Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – In depth with Spider-Ham!
I figured it would be beneficial to give everyone a background on some of the characters we’ll be seeing in the upcoming Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse. So we’ll be looking at all of the Spider-Men and Women featured in the film. And I decided to start from the bottom up. This means the shortest of the crew and by far the most bizarre of the group. Spider-Ham a.k.a. Peter Porker.
Spider-Ham is essentially a spider simply named Peter. He lives in the house of a pig by the name of May Porker. This animal version of Aunt May is a scientist attempting to create the world’s first atomic powered hairdryer. During experimentation with her new invention, she irradiates herself. In her bit of delusion from the radioactive material, she bites Peter the spider. He transforms into a sort of anthropomorphic pig modeled after May but still retains his abilities as a spider.
Created by Tom DeFalco and Mark Armstrong, Peter Porker debuted in [easyazon_link identifier=”B07J1B2MVM” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Marvel Tails Starring Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #1[/easyazon_link].
The character essentially had a bi-monthly title for himself, where he had to battle against certain animal baddies each issue. Like Ducktor Doom, the Buzzard, Hogzilla, and King-Pig (animal parodies of Doctor Doom, the Vulture, Godzilla, and Kingpin respectively).
After having titles in the 80’s and some early 90’s appearances, the character of Peter Porker was mostly a satirization of more popular arcs like Kraven’s Last Hunt and the Spider-Man 2099 title.
Porker Meets Parker
In 2007, his character is requested by fans and retailers for a variant cover to Amazing Spider-Man #528 in Mike Wieringo’s Spider-Man: The Other crossover.
Peter Porker is eventually included as part of the Spider-Verse story by Dan Slott and Giuseppe Camuncoli in 2014. He served as part of the team effort to fight off a villain who had attacked all the versions of Spider-Man in all the other universes. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse takes from this story for the most part. Except the movie looks to focus mainly on Miles Morales, and Peter Parker being a mentor to the young web-slinger.
Peter Porker serves mainly as a supporting character in the comic book story, and will probably play the same in the film. However, in the story he sacrifices himself to get Spider-Girl and her brother Benjy Parker to safety.
Seeing the series had gained such popularity to warrant a film based off of it, the comics produced a sequel in Spider-Geddon, written by Christos Gage and art by Jorge Molina. And Spider-Ham returns as part of the Spider-Team up efforts in this comic book story arc as well.
The Animated Ham
The idea of crossing other Spider-Man versions in a single universe isn’t a new idea. We’ve seen this before in the 1990 Spider-Man Animated Series. In this series, different versions of Spider-Man are brought together by Madame Web. The penultimate episode of the series had Spider-Man meet Stan Lee and validate what he was doing as fiction in one universe in actuality was a reality in another. He doesn’t garner a lot of fan notoriety until later in the 2000’s.
In later cartoons, we’ve seen Peter Porker brought into the universe of mainstream Peter Parker in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series. However, the upcoming film will be Spider-Ham’s first step into the big screen.
Are you looking forward to seeing Spider-Ham in theaters? Which Spider-character are you looking forward to seeing the most? Let us know in the comments below or let’s talk about it on social media!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is out in theaters on December 14th.
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