Madame Web Theory: Doctor Strange and Peter Parker May Have Broken the Entire Spider-Verse

Madame Web is Sony Pictures' first major spider title after Spider-Man: No Way Home cracked open the door to the Multiverse in the MCU, and I have a theory about what that means for the whole Sony Spider-Verse. I think the post-credits scene of Morbius, the one where Michael Keaton's Vulture appears to disappear from the MCU into a much less cool universe, actually makes sense once you factor in what Peter Parker and Doctor Strange did in No Way Home. As I put it, "I think that the events of Spider-Man no way home just started a whole mess for everybody in the spider-verse," and that mess could leave the MCU's Peter with some unexpected Multiverse villains to deal with in Spider-Man 4 or beyond.

Madame Web's Powers Come From the Web of Life and Destiny

Madame Web is set to star Dakota Johnson as the titular character, and from the behind the scenes images we've seen of Johnson wearing the iconic red jacket, this looks to be Julia Carpenter's version of Madame Web specifically. In the comics, whoever holds the title of Madame Web can see the fates of anybody tied to the web of life and destiny, the cosmic thread that is the source of every single spider person's powers.

Every spider person is connected to this web as a spider avatar, and it's the direct source of their Spider Sense, which gives them a slice of cosmic precognition. That's not just the ability to sense nearby danger, it also lets them perceive future dangers to an almost unbelievable degree. It is this same connection to the great web that gives Madame Web her precognitive powers and her ability to detect and assemble spider avatars, despite her blindness.

Spider Sense Is Proof There's Something Supernatural Going On

MCU Peter Parker was able to detect the Black Order's arrival in Infinity War and the Green Goblin's imminent betrayal in No Way Home, and that just proves his powers are more than science based. There's something supernatural happening here, and that supernatural element is the spider people's connection to the web, expressed through precognitive information in the form of Spider Sense.

We actually see this visualized in No Way Home during the scene where Doctor Strange pushes Peter into his astral form. While Peter's unconscious body is playing keep away with Doctor Strange, you can see Peter's Spider Sense squigglies over his astral body, these little transparent squiggly lines. I believe this is Marvel Studios' way of showing us Spider-Man's literal connection to the web of life and destiny, which means Madame Web, with the strongest link to that web, would likely be one of the first spider avatars to realize just how badly Peter and Doctor Strange messed things up.

Peter and Doctor Strange Tangled the Web by Changing the Villains' Fates

Here's the problem: Peter One, Peter Two and Peter Three refused to leave the villains of No Way Home to their original fates. In order to save their lives, they had to alter their destinies. Doc Ock, Electro and the Green Goblin were all supposed to die, because we saw them die in their respective movies, and that was the destiny the web of life and destiny had planned for them.

By changing those lives and destinies, the web of life and destiny got tangled, like some kind of weird cosmic lottery, specifically involving people who knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man throughout the entire Spider-Verse.

That Tangle Explains Why Vulture Ended Up in the Morbius Universe

This is where Morbius's confusing ending starts to make sense to me. Vulture knew from the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. So once the web of life and destiny got tangled up from all the Peters switching destinies around, that same web twisted and changed Vulture's destiny too, sending him to the Morbius universe, "where the food is significantly less better."

Harry Osborn and Venom Could Be Displaced Into the MCU or Madame Web

If this tangling is really happening, it could bleed into the MCU as a bigger problem, because anyone else who knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man is at risk of being sent to a different universe. That has me wondering if Tom Holland's Peter has trouble headed his way in the form of both Dane DeHaan's Harry Osborn and Topher Grace's Venom, since both of those characters wanted to kill Spider-Man almost immediately after learning his identity.

If Peter and Doctor Strange altered those characters' fates in No Way Home, there's a chance Harry Osborn and Eddie Brock have been displaced from their native universes and brought into the MCU to hunt for Peter. Or maybe one of them shows up in Madame Web instead and tries to kill the Spider-Man of that universe, since Madame Web appears to be set in a universe similar to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films, with an early 2000s vibe.

It would be interesting to see Dane DeHaan's Harry Osborn try to kill Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man back when that Spider-Man was just starting out, since that would be a fun way to continue the villain's story without confirming an Amazing Spider-Man 3. Either way, this is what I believe Sony's plans are for Madame Web and for that strange Morbius ending, switching the villains around and tangling the web of life and destiny across the MCU and beyond, though only time will tell if that pans out.

If Peter and Doctor Strange really did tangle the web of life and destiny, who else do you think got knocked into the wrong universe because of it?