This article contains spoilers for Edge of Spider-Verse #2.
Marvel Comics has wasted its biggest multiverse reveal. Multiverses may be in fashion right now, but Marvel Comics has exploited the concept for decades. The best multiverse stories are opportunities to explore the question "What If...?" - to imagine worlds where heroes were defeated instead of triumphing, where worlds were shattered, or where whole new champions emerged. Sometimes these "What If...?" stories serve to set up ideas that eventually find their way into the main comic book timeline, and perhaps even into the movies themselves. Jane Foster first became Thor in the comics.
Edge of Spider-Verse #2 contains a short story by Dan Slott and Paco Medina called "A Single Thread," which has just been used to rewrite the history and nature of the entire Marvel universe. According to Edge of Spider-Verse #2, the multiverse began untold billions of years ago, in a time shortly after the ancient Elder Gods had been banished. Gaea and Oshtur began creating more gods and demigods, and they placed the early spider-goddess Neith in charge of deciding the structure of the multiverse. She created the Web of Life and Destiny, centered on Earth-001. Finally, the secret origin of the Spider-Verse has been revealed.
It is ironic, then, that Marvel essentially wasted such a massive reveal. The true nature of the multiverse is not established in a major "event" issue, with a massive amount of promotion behind it, but rather in what feels like a tangent or side-story to the main event. This decision seems even more remarkable given multiverses are so important in popular culture, and Marvel Comics' own multiverse is now inspiration for the MCU's. Indeed, Spider-Man: No Way Home has established spider-characters as major figures in the multiverse, mirroring the comics.
To be fair to Marvel, Edge of Spider-Verse #2 does have a degree of history to it. The first Edge of Spider-Verse miniseries released alongside the original 2014 Spider-Verse event, and its second issue introduced the iconic character of Spider-Gwen. Marvel may well have chosen to make the second issue of this new Edge of Spider-Verse miniseries feel equally significant - but if so, the comic book publisher should really have promoted it more effectively.
It is fascinating to learn the true origin and nature of the MCU's multiverse. The interesting question is whether it will last much longer, though; this particular tie-in is associated with the End of the Spider-Verse event, suggesting the rules of the multiverse are about to be rewritten. Marvel's multiverse is finally being defined, but it may not endure.