WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1 by Jonathan Hickman, Gerry Duggan, Nick Spencer, Kelly Thompson, Al Ewing, Chip Zdarsky, Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo, Greg Smallwood, Michael Allred, Valerio Schiti, Chris Sprouse, Rachael Stott, Cameron Stewart, Mark Bagley, Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Karl Story, John Dell, Laura Allred, Mattia Iacono, Dave McCaig, Triona Farrell, Nathan Fairbairn, Frank D'Armata and VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
Like virtually any popular superhero, there are multiple versions of Spider-Man, most of which exist in alternate universe. One of the most bizarre (and prominent) is Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, the anthropomorphic pig who rose to international fame with the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
But while he's undoubtedly the silliest incarnation of the iconic web-slinger, a new take on Spider-Ham introduced in Spider-Man: Full Circle takes the cartoonish character to a dark place.
Peter Porker
Introduced in 1983 as a one-off parody of Spider-Man, Spider-Ham hails from Earth-8311, a world of anthropomorphized funny-animal versions of Marvel superheroes. A spider who was bitten by a radioactive pig, Peter Porker was given amazing powers and transformed into a pig himself.
The character has risen in prominence in recent years, thanks to an extended role in the aftermath of Spider-Verse. A mental projection of the character became a fixture in Spider-Gwen, and he was among the many Spider-Heroes who helped to protect the multiverse across a number of different crossovers.
Spider-Man: Full Circle does its best to bring a Spider-Ham to the mainline Marvel continuity, however. It features a wild narrative in which Peter Parker is forced to contend with a truly bonkers scheme by members of AIM working with the High Evolutionary to transform the dominant species of Earth into werewolves. Throughout the issue, Spider-Man frequently talks an unseen figure. There's something supernatural about the character, who seems to know everything about Peter Parker. Toward the end of the story, it's revealed the figure is, in fact, a Spider-Man from a future in which he failed to save the day, and the High Evolutionary won. In that timeline, he turned many of the heroes into creatures who could be hunted by the new werewolf population. Among those transformed is Peter Parker, who's now a pig-man.
Kraven The Hunt-Pig
It gets even more absurd, because Spider-Ham experiences an identity crisis: Having been brainwashed by the High Evolutionary, this Spider-Ham from the future actually believes himself to be Kraven the Hunter.
Scaling the High Evolutionary's robot and calling himself the Spider-Swine, he seems to have visions himself reenacting a pig-man version of "Kraven's Last Hunt." The scene even recreates the famous panel of Kraven consuming handfuls of spiders, with the newly revealed Hunt-Pig eating as much bacon as he can.
Although "Kraven the Hunt-Pig" overwhelms the High Evolutionary and drags him out of the villain's giant robot suit, the suit collapses and crushes him before he can reveal what the heroes need to know to prevent what's happened to the future. It's a hilariously dark take on Spider-Ham that knows not to overstay its welcome.