The Marvel Universe is a weird place. But it doesn’t hold a candle next to the Marvel Multiverse, where everything you thought was true about your favorite comic book characters gets turned upside down. Villains can be heroes. Heroes may have never been born. And a certain radioactive spider that would have normally turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man turned Gwen Stacy into Spider-Gwen (aka Spider-Woman, Ghost-Spider) instead.
As if this wasn’t wild enough, several alternate Spider-Man characters from the multiverse eventually started teaming up on a regular basis, leading to the comic book Web-Warriors. Of course, every superhero team needs a group of villains to fight – and the Web-Warriors got nothing short of an army of weird enemies. Spinning out of their initial team-up in the original comic book version of Spider-Verse, the Web-Warriors were initially made up of Spider-UK (Billy Braddock of the Captain Britain Corps), Spider-Girl (May “Mayday” Parker), Spider-Girl (Anya Cortez), Spider-Ham (Peter Porker), Spider-Man Noir (Peter Benjamin Parker), and Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy). Swearing to protect the multiverse spanning Web of Life and Destiny, the Web-Warriors monitored multiple alternate universes for signs of trouble.
And, inevitably, trouble ended up finding them when Gwen and Mayday saw one of the worlds being attacked by alternate versions of the Spider-Man villain Electro (Max Dillon). Quickly overwhelmed, May was able to teleport to safety, but Gwen wound up becoming a prisoner of the Electros and was taken to their base where she learned that on one alternate world, a genius version of Electro was approached by his dimensional twin and learned they could use their powers to hop through dimensions. Discovering they could create maps to chart the multiverse, the Electros began abducting different versions of Otto Octavius (Dr. Octopus) from alternate realities and turned them into a giant think tank to support their plan to rule the multiverse. Ironically, however, the Electro who originally discovered the method to cross dimensions was deemed too stupid to have a leadership role and was put on guard duty.
Gwen managed to turn this to her advantage and get the loser Electro to power her dimension-hopping bracelet, allowing her to travel to Mayday Parker’s world where she found another alternate version of Uncle Ben who happened to have spider-powers (yes, really). Spider-Gwen and Spider-Ben wound up journeying to the world where the Electros imprisoned all the alternate Doctor Octopi and forced them to map the multiverse.
Hoping to deprive the Electro army of their think tank, Gwen Stacy delivered a Braveheart-inspired speech to the various Otto Octaviuses, encouraging them to turn against their Electro oppressors and let their empire crumble. Unfortunately, Gwen forgot that, in most universes, Otto Octavius was a psychotic criminal who hated spider-themed heroes. Gwen and Ben ended up fighting for their lives against an entire army of Doc Ocks.
Still, Gwen’s “awesome ‘freedom’ speech” did not fall completely on deaf ears. One of the freed Doc Ocks turned out to be the friendly, heroic Octavia Otto who helped them escape. Curiously, on her homeworld, Octavia was one of the Young Avengers and fought against “Parker Peters” (aka Spider-Woman) the most dangerous killer she ever faced.
While initially ill-conceived, Gwen Stacy’s plan to turn Doctor Octopus against their enemies actually succeeded even beyond her expectations. Octavia actually ended up becoming the Web-Warriors tech support and led them to victory on several occasions. Spider-Men and Doctor Octopuses (Octopi?) usually don’t work well together in the Marvel Universe, but in the multiverse, anything can and will happen!