One of the least formidable Spider-Man villains of all time has just come back with his own personal army, and Moon Knight that can deal with it.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Moon Knight #1 from Marvel Comics, on sale now.
After months spent away from the comic book page, Marc Spector has finally made his triumphant return in a brand new series. Ever since helping the Avengers to overcome Khonshu’s short-lived reign over New York City, Moon Knight has been carving out a new sort of mission for himself among the city streets and alleyways, one that includes a quite literal open-door policy for any who might be seeking his help. It doesn’t take long before his benevolent offer is taken up, and before he knows it, Moon Knight is facing off against one of Spider-Man’s most classic villains.
When Marc Spector became aware of the threat posed by Mephisto and his army of alternate versions of himself, the hero didn’t hesitate to do whatever was necessary to stave off the threat. Now that the Avengers have dealt with the fallout of those events and the world has been left in a better place, Moon Knight can finally get back to worrying about the more terrestrial threats that he is used to, even if most of them are far from ordinary. While Marc has already come across the less than capable vampires plaguing his neighborhood, a visit from an elderly woman turns his attention to an enemy that he might have never expected to come face to face with. As the woman explains, there is something in her building that comes out at night to scratch at the doors and whisper horrors through the halls, and Moon Knight is more than willing to put down whatever the threat happens to be. As it turns out, this menace is one that Moon Knight is well aware of, even if he hasn’t had to throw himself at it before now.
When Moon Knight investigates the matter in Moon Knight #1 by Jed MacKay, Alessandro Cappuccio, Rachelle Rosenberg and VC’s Cory Petit, it isn’t a legion of the undead terrorizing the woman and her neighbors, but rather one of Marvel’s strangest supervillains of all time. In the apartment building that night, Moon Knight comes across Edward Whelan, aka Vermin, stalking the halls alongside several other versions of himself. First introduced during 1982’s Captain America #272 by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck, Edward Whelan was an ordinary man whose abusive upbringing eventually led him to life on the streets — at least until Baron Zemo took it upon himself to bestow Edward with the rodentlike form that he has become so synonymous with. Even though his earliest days saw the villain come into frequent conflict with Cap, it was ultimately Spider-Man that Vermin would become most associated with.
Vermin has never been much of a serious threat on his own, but that all changed in 2019’s Amazing Spider-Man #20 by Nick Spencer and Cory Smith, when Arcade took it upon himself to give Edward the ability to grow clones of himself from within his own body. This development has turned the otherwise unremarkable villain into a more formidable threat than ever. No matter how many claws or fangs come lunging his way, Moon Knight holds his own against the army of Vermin before giving them an ultimatum by way of a much-needed reminder. Vermin isn’t fighting Spider-Man anymore, and Moon Knight has no problem with killing all of them if they don’t choose to walk away for themselves.
While Vermin has never been a particularly thrilling villain to see in action, his new powers and tactics may have just changed all of that. Now something more akin to the vampires of the Marvel Universe, Vermin may have just found a new life for himself in corners of the world a bit darker than what he is used to. Even if the group of Vermin seen in the pages of Moon Knight aren’t especially great, there is no telling exactly how his cloning powers work or how far away he could be from developing a veritable army of himself. Marc Spector’s more forgiving brand of justice that he has been recently dispensing at least gave Vermin the opportunity to find a less protected territory to stalk. As hard as it is to imagine that Edward Whelan could ever become something truly terrifying in his own right, there is little doubt that this isn’t the last readers have seen of him or his clones.
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