This is a music chamber. The lights are off...for now.
Nearby, elevator doors open. Inside, a woman sits. She bears the likeness of Dakota Johnson. Her eyes are shaded...and she's chair-bound.
Her chair is equipped with robotic spider-bionic legs. Via these, she emerges from the elevator. Behind her, the elevator doors close. In her Spidey-chair, she makes her way down the many terraces of this chamber.
Before her, there's a keyboard instrument. In many ways, it's reminiscent of a piano. It's Madame Web-themed.
With her chair's forelegs, Ms. Webb gathers the wooden stool that's already parked near the keyboard. She tosses it. Far across the chamber, it lands, and is turned into firewood. Next, Ms. Webb makes accommodations, so that she can perform at the keyboard better.
With her fingers, she both tunes the instrument and rehearses. Once she thinks she's ready to perform, she does. She takes it from the top...and ad-libs a few times, from here to there...
The instrument that Ms. Webb plays is comparable to a synthesizer. It has multiple keyboards; eight, in fact. (A fitting number, of course, for a half-arachnid...) She can also program this instrument to sound like other instruments; most notably oboes, cor anglais clarinets, violins, violas, electric violins, euphoniums, and French horns. She especially emulates the latter two, as she performs the following musical composition... She only wishes they could make the same elephant noises as a trombone...or better yet,Rhinonoises...
Within the chamber's vaults, there are tiny star-like lights; to emulate the night sky, presumably. But then, it's just as likely that they mean to emulate the tiny lights within a spider's cave... Hard to tell; either way, a spider is very secure in her lair. And hence, so is Madame Web.
At times, a variety of spotlights illuminate Ms. Webb, as she performs. Unclear, as to what the need for the variety is; the song very much maintains the same mood throughout...
Now, she sings: Her song, as will soon become apparent, is very comparable to the theme song from an old movie called Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Peter... The babe they call Peter...
He shalt be no piper... Nor be a pan...
From Queens, he rises... Fell straight from a lady's undercarriage...
His parents made promises that they couldn't likely keep
A brother, his father had
One day, he got married
They stayed hitched... They watched the baby grow
And he grew...
And he grew...
Grew, grew, and grew...!
He grew up to be...
Yes, to be a boy called Peter!
He had arms and legs... But he'd soon want more...
He wished upon wells... Coins, he threw into them...
More coins, he dropped in the rolling ones...
O, how these amused him...!
He was a boy named Peter...
He was no girl named Peter...
His peers would dispute this... His muscles became no commodity...
The big boys chased him... Beat him near to a pulp...
And the cops, the black cops, of the city...
Good Gloria Grant...
Good Alan O'Neil...
All came to his aid
The boy they called Peter
They'd string the bullies up by their thumbs
Wrecking balls, they'd mount
Whoop their asses, they would...
The bullies, their asses got clobbered...
And yet, there was no Thing
Nor a Dr. Strange
And Cap? He was still under ice
He was just a boy called Peter
He was not-a-girl called Peter!
And he grew... And he grew... Grew, grew, and grew...!
He grew up to be...
Yes, he grew up to be...
A teen called Peter! Yes, a teen called Peter!
And his face became spotty
Oh yes, very spotty!
Spottier than Harry Osborn's...
But not as much as Flash Thompson's...
And his voice dropped down low
Albeit he became no bass
No, he was no bass!
And things started to grow
On Young Peter, and show!
He was now, with more certainty, no girl called Peter!
He was not-a-girl called Peter!
Although many continued to dispute this...
The girls laughed at him
Liz Allan led that chorus
Many more, yes there were...
Many more, shut the door, kiss the floor, Channel Four!
And he started to shave
Never much, he had to
Without the Spidey serum, there was almost nothing
Not a sole arachnid hair
Very seldom a beard hair
And for this, he got bullied again
Much fun, with that, they did have...
And the girls, he'd still stare at...
Up MJ Watson's skirt...
Up Gwen Stacey's skirt...
Up Black Cat's skirt, too...
Sweet dreams, for him, were made of this...
That, and so much more of this...
His philogyny rose...
And the girls never got it...
Oh, but how could they?
Their lips were all over their fathers' asses, were they not?!
And then he skulked about OsCorp
Looked up their products' skirts...
For once, it wasn't the ladies!
It was OsCorp's skirts, indeed!
An evil skirt indeed!
A party for Peter!
The babe they call Peter!
The boy they call Peter!
The not-a-girl called Peter!
Into a room, he went snooping...
A spider picked up his trail...
Boy and spider were united...
And the spider took a bite
A big, hunking bite!
And now, he was not-a-boy called Peter!
A spider, he became, called Peter!
Spider hairs, he grew...
Walls, he began crawling...
And he started to leap
From building to building!
And webs, he would spin...
Many webs, for decades...
And as the cranes did their work...
Hauling beams from here to there...
The Spider hitched a ride
Swinging from beam to beam
And the cranes only grinded
Their noses, very true, to the grindstone!
And he started to make foes
The boy Peter made foes!
An octopus, a man of sand, one of electricity...
A hunter, a dream-maker, and a vulture!
Together, they'd team
And then fall before the legs...
The eight legs of a Spider!
The terrifying Spider!
The friendly neighborhood Spider!
With the heart of Queens... And Brooklyn... And the Bronx...
Hero teams, he would join...
And then leave just the same!
This be the Life of Peter!
Of the boy they call Peter!
Of the not-a-girl they call Peter!
Long live the one called Peter!
May he have many sons...
If not as many as Father Abraham!
He's only a Jew in a few realities in the Spider-Verse, after all!
And Abraham is long-dead in all of them!
And the Eternals all think he's a joke!
And Apocalypse won't make him a Horseman!
And he's beaten Kang too many times!
With his Spidey-sense, mostly!
O Holy Life of Peter!
The boy they call Peter!
The not-a-girl they call Peter!
The not-a-girl-who'll-never-be-a-woman called Peter!
Long live the one...that they call Peter!
At long last, Ms. Webb begins to calm. At long last, she finishes her performance. She gets a bit hog-wild, while doing this... But then, she's been a prophet for so long it's become easy for her to get carried away with her passion.
In her own background, she's been joined...by a red-eyed audience. Their eyes are red for two reasons. First, they're Spidey heroes, just like their mentor...who currently sits at the keyboard, ending her own performance. Second, two of them were sleeping...before their mentor's noisy performance woke them up. And naturally, most of the Spidey heroes have superhuman hearing...and if not that, the Spidey-sense.
These lovely ladies are Ms. Webb's proteges. The black one is Mattie. The Latina is Anya. And the redhead in the skirt is Julia. And Julia, it seems, wears a skirt even when she's in pajamas...as she is now. They all are. But then, Ms. Webb just woke them all up. What's even worse, they're all staring at their mentor from afar, as if they think she's weird, for doing what she's doing... On one hand, they should be used to it. On the other, getting used to what's weird is a bigger responsibility than one would think...weird though all three of these ladies are destined to become, just as soon as they begin their respective rookie years as Spidey heroines.
Ms. Webb can't see them. She can, however, sense their presence. She's also seen the future...and hence, knows very well that they'll come downstairs and question her sanity. So, she loses no time. She sighs...turns in her Spidey-chair and addresses the confused/under-rested expressions of her three proteges.
"I've woken you," she asks, "haven't I? Might I offer repentance?"
Mattie boldly shrugs. "Bitch?! What was that all about?! It sounded like you was having a nightmare, or somethin'!"
"I was having a prophecy. Surely, you've been aware of my condition?"
"It sounded scary."
"Ah yes; I must confess that my power can scare me, too, at times. Thankfully, though, this vision was a happy one...for the most part."
"It didn't sound too much so," Julia admits, while flapping her red hair, "at times."
"Very well; I'll simplify it for you. You know that man Ben? The one who was my partner back when I was a paramedic? The prophecy is about his nephew. As a matter of fact, I mentioned Ben at one point in my prophecy... But then, I just now realized that you three didn't come in untilafterI mentioned him, so..."
"He was the boy who was born on the night that you saved us," Anya supposes, in a thick Latina accent. "The last time you saved us...from Sims, I mean."
She smiles. "I knew what you meant, Anya. Not only am I precognitive, but I'm telepathic."
Silence follows.
"I'm sorry I woke you," Ms. Webb finally says. "If you'd like, I can order you some hearing-dampening gadgetry...considering that I can't really promise you that I'll never do this again."
"We'll manage," Mattie mutters. "Now if you'll excuse us, we've got REM cycles to resume. If you need us, we'll be in bed. Feel free not to need us, though."
With that, the three of them return to the elevator single-file, leaving their mentor to play with her synthesizers.
Ms. Webb only sighs, turns back around, and resumes her synthesizing. Now, she plays some soft organ music; some trance, some nasheed, some melodeath, some folk metal, and even some ambient...
At one point, though, she hesitates. She punches a few buttons on her instrument and starts playing again. This time, she plays the instrumental intro to "Drift Away..." right before improvising a Spidey-themed version of the song...
Lately, I've been more and more confused
Predicting the futures of Spidey-themed heroes...
It's not the kind of life that most would choose...
But you know that I didn't...
Is that meaning so hidden?!
Show me the cranes, boys, and the nearest beam
I wanna get lost in your web-slinging
And swing away!
Give me a wall, boys, and some slick siding
I wanna get lost in your wallcrawling
And crawl away!
(Crawl away...!)
Well into the hours, Ms. Webb performs. There's never much that she can do for the hero community, after all, without her sight or her mobility. But at least she can keep the heroes from falling into traps...or, worse yet, the webs ofmuchvillainous spiders...