WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Amazing Fantasy #1 from Marvel, on sale now.
Spider-Man has found himself in some bizarre situations over the years. With villains like Mysterio and Kraven the Hunter, Spidey was bound to end up in some strange places. His adventures through the Spider-Verse only further bolstered the oddities. Now, a teen version of Peter Parker has found himself on what may be his strangest adventure yet.
Amazing Fantasy #1 by Kaare Andrews and Joe Sabino saw a young version of Spider-Man battling the Green Goblin in New York. Spidey was very fresh to the superhero game as he alluded that his Uncle Ben had only recently passed. He felt responsible for supporting his Aunt May and therefore set up his camera in an attempt to capture images of his fight with the Goblin. The Goblin hit Spidey with a pumpkin bomb, knocking him unconscious as he fell through the air.
He awoke and found himself submerged in a boiling hot cauldron of water surrounded by a tribe of frog people. As he escaped from the pot, the frog people were attacked and killed by armed warriors who wore giant bird masks. The warriors kept Pete bound and brought him to their village. Here, Peter was shocked to see his Uncle Ben looking livelier than ever. Ben informed Peter that he was dead and that this strange realm was the afterlife.
Spidey is not the only hero to find himself in this strange afterlife. A version of Captain America during World War II also lost consciousness when his ship was destroyed. He awoke on a shore of a tropical island where he immediately came face-to-face with a giant lion-hawk hybrid. After escaping the beast, Cap ventured inland where he came across a pair of orcs attacking an elf/monkey woman and her son. He rescued the mother and son before escaping the area.
A version of Red Room Black Widow also woke up in this realm after failing a loyalty test and being shot by her instructor. She awoke on the back of a centaur who was bringing her toward a castle where the king supposedly resides. Whoever is within the castle appears to know Natasha, as the centaur stated that the king awaits her arrival.
There is still quite a bit of mystery surrounding the events of Amazing Fantasy. While all three realities that Spidey, Cap and Black Widow are experiencing share fantastical elements, the diversity of creatures and environments make them very different. Spidey is dealing with frog people and humans while Cap fights orcs and Natasha rides on the back of a centaur. Though all of their experiences are similar, nothing seems to cross over. Spidey and Ben appear to be on a floating plateau in space, which is much too small to contain the areas in which Natasha and Steve currently reside.
It's also unclear whether this is an actual afterlife for the Marvel universe. Most recently, Nick Spencer's current Amazing Spider-Man run has proven that hell existed since Kindred resided there and Mysterio was supposedly resurrected from hell. Al Ewing has also been exploring a version of hell with the Below-Place in his Immortal Hulk series. Amazing Fantasy could create an afterlife to oppose Marvel's many iterations of hell. Natasha's path is still uncertain. However, Cap is fighting off enemies and saving people while Spidey has been reunited with Ben Parker. This seems like pretty favorable outcomes for two heroes that supposedly just died.
Regardless of when or where they are, Spider-Man, Captain America and Black Widow still have a lot to learn. These are not the current iterations of these heroes, but very early and untrained versions. Cap has already fought off creatures he could only have dreamed about in the 1940s. Though they are in much better positions than when they first awoke, the heroes still need to stay on their toes since there's no telling what is waiting for them in the near future.