In Darkhold: Spider-Man #1, a twisted version of the web-slinger plays a horrible trick on the leader of Marvel's Fantastic Four.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1, on sale now from Marvel Comics.

Perusing the pages of the Darkhold reveals a dark, twisted future for each reader, reflecting their deepest fears and thoughts onto the world. As told in The Darkhold Alpha #1 (by Steve Orlando, Cian Tormey, Jesus Aburtov, and VC’s Clayton Cowles), Spider-Man, along with Blade, Iron Man, the Wasp, and Black Bolt, read from the Darkhold, attempting to interrupt the elder god Chthon’s manifestation on Earth. That brief read showed them each a dark version of their world, inspired by their worst fears.

In The Darkhold: Spider-Man #1 (by Alex Paknadel, Dio Neves, Jim Charalampidis, and VC’s Clayton Cowles), the world is literally falling apart, with the very first panel showing skyscrapers held together by massive spider webs. As Peter Parker himself reveals through narration, the world began to come apart in an event known as The Unraveling. No one knows the origin of this phenomenon, not even the brilliant leader of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards.

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Being the hero that he is, Spider-Man uses his webbing in an amazing capacity to hold the world together. The buildings aren’t the only things falling apart—the people are too. Early in the issue, Peter uses his webbing to hold a man's jaw together. People shamble around like zombies, not because they’re mind-controlled but because their bodies are coming apart. Peter is even holding together his foes: Spider-Man takes pity on a disturbed Doctor Octopus and webs his fragile mechanical appendages in place when they are separated from his body. At the Baxter Building, Parker encounters a distorted puddle of oozing organs that turns out to be Reed Richards.

Barely returning to a recognizable form, Reed reveals that he may have discovered a way to solve the Unraveling. The resident genius and leader of the Fantastic Four has severed one of his own fingers and used the unique composition of his body to create “a self-healing organic polymer” to replace Parker’s web. Richards directs Parker to hunt down others with a similar “elastic molecular structure” who could be used in lieu of him having to sacrifice more body parts. In the end, Parker turns on Richards and uses him to web the city together.

Based on what it found in Parker's soul, the Darkhold reflected a dark, twisted version of the future. The world falling apart is a manifestation of Spider-Man's greatest fears. For years, Peter Parker has felt pulled in different directions: school, work, relationships, friendships, and obligation to the city that at times hates him. More than once, Parker's guilt has led him to consider giving up being Spider-Man so he could meet his other obligations. However, placating that sense of guilt is very different from torturing a former friend for eternity.

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Parker can't hold it together anymore. The Unraveling doesn't seem to just affect the world around him, as Peter's sense of morality unravels as well. To solve his problems once and for all, Parker takes extreme measures. In the final pages, the entire world is now held together with multi-colored webs. Doc Ock has gained control of his limbs. The world has returned to normal, but Peter has crossed a serious moral line. He is no longer pulled in a thousand ways, and neither is the city. Parker's morality was the barricade all along and once that unraveled, he was able to fix everything.

Underneath it all, Parker reveals his final solution is also a bit of sweet revenge. Having been bossed around earlier by Richards and forced out of his fantasy world with his long dead wife, Peter forces Reed to physically feel the strain that he has felt internally for years. In this world, everything has unraveled and what remains is hardly recognizable. Gleeful in his torture of Richards, Parker has fully succumbed to the Darkhold in a world where Spider-Man must forever torture his friend in order to save that world. Even worse, the former hero shows no remorse at all, and actually seems to be delighted with his work. His reading of the Darkhold has driven Spider-Man mad, twisting him into the darkest version of the hero yet.

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Jason D. Batt is a writer currently completing a PhD in Mythological Studies focusing on comic books, horror, and archetypal psychology. He also serves as Creative and Editorial Director for 100 Year Starship and Co-Founder of Deep Space Predictive Research Group. His novels include Onliest, Young Gods, and The Tales of Dreamside, and his short fiction and academic writing have appeared in dozens of publications. He’s most recently edited the speculative fiction anthologies Visions of the Future and Strange California.