heroes they often lost to in the pages of X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and The Avengers.

Spider-Man’s new powers seemed to be the result of a lab accident at Empire State University, but in reality, the Enigma Force chose the cosmic-powered Spider-Man to be its champion as Acts of Vengeance continued in issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man from 1989 to 1990. As the Cosmic Spider-Man, he wielded augmented abilities like flight, molecular manipulation over his webbing, energy blasts, and an enhanced spider-sense and other super senses.

He was strong enough to single-handedly defeat X-Men villain Magneto and punch the Gray Hulk into orbit, two feats that made Peter wonder whether he had too much power (and thus too much responsibility). Spider-Man’s cosmic powers fully manifested once the Enigma Force imbued him with the Captain Universe identity to stop a Loki-commanded Tri-Sentinel from destroying a nuclear power plant in Amazing Spider-Man #329, only to return to normal once the three-headed Sentinel was defeated.

4. Spider-Hulk… Smash!

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Not long after he lost his cosmic powers, Spider-Man fought a savage green Hulk — the strongest there is — in 1990’s Web of Spider-Man #69. A dose of the gamma rays that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk was sapped by a bio-kinetic energy absorber, which then transferred the Hulk’s gamma-irradiated “bio-energy” to Spider-Man. Anger and stress triggered Peter’s transformation into a rampaging, green-skinned Spider-Hulk in Web #70, but unlike Banner, Spider-Man was able to cure himself with the use of the bio-device.

Spider-Man would become a green goliath once more in 2020’s Immortal Hulk: Great Power #1, a one-shot issue by writer Tom Taylor and artist Jorge Molina. The angry alter ego of Bruce Banner emerged at night in Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s acclaimed Immortal Hulk run, but in Great Power, night fell — and Banner didn’t change. The not-so-friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was the new host of the Hulk, who, it turned out, had been magically cast out of Banner’s body by the trickster god Loki.

Cursed to turn into a Spider-Hulk by night, Spider-Man hypothesized that the Hulk’s gamma energy was drawn to him because of the radioactive nature of his spider powers. One controlled gamma explosion later, Banner reabsorbed the Hulk (who remembered Spider-Man’s secret identity despite Doctor Strange casting a spell restoring his anonymity). “You made everyone forget who you are. Banner forgot,” an articulate Hulk told the masked Spider-Man. “But I don’t forget.”

3. Man-Spider

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In 1998’s Amazing Spider-Man #437, the wallcrawler underwent a Kafkaesque metamorphosis into a Man-Spider. Spider-Man and Everett Thomas — alias Synch, a mutant with the power to get “in synch” with nearby mutants and temporarily take on their abilities — were both exposed to a mutagenic pollen by the supervillain Samuel Smithers (aka Plantman) that turned them into monsters. Spider-Man retained his intelligence despite his transformation into a monstrous Man-Spider with eight eyes and talons, a neogenic nightmare that ended when Spider-Man and Synch used Plantman’s antitoxin to reverse their uncanny mutations.

It wasn’t the first time Spider-Man changed into a man-sized spider, and it wouldn’t be the last. During a visit to the Savage Land with the X-Man Angel in 1982’s Marvel Fanfare #1-2, the humanoid pterodactyl Dr. Karl Lykos/Sauron (named after J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings villain) and his mutates used a “genetic transformer” to genetically devolve Spider-Man and Angel, turning the heroes into mindless monstrosities.

X-Men villain Sauron siphoned off the transformational energy and the Man-Spider reverted to his human form, but Spider-Man mutated into an actual arachnid after an encounter with yet another mutant menace: Adriana “Ana” Soria, the Spider-Queen. Introduced during Paul Jenkins‘ run on The Spectacular Spider-Man in 2004, the mind-controlling Queen triggered Spider-Man’s mutation into Man-Spider and then a giant, eight-limbed spider so they could mate. Spider-Man died, only for Peter Parker to be reborn from the spider molt with new powers, like the ability to shoot organic webs.

2. Werewolf Spider-Man

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Spider-Man has fought lycanthropic creatures like Man-Wolf (the wolflike alter ego of astronaut John Jameson) and Werewolf by Night (the cursed Jack Russell), but he was once a wolf man Spider-Man. In the 2019 one-shot comic Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1, Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. sent Spider-Man into a hair-raising situation: a world where even Mary Jane and Aunt May were, well, werewolves by night. Like Capwolf before him, the wall-crawler had become a wall-howling werewolf thanks to a geneticist-turned-wolf man.

Spider-Wolf went from — in his words — a full-throated werewolf straight out of the 1981 Dee Wallace horror The Howling to TV’s Teen Wolf, with wolf Spider-Man fighting off the effects of the werewolf fever to get his primal side under control. An immune Wolverine helped Spider-Man get to the bottom of a timey-wimey plot (to borrow a phrase from Doctor Who) involving the High Evolutionary, who thought the key to genetic evolution was devolution. (Needless to say, werewolf doomsday was undone by issue’s end.)

1. Savage Spider-Man

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The webspinner underwent a monstrous transformation in 2022’s Savage Spider-Man, a five-issue miniseries by writer Joe Kelly and artists Gerardo Sandoval and Mike Bowden. After the villain Baron Zemo of Hydra injected Spider-Man with a drug created by the Mad Thinker that reacted badly to his spider-physiology, he turned into a half-man, half-spider hybrid driven by primal instinct.

The savage Spider-Man was more spider than man: he had segmented legs, sharp fangs and talons, the multi-legged abdomen characteristic of arthropods, and he spewed blood-red webs from his mouth and wrists. As the bestial Spider devolved into a mindless monster under Zemo’s control, the last shreds of Peter Parker’s humanity manifested as a sort of evolved Spider-Man: Cerebral Spider-Man. Following his first mutated state that turned him savage, a second evolution increased his cognitive abilities until Peter shed those temporary powers. Who saved the day? Just your regular friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day tickets are now on sale. The new movie swings into theaters July 31.

Release Date

July 31, 2026

Runtime

150 Minutes

Director

Destin Daniel Cretton