Summary

• Spider-Man unleashes his rage on the Jackal without any outside influence, showing a darker side of himself.
• The Jackal's goal was to leave Peter with traumatic memories, and Spider-Man's violence suggests the villain may have succeeded.
• Unlike previous instances where external forces caused Spider-Man's darkness, this time the anger and violence come from within him.

Warning! Spoilers for Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #4 ahead!Spider-Man has broken bad before, but he just unleashed his full rage on an enemy without the aid of a symbiote, mind control or any other outside influence. Pushed to his breaking point by his longtime foe the Jackal, Spidey lets the villain feel the brunt of his frustration. What’s worse is that the Wall-Crawler actually seems to enjoy it.

In Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #4 by Saladin Ahmed and Juan Ferreyra, Peter comes face-to-face with Miles Warren aka the Jackal. Warren is the villain responsible for cloning Peter and Gwen Stacy, kicking off the infamous Clone Saga of the 1990s. Throughout this most recent miniseries, he’s forced Spidey to endure unspeakable horrors. He reveals to Spider-Man that the fear itself was his whole goal, as he wanted to leave Peter with traumatic memories that will haunt him for years. A fed up Spider-Man then lets loose on the Jackal, pummeling him with his fists and breaking his jaw.

Spider-Man is shocked by what he’s done to Warren. But perhaps more shocking is how he feels about it. “I...I just broke an unresisting man's jaw," he says. "I didn't mean to, I...just reacted. I’ve been so afraid these past couple days. It felt...It felt so good being the scary one instead.”

Spider-Man's Previous Villain Turns Weren't His Fault

This is hardly the first time that Spider-Man has embraced his dark side, but it’s usually due to external forces manipulating his mind. Most famously, when Spider-Man first bonded with his symbiote suit in the 1980s, it made him more aggressive against criminals. Stunned by how he’d stopped pulling his punches, he rejected the alien costume, separating it from himself and leading it to bond with Eddie Brock to create Venom.

The most recent example can be found in last year’s storyline “Spider-Man’s First Hunt,” appearing in The Amazing Spider-Man #32-35 by Zeb Wells and Patrick Gleason. When he actually tries to kill Mary Jane’s new boyfriend. The evilness is eventually expelled from his body, and although he feels guilty, those closest to him put that guilt to rest by reminding him, “That wasn’t you.”

Spider-Man's Enemy Wins By Pushing The Wall-Crawler To His Breaking Point

Unfortunately for Peter, he doesn’t have any similar loopholes to fall back on in this most recent scenario with the Jackal. It’s true that he’s been through the wringer as a result of the Jackal’s manipulations. The miniseries sees him awaken in a world where nobody re him and he has no powers. From there, he must brave a haunted train station and a haunted house, and experience his loved ones being tortured while he’s unable to help. So when he learns it’s all been a lie, his anger at the Jackal is certainly justified. But that anger and violence is coming from within him, not some malevolent force making him act against his nature.

The Jackal’s whole plan was to break Peter’s spirit and create an experience that would haunt him for years. And Spider-Man realizes after beating him that the Jackal may have actually won. The memory that will likely plague Spider-Man’s nightmares won’t be any of the ghosts or other terrors he witnessed, but the monster that lurks within his own heart.

Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #4 is available now from Marvel Comics.