This article contains spoilers for Edge of Spider-Verse #2!
Marvel Comics has introduced a multiversal villain even better than Kang the Conqueror. Multiverses are all the rage in popular culture right now, as DC explores multiple multiverses in its ongoing Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths event, the Avengers fight against the Multiversal Masters of Evil, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer officially kicks off the Slayerverse, while the MCU's latest era is now officially called "The Multiverse Saga." Kang the Conqueror seems to be positioned as the MCU's big multiversal villain, despite being more concerned with time (rather than dimensional) travel in the original comics.
Kang's knowledge of time is second to none (including Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four), and he delights in playing games with the timeline. There are laws that govern time travel, and Kang excels at using them to his advantage. To cross Kang is to risk becoming his pawn, ultimately finding yourself transported to Chronopolis and enslaved to his will.
However, Marvel's Edge of Spider-Verse #2 rewrites the structure of the entire multiverse, and in doing so it reveals an ancient evil even greater than Kang. Edge of Spider-Verse #2 contains a short story by Dan Slott and Paco Medina called "A Single Thread," and it finally explains a villain named Shathra. She was one of the first gods to be created by Gaea and Oshtur, and she lies at the center of the entire multiverse, watching and waiting for the opportunity to reform it into her own image. The multiverse is traditionally shaped by the spiders according to the Web of Life and Destiny, but she is a wasp, a parasite whose agents scour through the timelines seeking out spiders and "stinging" them, converting them into her own pawns. Kang is a master at manipulating the rules of different timelines, while Shathra wishes simply to upend these rules and establish her own.
Shathra is actually an obscure Spider-Man villain - a magic entity who hunted spider totems. She's now been woven into the tale of Araña (who, until recently, went by the Spider-Girl codename). Araña learned she is tied to a mysterious conflict between the Order of the Spiders and the Order of the Wasps, and the true nature of this unceasing war was never revealed. Now its true scope is clear at last, with Marvel turning this into a story to decide the future of the entire multiverse.
It will be thrilling to see Shathra's story play out in the End of the Spider-Verse event. It seems as though she will be one of the rare villains who truly triumphs, because the title of the event implies the Web of Life and Destiny is soon to be destroyed. While Kang the Conqueror is comfortable playing games with the nature of time and reality, Shathra is a natural predator on the grandest scale, holding the fate of the entire multiverse in her hands.
Edge of Spider-Verse #2 is available now from Marvel Comics.