The article that I think I will be working on will be about Spider-Man 2099 I used to run the largest comic fan dedicated to the Marvel Universe for the year 2099. Unfortunately I see a great deal of information from my old site and from one of my collaborators that is currently being used without citations or in chunks, without the fuller picture nor the necessary credits. I bolded the areas that I am thinking of adding, this is just a first go, I could see myself making quite a bit of modifications on this article and some others on the subject of 2099.
Publication history
The Spider-Man 2099 stories are set in Marvel Universe's then-official future, a dystopian America governed by corrupt corporations. The setting also has a number of cyberpunk elements.
His first appearance was a preview in Amazing Spider-Man #365, his first full appearance being soon afterwards in Spider-Man 2099 #1. The character is a direct result of the 30th year anniversary of Spider-Man first appearance. Spider-Man 2099 was one of the many Marvel characters to be reimagined for the Marvel 2099 line that showed future versions of classic Marvel characters living in the year 2099, decades after the current Marvel Universe time period.
The Spider-Man 2099 series continued on for almost four years, ending in Aug 1996 with #46; Spider-Man 2099 appeared immediately after in all eight issues of 2099: World of Tomorrow, which was for the most part the finale of the 2099 universe, and later still in 2099: Manifest Destiny, a one-shot edition that ostensibly concluded the 2099 series. The character has since made several cameo and guest appearances in such titles as Captain Marvel Vol. 5, #27-30 (written by Peter David) and most recently on Exiles Vol. 1, # 75-99.
http://www.comicboards.com/2099ug/moderator/Exhaustive%202099%20comic%20checklist.html
Fictional character biography
The character's alter ego is Miguel O'Hara, a half-Mexican, half-American genetic engineer at the Alchemax Corporation. Miguel is in charge of the Corporate Raider program, the basis of which is to modify the genetic structure of individuals in the idea of endowing them with great abilities. He is working on a possible candidate by studying the file of Spider-Man. Because of this, there is a spider DNA genetic program in the computer.
After an incident in which a convicted prisoner, used as a test subject, dies after being genetically modified for enhanced strength, Miguel is starting to doubt the goings on at Alchemax. His boss, Tyler Stone, sees the fact that the man demonstrated increased strength before he died as very positive, despite the fact that the man died. It seems to matter little to the corporate minded CEO. Miguel then decides to quit Alchamex.
In the office of Tyler Stone, he has a drink offered to him while Tyler makes a small speech: "Our employees are cherished participants... Not prisoners. You are perfectly free to leave our little family, if you wish. We're a business, not a stalag". The drink is spiked with a mind expanding hallucinogen called Rapture, made by Alchemax. Rapture is incredibly addictive and it is perfectly legal. Once taken, the user needs it like oxygen and without it, he/she dies, the only problem is that Alchamax is the only place were Miguel would be able to get the drug.
In order to get rid of the drug, Miguel hacks his way into the Alchemax building at night, covering his electronic entries so that records show he wasn't there at all. He intends to use the genetic modifying machine to restore his genetic signature to what it was before receiving the Rapture. Since he used his own signature in his tests, the computers already have a previous version. He programs the device, strips naked and enters it. As he does this, a jealous and verbally abused co-worker, Aaron Delgato, decides that in a procedure this complex, "something" could go wrong. He then begins pounding on the controls, dramatically increasing the scale of the modification. When the machine threatens to shut down following safety parameters, Aaron disables the safeguards with a manual override, causing overload. Delgato's sabotage also results (accidentally) in the spider file and the Miguel O'Hara DNA file being merged before the imprint in Miguel. The machine explodes with Miguel unscathed but not unchanged. He gains incredible strength, speed and agility, he can now shoot webbing from spinnerets in his forearms, he gained “accelerated vision”, or super vision hence why when he is in his Miguel O’Hara Persona he is mostly wearing sunglasses as the light bother his eyes, talon that can retract at will and poisonous fangs. He escapes the lab and after a small period of adaptation, he finally gets home.
After investigating the destroyed laboratory site, an Alchemax enforcer called Venture starts to track him. Miguel realizes he is being pursued so he dons a full body suit he purchased in a prior visit to Mexico for the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. This costume is made of a nigh-indestructible unstable molecule material. He heads out with it and runs around the city, going through the Alchemax building and his own apartment to mix up his footprints so that the enforcer cannot associate him with the person that was in the lab of Alchemax.
[edit] Heroic career
Later, as Spider-Man, Miguel fights against Alchemax Corporation's control over the city, and tried to bring down the corporation's CEO, Tyler Stone, whom Miguel later discovered to be his birth father.
Miguel's family tree was complicated. His mother Conchata frequently disagreed with his "father", her husband George O’Hara. He would beat her when she voiced that disagreement. At one point Conchata cheated on her husband with Tyler Stone, and Miguel was born. Miguel went to the Alchemax Academy For Gifted Youngsters (which was hinted at being the future of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Children) and studied alongside Xina Kwan, who later became his girlfriend, and Kron Stone, whom he did not know until later was his half-brother. Much later, Kron, by then a petty crook, bonded with the Venom symbiote, which discovered him after he was nearly killed by the Punisher of his era, Jake Gallows. As Venom, Kron was a powerful and deadly opponent for Miguel, torturing him and Xina Kwan, and eventually causing the death of Miguel's one-time fiancée, Dana D'Angelo. Venom was soon defeated with the rigging of multiple speakers, as he is vulnerable to sound.
Miguel's other half-brother, Gabriel "Gabe" O'Hara, grew up resentful of the attention shown Miguel by their parents. He moonlighted in virtual reality as a superhero named Firelight, and at one time was accused of being a 2099 version of the Green Goblin (who later was revealed to be a shapeshifter assuming Gabe's form).
Over the four-year-run of the series, Spider-Man 2099 encountered futuristic versions of modern Spider-Man villains, including the previously-mentioned Goblin and Venom, as well as the Vulture and the Chameleon. He also battled new villains like Venture, a cyborg; Thanatos, the Rick Jones from an alternate timeline; Discord, a virtual reality archetype; and Flipside, a Spider-Man doppelgänger. He also met the other heroes of 2099; the hero Justice from the New Universe, who was known in 2099 as the Net Prophet; and also, in a special edition entitled Spider-Man Meets Spider-Man 2099, his original web-slinging counterpart. This comic also introduced Spider-Man 2211, yet another latter-day Spider-Man from further down the timestream. It also introduced the Hobgoblin of 2211, whose appearance was similar to the original Green Goblin's.
Flooding
At the end of the series, New York, along with much of the world, is flooded. Atlantean forces invade and in the ensuing battle, Miguel's mother is killed. Miguel retreats to the Savage Land, along with many other mutants and humans. He encounters a techno-organic being who warns of the 'city in the mists'. Miguel takes a boat to investigate. Uproar and Wulff stow away. Pirates take the boat and the others and the All-Father of the city in question allows Miguel to be rescued. He encounters Xina again, who is working for the All-Father, along with many other humans. In truth, their leader is Doctor Doom. Miguel is convinced that Doom is holding his brother, Gabe, hostage.
All three become involved in the plot against the techno-organic Magus, whose companion aliens, the Phalanx, are responsible for the glaciers melting in the first place.
Spider-Man joins the Exiles
Spider-Man 2099 with the Exiles
After battling the Exiles on another world, Proteus escapes to 2099, and takes the body of the Hulk. Spider-Man joins forces with the Exiles to stop him. Proteus is too strong, and unmasks Spider-Man to the world. Spider-Man then convinces Proteus that coming to 2099 was a mistake and that he should move on. Feeling guilty, and afraid of being hunted down after his identity is made public, Spider-Man leaves his world and joins the Exiles to continue fixing damaged realities. Not much later the Exiles find a way to neutralize Proteus. A few missions later a version of the Hand -led by the evil Susan Storm- captures and brainwashes him along with two of his teammates: Blink and Longshot. Afterwards, he is de-programmed and assists the team with one final mission. On that world he falls in love with Gwen Stacy. After the mission goes wrong, Gwen betrays him and dies. The Exiles are scattered across the multiverse. Spider-Man lands on an alternate earth where he settles in with his new girlfriend after an unspecified amount of time.
The appearance of Proteus early in the year 2099 caused a timeline divergence from the original Marvel 2099 continuity, and the new timeline is identified as Earth-6375 in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #5.
Powers and abilities
Spider-Man 2099's hybrid human/spider physiology gives him a wide array of powers. He has the proportionate strength, speed and agility of a spider, which allows him to lift many times his own body weight, perform complicated acrobatic and gymnastic maneuvers that would be impossible for even the most highly-trained athlete, and jump great distances. His durability was also increased to a point where in an issue he suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs, major abrasions and bruises, and made it to a hospital in time where a doctor told him he has amazing constitution for him to be alive. He also notably heals faster than a normal human, but does not have a healing factor (he would not have needed a doctor if he did). Notably absent from his suite of powers is a "Spider-Sense", probably due to the fact that it would no doubt be far more difficult to produce via genetic manipulation. Despite this fact, Spider-Man 2099 seems nearly as flexible, acrobatic, and evasive as his namesake. Though he claims to not have been in a fight since he was a child, Miguel quickly develops an effective fighting style that capitalizes on his unique abilities as well as his genius-level intelligence.
Spinnerets in his forearms enable him to fire organic spider-webbing from the top of his wrists, usable in a wide variety of ways. Like his predecessor, Spider-Man 2099 can travel at high speeds swinging on "weblines" when necessary, and he can use his webbing to ensnare enemies. Retractable talons in his fingertips and toes enable him to climb walls or cut enemies. Though they are rather short (approximately an inch long), they are extremely sharp, and seem strong enough to resist breakage despite his enhanced strength - Miguel has shown capable of rending metal armour on numerous occasions. These talons acted instinctively at first, and it took practice to retract them properly (making short work of his bedsheets while sleeping).
He possesses venom glands and slightly enlarged, pointed canines (which are not entirely dissimilar to a vampire), which allows him to paralyze his foes should he choose to bite them. While the exact makeup of his venom has never been discussed, it seems powerful enough to affect such foes as Thanatos - and it differs from real spider venom in that it does not seem to act as a digestive agent in addition to its paralytic properties.
Compensating for his lack of a "Spider-Sense", his hearing exceeds the acuity of a normal human, as does his vision - he can see extremely well over both long distances ("telescopic" vision) and in low-light conditions. In addition to the generally enhanced properties of his vision, the flicker-fusion rate of his retinas is reduced to such an extent that he can easily perceive fast-moving objects that would appear to others as a blur. A side effect of his visual enhancements are the color of his eyes - they are generally drawn as having red irises, making sunglasses a regular part of Miguel's wardrobe. When trying to perform "damage control" with his girlfriend early on in the original series, Miguel told Dana that as a result of breaking his genetically-coded Rapture addiction, his eyes were now more sensitive to light and that his jaw hurt (allowing him to more easily hide his red eyes and pointed teeth).
His web cape, which he obtained from a Thorite (Worshiper of Thor), is made from the Lyte Byte material commonly used in the manufacturing of hang-gliders, and acts as an air foil, allowing him to glide on air currents for a short period of time, as well as slow his rate of descent and control his direction in freefall. Coupled with his superhuman strength and agility, the Lite-Byte cloth allows him near-immunity to damage from falls - on numerous occasions, he has leapt from the top of tall buildings with no apparent ill effects upon landing.
Other versions
Destiny War
Another version of Spider-Man 2099 was one of the alternate Avengers seen briefly during The Destiny War.
2998 AD
In The Amazing Spider-Man #439, the issue takes place 1,000 years (2998 based on the release date of the issue) in the future. Two archaeologists stumble across relics belonging to Spider-Man (such as his webshooters). They speculate on his career, and discuss the other heroes who were inspired by him, such as Spider-Girl, Spider-Man 2099, and Spider-Man 2211.
What The
In issue #26 of What The--?!, a humor anthology title, the character Spider-Ham (an anthropomorphic pig who parodied the original Spider-Man) was reworked for a parody of Spider-Man 2099 entitled "Spider-Ham 15.88". A laboratory janitor named "Piguel O'Hara" accidentally falls into a vat of spider venom and gains spider-powers. A short (and confusing) excursion as Spider-Ham 2099 follows, including encounters with parody versions of The Punisher 2099 and Ravage 2099.
In other media
Video Games
- Spider-Man 2099 was an unlockable costume for Spider-Man in the first of Activision's Spider-Man games for Sony's PlayStation and the Nintendo 64.
- Marvel 2099 Video Game. A playable character of the Mindscape video game developed but canceled game for the Play Station 1
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/vg_graveyard/sony_17.html
Toys
- A Spider-Man 2099 action figure was produced by Toy Biz for their Spider-Man Classics toy line. This figure was an exclusive repaint available only through KB Toys.
- Hasbro took over production of Marvel Comics toys in 2007. In their first wave of figures, Spider-Man Origins, they released a newer version of Spider-Man 2099, which was again a repaint.
