Who Is Marvel’s Arachknight & What Earth Is He From?
Marvel Comics went down countless routes and paths to create the most amazing stories for the fans. Sometimes, those stories are as straightforward as the good guy beating the bad guy, but sometimes, the stories get much more complex, twisted – and warped, if you will. One such story is of Marvel’s Arachknight, but who is he actually, and what Earth is he coming from?
Arachknight is a Marvel Comics character that first appeared in 2018 as a part of the ‘Infinity Warps’ Saga. As the universe of Earth-616 got folded in half within the Soul Gem, the souls of two people became one. It created a pocket universe with a rewritten history where Spider-Man and Moon Knight merged into Arachknight.
Now, that’s kind of an oversimplification – it’s not like Peter Parker and Marc Spector just melted into each other. Instead, the folding of the universe led to a whole new history. Arachknight has his own unique origin story – just like every other ‘merged’ character in the ‘Infinity Warps’ – which is a part of the ‘Infinity Wars’ saga. Here’s everything you need to know about Arachknight.
Who is Arachknight?
Arachknight first appeared in ‘Infinity Wars #3’ in September 2018. However, we got the full origin story of the character about a month later, in ‘Infinity Wars: Arachknight Vol. 1 #1,’ in October 2018.
Arachknight came to be after the universe had been inadvertently folded in half within the Soul Gem, which resulted in two individual souls being merged into a single being. It led to the entire history of the newly-formed pocket universe – known as the Warp World – being rewritten to allow the new, warped timeline to make sense.
Arachknight is only one of numerous warped/merged characters, which include Soldier Supreme (a merger between Captain America and Doctor Strange), Iron Hammer (a merger between Iron Man and Thor), etc.
As for Arachknight, he is actually a merger between Spider-Man and Moon Knight. The persona of Peter Parker is prevalent and dominant, but his mind is fractured into four different personalities – kind of what Marc Spector went through after becoming the Moon Knight in the regular Earth-616 world.
So, in the Warp World – the world where Arachknight exists – Peter Parker went to a museum night with his Uncle Ben and Auntie May when he was still a boy. Instead of taking a cab home, Peter suggested they took a walk through Central Park to cut their way home short.
However, in the Park, they were attacked by a monster known as Goblin-by-night, a merger between the Green Goblin and Werewolf by Night. The savage creature brutally murdered Ben and May while Peter barely held on to his life.
As he was dying, a mystical spider climbed onto him and told Peter that he could save his life should he accept to become the Avatar of the ancient Spider-Totem. Peter accepted, and after the spider bit him, he was granted incredible superpowers, becoming the Arachknight.
Fast forward 15 years, and Peter Parker became a successful, rich CEO of Parker Industries while working double-shift as a vigilante and a superhero – an avatar of the Spider-Totem.
The shattered mind of the Arachknight
Although Peter gained incredible powers, the bite resulted in his mind being fractured into four different personalities. At first, the writers imagined those personalities to be a vigilante, a tech genius, a photographer, and a teacher, as we learned from the Solicit Synopsis of ‘Infinity Wars: Arachknight Vol. 1 #1,’ but the story was clearly changed along the way.
The Peter Parker personality was the dominant persona of Arachknight that tried to ignore and ‘drown out’ the other voices in his head caused by the Spider-Totem. However, he soon learned to accept them as a crucial part of himself and let each persona take the wheel when the situation was right.
The dominant persona was known as the Arachnid. He was the most athletic of the four personas and the closest thing to our regular Peter Parker personality-wise – light-hearted, cheerful, witty, and full of jokes.
The second persona was the Knight – and he was the most aggressive and violent of all four personas, mostly resembling our regular Moon Knight. He never shied away from delivering the final blow or getting ‘dark’ when it came to dealing with enemies. The Knight persona usually kicked in when Arachknight was in dire, imminent danger, and something violent had to be done.
The third persona, known as CEO Peter, was the intelligent, hard-working persona that held all the strings in Parker Industries and made Arachknight rich. The final persona, Science Peter, was making all the cool gadgets, inventing new things, and doing all the smart-guy stuff needed for a superhero. He’s scared of heights and is not athletic at all.
What happened to Arachknight?
The only creature Arachknight was ever ready to kill was the creature that brutally murdered Ben and May and left him for dead before the Spider-Totem rescued him. That creature was the Goblin-by-night, a savage, uncontrolled monster that turned out to be Norman Russell – the father of Harold ‘Harry’ Russell – Peter Parker’s best friend.
When Norman turned into the Goblin-by-night, he was unaware of his actions completely, just going berserk. He even bit his own son, Harry, during one of his murderous sprees. Unfortunately for him, he was caught by the Arachknight and nearly killed before Harry stepped in and begged Peter not to do it, explaining that Norman had no control over his actions.
As the Goblin-by-night slowly turned into Norman, Harry slowly turned into the Goblin. As Norman explained, the curse transferred to his son after he got bit. Peter promised Norman to do whatever it took to help him heal Harry.
Eventually, the Warp World folded into itself once again, cutting the souls in half once again as two merged into one. That’s how we got Peter Rogers, aka Spider Supreme. He came to life after the Arachknight and Soldier Supreme merged into one, essentially creating an amalgamation of Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, and Captain America.
Who created Arachknight?
The entire Warp World, including Arachknight, was created by Gamora after she had obtained the power of all the Infinity Stones (Gems). Her plan was to contain and seal all of the souls of the universe inside the Soul Gem. However, by doing that, she inadvertently folded the entire universe in half, merging all the souls from two into one.
That created the Warp World, a pocket dimension where history was completely rewritten to suit the newly-created beings. That’s how Arachknight got his unique origin story, where neither Spider-Man nor Moon Knight ever existed, but they were merged into one hero, Arachknight.
What Earth is Arachknight from?
Believe it or not, Arachknight is actually from the main Marvel comics universe – Earth-616. However, the Warp World exists as a pocket dimension within the Earth-616 universe – kind of like a contained vivarium, so to speak, where the merged souls were kept while the normal universe was restored.
That way, both the Warp World souls and the normal, non-merged souls could exist in the same universe but in another dimension, separated from each other.
What are Arachknight’s powers?
Arachknight seemingly has all the normal powers that Peter Parker of Earth-616 had after becoming Spider-Man. He has superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, stamina, durability, and balance, along with all the spider-based powers such as wall-crawling or Spider-Sense.
Additionally, however, he has the shattered mind of Moon Knight – a set of four personas, with each taking the steering wheel and control of the body at given times. One of those personas is quite similar to regular Earth-616’s Moon Knight – a violent, aggressive, and powerful vigilante not holding back anything when dealing with the bad guys.
To put it simply, Arachknight is essentially Peter Parker with Marc Spector’s fractured mind, and all the powers of both Moon Knight and Spider-Man, along with their weapons (Web-Shooters, throwing darts, etc.)
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