A Web of Life
When her father’s police work saw him targeted by Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, and his lackey Mr. Nobody, May donned an improvised costume and took down Nobody. Recreating Ben’s costume, she began fighting crime as Spider-Girl, defeating colorful villains including the mad juggler Crazy Eight, the time-displaced Spyral, and the monstrous Carlton Hackmutter, AKA Dragon King. The media picked up on her escapades, leading her parents to discover her secret life. She also acquired an unwanted mentor in Dardevil, Ben Reilly’s demon-altered son, and a second mentor when she teamed with her father’s colleague Phil Urich, formerly the heroic Green Goblin, to defeat her Venom-symbiote possessed father. With her costume confiscated by her parents, she wore a series of improvised get-ups, but was mistaken for a criminal by heroes such as Rich Rider, AKA Nova, and Regina and Rosetta Morgan, AKA the Ladyhawks; however, after she teamed with her father to defeat Mr. Nobody and Crazy Eight, he finally accepted her desire to follow in his footsteps, adding his own training regime to Phil’s. She even earned reserve Avengers membership after defeating the entire team save Cassie Lang, AKA Stinger, in a game of “capture the flag.”
May was drawn into Darkdevil’s conflict with Kaine, who handed her a humiliating defeat. After encountering telekinetic mutant Nancy Lu, a player for a rival school’s basketball team who used her abilities to win games, May quit basketball because she felt her own powers gave her an unfair advantage. Her crime-fighting pitted her against new foes, including Killerwatt, Mr. Abnormal, Raptor, Earthshaker, and Crazy Eight’s brother Funny Face, and the Buzz. She began dating Jack, unaware he was Buzz, but eventually left him due to his constant womanizing.
Crazy Eight and Funny Face united several of Spider-Girl’s enemies as the Savage Six, kidnapping Jameson and Courtney Duran to compel Spider-Girl to fight them. May had fought her way through five of them when her battle with Killerwatt stripped her of her powers, prompting her to call in the Avengers to deal with Funny Face and Crazy Eight. May quit being Spider-Girl, just before Normie escaped again and kidnapped her. He tried to goad her into killing him to end the “Spider-Goblin war” once and for all, but she refused, prompting Normie to reform. After borrowing (and destroying) a Goblin-glider from Urich to compensate for her lost powers, she replaced it with a more advanced model, a gift from Normie; Urich subsequently partnered with Normie to become the Green Goblin again. May also developed a rivalry with Gerry Drew, AKA Spider-Man, the reckless son of her father’s old ally Jessica Drew (formerly Spider-Woman). While fighting him, she crashed into a generator, restoring her powers.
May soon found herself caught in a gang war between the lupine crime lord Canis and the Kingpin, forcing her to rely on Gerry and Urich’s unwanted aid. Repeated battles against the Kingpin-allied Mr. Nobody and Crazy Eight, and Canis’ lackey Funny Face soon wore May and her allies down. She also had to deal with personal distractions, including Nancy Lu’s arrival at her school, and the revelation that her mother was pregnant again. The gang war turned deadly serious when Crazy Eight was shot dead after May pushed Gerry out of Mr. Nobody’s line of fire. The grief-crazed Funny Face broke his mother Angel Face (an old enemy of Urich’s) out of Ravencroft Prison and brought her into the gang war. As the war raged, May organized Urich, Raptor, Buzz and the Ladyhawks into the New Warriors. The group ultimately deserted Spider-Girl when she let Angel Face and Funny Face escape in return for their pledge to abandon crime. May gained a new ally in the overeager Felicity Hardy, AKA Scarlet Spider, but a string of defeats convinced Hardy to retire. Peter mulled a return to action, and had Fantastic Five leader Reed Richards build him a bionic leg; while at Fantastic Five HQ, May teamed with Peter to defeat the Power Cosmic-imbued Apox, the Omega Skrull. Kaine resurfaced, this time trying to prevent Alison Mongraine from killing Normie Osborn. Unfortunately, Kaine demolished anyone who stood in the way of his mission, including Peter Parker, whose new leg was destroyed in the battle. In the midst of all this, the Faces returned to the city to create more chaos, violating their truce. Spider-Girl stopped Mongraine and sent the Faces back to jail. She briefly quit being Spider-Girl afterwards, but Darkdevil talked her out of it.
When the Soldiers of the Serpent terrorized the city, Spider-Girl fought them, but was nearly killed by their leader, the Egyptian death god Seth. His presence prompted Earth’s champions to assemble in Avengers Compound, but Seth enclosed the compound in an entropic energy dome, leaving May to combat him alone. After a furious battle, May weakened him enough to destroy the dome, freeing the others to defeat him. May returned from the battle to find that Mary Jane had given birth to a healthy baby boy—Benjy Parker. School remained problematic as Nancy accidentally revealed her powers during a fight with Davida, inciting anti-mutant hysteria at Midtown High; meanwhile, May assaulted track star Howard Kavanagh for abusing his girlfriend Sandra Healy, and began volunteering at a women’s shelter to help other abuse victims.
A series of attacks on the underworld rocked the city, resulting in the Kingpin’s death; Spider-Girl saved Canis from another attack, unaware that he was the mastermind behind them. Canis and his ally Mr. Nobody used her as a weapon the Tarantula who was trying to become a major player in the city’s underworld, and a government-sponsored team of reformed Super Villains (which included Normie’s new girlfriend, Brenda Drago) organized by Special Agent Arthur Weadon and led by Kaine. After finally realizing the truth about Canis, May was forced to save him from the enraged Tarantula. She also saved Buzz from his enemy, criminal scientist Sonya Jade, then teamed with him to save his parents from Jade and Carolyn Trainer, AKA Lady Octopus, who wished to use the Jamesons’ scientific expertise to create an army of monsters. Aided by South American crime lord Black Tarantula, May captured Jade and rescued Jack’s father John Jameson, who had been transformed into the Man-Wolf; however, she was badly beaten by Trainer. Trainer allied herself with Canis, all the while planning to betray him, unaware that she in turn was being manipulated by the Tarantula. After another defeat, May accepted the Tarantula’s aid in stopping Trainer and Canis, and he supplied her with “Team Spider,” a well-stocked support team. While pursuing Trainer, May’s costume was destroyed; she replaced it with a black costume, which she would continue to use intermittently, even after replacing her original costume. May finally defeated Trainer, Canis, and the Tarantula, although LaMuerto soon escaped.
Normie proposed to Brenda, but their engagement party was crashed by Elan Dejunae, AKA Fury the Goblin Queen, an insane woman betrothed to Normie by his grandfather years ago, who infected Normie with the purloined Venom symbiote. After a long hunt that left Darkdevil grievously wounded, May tracked down the new Venom; the symbiote tried to merge with both Normie and Spider-Girl to form one entity, but they burst free of the creature. Instead of handing the symbiote over to the Avengers, Normie decided to keep it, a decision that horrified May. Later, with most of the Fantastic Five away on a mission, May battled the escaped Apox alongside Franklin Richards, AKA Psi-Lord, and the team’s junior members. After a jaunt into the Negative Zone, May and Franklin defeated Apox, saved the city, and even helped Franklin’s mother Sue Richards, long ago lost in the Zone, return to the positive universe. May also talked down a gun-wielding Howard Kavanagh after Sandra finally left him.
After May helped the Avengers deal with a berserk, nanite-infused Jim Rhodes, Kaine informed her that he had experienced a vision of her death at a Scrier’s hands. The Scriers targeted her soon after, and when their warrior failed, they lured Roderick Kingsley, AKA Hobgoblin, out of retirement and sent him after her. He began with her allies, brutally beating the Ladyhawks, Buzz, and Raptor; only Spider-Girl’s intervention saved Urich from a similar beating. While she and Kaine battled Kingsley and a Scrier army, Kaine’s prophecy was seemingly fulfilled when a Scrier stabbed May in the chest. As she lay dying, Normie willed his symbiote to bond with her and heal her; the symbiote subsequently sacrificed itself to drive off Kingsley. Fearing that her mother was suffering from the stress of her crime-fighting activities, May quit being Spider-Girl for several months. During this time, she improved her grades, patched up her social life, ran for student council president, and romanced Gene Thompson, Felicity’s brother. While volunteering at the shelter, May defended shelter guest Mona Carlo from her criminal boyfriend Charlie Kurkle; May soon discovered that Charlie was the Hobgoblin’s low-level flunky, and that Kingsley was seeking a disk containing the Kingpin’s criminal contacts. May’s pursuit of the data put her into conflict with bounty hunter Mad Dog Rassitano, sonic-powered Hobgoblin flunky Reverb (Rudolph), and eventually the Hobgoblin himself; she prevailed against them all, but only drove off the Hobgoblin with the Black Tarantula’s aid. May’s heroic activities curtailed her time with Gene, even driving him to deface her campaign posters as a cry for attention. Knowing that her life as Spider-Girl would prevent her from fulfilling her duties as student council president, she withdrew from the race and nominated Davida as her replacement; Davida went on to win the race.
During what appeared to be an armored truck hijacking, May interfered with a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation and accidentally released the truck’s cargo: the Carnage symbiote. The alien bonded to her friend Maurice “Moose” Mansfield, rampaged across the city, and bonded Benjy Parker with its spawn. In between battles with Weadon’s team, Spider-Girl hunted Carnage and “Kid Carnage” through the city. She ultimately used Reverb’s confiscated weaponry to kill both symbiotes, but severely damaged Benjy’s ears in the process; surgery eventually restored his hearing. The Hobgoblin, trying to conquer the city’s underworld once more, enlisted the psychic Mindworm (William Turner) to torment SpiderGirl with illusions, while the Black Tarantula had also tired of Spider-Girl’s interference and sent the invisible assassin Deadspot to take her down; May barely managed to drive Deadspot off. The Kingpin’s disk came back to haunt May when Mona Carlo became the Crime lord, falsely claimed to possess a copy of it, and auctioned it off to the city’s gang leaders. The auction turned into a brawl when Mindworm turned on the Hobgoblin and commanded the other criminals to kill him, forcing Spider-Girl and Kingsley to fight alongside one another. Deadspot killed Charlie Kurkle when he tried to steal the disk from Mona, only to be taken down by Spider-Girl. The discouraged Hobgoblin killed Mindworm and left the city.
Gene eventually broke up with May and began dating her rival Simone DeSantos. Meanwhile, the anti-mutant group Humanity First targeted May’s mutant classmate Sara Hingle, prompting her to join the outlaw Sisterhood of Mutants as Nucleus. Spider-Girl and Nancy Lu (who had joined the X-People as Push) tracked her down and convinced her to surrender; unfortunately, the Sisterhood’s leader Magneta remotely jump started Sara’s powers, triggering a massive explosion. While the vigilante Anya Corazon, AKA Araña, recovered May from the rubble, the Order of the Goblin’s May Parker clone escaped and assumed May’s identity, learning about her life by reading her diary. Araña placed her own consciousness into May’s body, hoping to use it to get closer to the Black Tarantula, leaving May trapped in Araña’s, but after Araña’s mission failed, both women’s minds were sent back to their proper bodies. Unfortunately, May returned to find that the clone had taken over her life, and that her house had been destroyed by the new Green Goblin (her father who, after accidental exposure to the Goblin Formula, had been given Norman Osborn’s brain engrams by the Order of the Goblin). She battled the clone, who revealed her symbiotic nature, and then was involuntarily merged with her and Peter to become the monstrous Goblin God. May found herself inside her father’s psyche, and helped him defeat the malevolent shade of Norman Osborn while making peace with her clone. The Goblin God split back into its component parts, and May convinced her parents to let her newly discovered “sister” live with them.
The clone began attending Midtown High, calling herself “April Parker” and passing herself off as May’s cousin. As she ingratiated herself with the student body, the Parker family confronted another potential addition: A woman calling herself Gwen Reilly, who claimed to be Ben Reilly’s daughter. The suspicious Peter soon confirmed that she was really a Norman Osborn-connected con artist named Connie Fredickson, but not before an unidentified assailant murdered her. Spider-Girl meanwhile found herself targeted by Lonnie Lincoln, AKA Tombstone, who had been hired to kill her by cyborg mobster Silvio Barraca, AKA Silverback; the stony assassin apparently beat an unprepared May into unconsciousness. April hunted Tombstone down and killed him, then assumed May’s identity, claiming that "April" was gone. Meanwhile, Barraca's men dumped May in New Jersey's Pine Barrens, but were driven off by mutated priest Jimmy Santelli, AKA Batwing, allowing May to escape.
While dating an old friend, Wes Westin, the pair and May’s family suffered an attack at their home by Daemos, one of the interdimensional vampires, the Inheritors, who feast on Spider-Totems. Nearly defeated, May lay on the ground as her father intervened. Her mother demanded she get up. When she did, Mary Jane gave May her brother, Benjy, and helped her escape the house. Suddenly a portal opened and two more Spider-People from other times and dimensions beckoned her to join them in safety. Crying and clutching her brother, she implored them to help them save her family. But it was too late, the Spider-People confirmed that her father was already gone. She joined them but not before vowing vengeance for her family.
She joined the Spider-Army against the Inheritors, helping to recruit other Spider-Totems from across the Multiverse. Though Benjy was soon kidnapped by the Inheritors for being the Scion, an important totem to the vampire-like family that they planned to sacrifice alongside the Bride (Cindy Moon, AKA Silk) and the Other (Kaine Parker, AKA Scarlet Spider). Earth-616’s Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, promised they’d get Benjy back but she tore off in a rage, calling her fellow Spider-Totems phonies. Uncle Ben from Earth-3145 followed her, but May was in a fighting mood and engaged him in a scrap. He called her out for her egotistical demeanor but their fight was interrupted by a cluster of mutant spiders. They contained the spiders but she wasn’t about to let her vengeance go. It’s not until she battles Daemos that she changes her mind. During a fight with him over an important crystal, one of the Spider-Totems (Otto Ocativus, AKA Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man’s body) killed the Master Weaver, the weaver of the Web of Life and Destiny. Mayday realized that she couldn’t seek vengeance, only justice. When the Spider-Army made their final attack against the Inheritors, Uncle Ben and Peter Porker, AKA Spider-Ham, rescued Benjy, with Uncle Ben taking the child back to his and Mayday’s reality. The Inheritors were soon defeated.
Mayday returned home with Uncle Ben and they discovered that her mother and Wes survived Daemos’ attack. Ben chose to stay and be a grandfather while Maday donned her father’s costume. In a desire to start a new story, she declared herself Spider-Woman.
She regretted not killing Daemos, a regret that was soon used against her by Enthralla and the Red Queen using hypnotism. Tricked into thinking she had murdered her father and stolen her costume, Mayday was in dire straits until Ben and other heroes assisted her. The ordeal helped her face her father’s death and realize that dwelling on it made her a danger to herself and others. With closure and a renewed sense of hope, Mayday donned a new costume.
Mayday soon joined the Web-Warriors, a small team of Spider-Totems that survived the Inheritors, who protect the gateway to all of reality: The Web of Life and Destiny. After a routine training exercise, Mayday and Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 visited a parallel reality and ended up in a heist led by a gang of universe-hopping Electros, who were attempting to gain control over all parallel universes. The pair of spider-women stopped these electric evildoers before they could build their own teleportation tech. Mayday used her teleporting watch to get to Earth-001, but Gwen got caught in an electric blast and captured by the Electros. The Electros soon invaded Earth-001 and overwhelmed, the Web-Warriors fled. They soon allied with Octavia Otto, who helped the Web-Warriors disable Electro’s navigation network. The Web-Warriors leader, Billy Braddock, invited the Electros to challenge them for its control. The battle was intense and while Mayday protected Billy from on attack, they got separated from the other Web Warriors. When Anya saw an opportunity to trap the Electros and prevent them from taking over the network, Mayday and Billy ended up trapped as well.
Their teammates attempted to retrieve them, but ended up damaging the Web of Life and Destiny, which also impacted the team’s teleportation devices. While Karn and Octavia snapped the strands of the Web back into place, it freed the Electros from their confinement. Mayday and Billy continued to fight the Electros, and were soon joined by their fellow Web-Warriors and an army of Spider-Totems. With the power of music, they stopped the army of Electros.
Despite sending Spider-Bots to keep the Inheritors imprisoned, Spider-Girl and the other Spider-Totems couldn’t stop Superior Octopus (Otto Octavius in Spider-Man’s body) from using the Inheritors’ clone technology, which allowed them to escape. With the Inheritors returned, and her brother once again threatened, Mayday traveled to Earth-18199 with fellow Spider-Totem Anya, following the guidance of ancient mystical scrolls to find a way to stop them. There, they met Annie May Parker, AKA Spiderling, who was effectively Mayday’s younger sister in that universe and had predictive visions. In a last attempt to connect to the Web of Life and Destiny, Annie May’s friend Normie Osborn transformed into a spider monster, just as twin Inheritors Brix and Bora found them at the lab where Osborn had been trying to help others with arachnid mutations. Mayday and Anya fought the twins as Annie May channeled the power of the scrolls to open a portal, allowing them to escape and rejoin the larger Spider-Army, who had found a way to stop the Inheritors by turning them into babies using their clone technology. Meanwhile, the Other sought May’s father as its host and resurrected him.
Mayday returned to her reality and family as well as to her original alias of Spider-Girl. She teams up with Ladyhawk twins against Killerwatt and Mr. Abnormal, who were trying to rob a bank. They successfully defeated the villains and handed them over to the authorities. She later watched her brother Benjy and she took him to an arcade known as C.A.D.E. (Classic Arcade Dining Entertainment) where she was a V.I.P.. But things aren’t exactly what they seem and May and Benjy have to secretly use their powers when some games get out of hand. The owner of C.A.D.E. finally introduced himself to them, Randy Cade III, AKA R. Cade III, who was determined to make Super Heroes pay for ruining his childhood arcade with their path of destruction. Despite not having their suits, the sibling duo resolved to beat Cade’s games. They beat a couple of his games but Cade escaped but not before he let them go and thanked them for giving him data to improve the V.I.P. experience.
