A Centipede Once Again Saves the Spider-Verse

A Centipede Once Again Saves the Spider-Verse is the canceled final official main comic in the Centipede in the Spider-Verse series of Marvel and Dozerfleet crossover comics. Initially pursued in December of 2021, it was abandoned officially in May of 2023.

Plot
The story began in Miles' room. It included the opening of the teaser trailer of Across the Spiderverse. But right as Gwen was about to lure Miles away to meet Miguel and the other Spider Totems, she became lustful-eyed. She embraced Miles, making out with him, and stared at the bed. The couple tore their shirts off, with the implication that they were about to have sex, but they were immediately stopped when the Percolation Wave sent Ciem and Italian Spiderman into Miles' bedroom. Candi warned the two of them that not all Miles-Gwen pairings work out, before also warning them that Miguel hated Miles just as much as Darius Philippine hated her. She tried not to be overly harsh over their indiscreet behavior, given she'd have felt hypocritical due to her own sexual past.

However, Candi warned Miles of the Percolation Warrior way, and that it would let him know what was right. To do what's right, for that reason, and not merely out of selfish desire to prove Miguel wrong. She warned that Miguel was insane, and that the meeting would go poorly. That the reason Miguel believed himself to be right, was because most iterations of Spider-Man were either alone, or had unreliable allies. But with Candi and Franco to provide Miles company, Miles' story didn't have to have the same bad ending involving a sadistic choice as what Miguel believed was inevitable. A centipede would once again have to fix the Spiderverse!

At some point, she discovered the pregnant version of Jessica Drew, being Spider-Woman shamelessly even while pregnant. Candi recalled her own experience of being forced to fight while pregnant, to flee from Gerald Milewing's associates, after they held her at gunpoint during a bank heist, then taunted her by assassinating other bank patrons in front of her and laughing. How she broke Milewing's arm, fled the bank to save her unborn child, and got Strawberry to protect her as soon as possible, because of how irresponsible it would have been to continue fighting alone while pregnant. And how she wound up in protective custody after Stephanie's Strawberry unit blew up.

The sight of Jessica Drew continuing to willingly battle evildoers while pregnant therefore offended Candi's sensibilities about motherly instinct, resulting in her responding to Jessica with a firm: "You disgust me!"

Getting a Spider-Man based off Earth-199999's, one based off 96283's, one based off of 120703's, and one based off of 1048's together, Candi utilized them along with Miles, Franco, and Gwen to put a stop to the Spot - who became Wave-sensitive. Worse: Spot later stole a Percolation Wand from Jenny Kay so he could cause even more chaos! At some point, the new Spider-Centipede Gang had to chase after Spot while going snowboarding in the Alps. A frustrated Italian Spiderman summoned penguins to punish the Spot. And to Spot's dismay, the penguins proved effective!

Some time later, Miles and Gwen were found hiding in Japan by Candi, Franco, and a Peter based off the one from 1048. Gwen was revealed to be pregnant. Spot's chaos not only affected the new Spider Gang and Ciem: his disruptions to the Wave's stability saw a pocket dimension of the Dromedeverse obeying some of the narrative of Disney's Moana get invaded by Kamohoalii, Anarteq, and Nemara. Paku and Maui began to have an interesting conversation about politics, while Moana and Jissika appeared confused by each other's existence.

Later, Candi learned that her earlier interactions with Miles and Gwen, as well as allowing Franco anywhere near them resulted in Franco and Candi's animal pheromones triggering a panicked reaction to Miles and Gwen's hypothalmi, triggering a "need to procreate quickly" urge that caused them to generate more pheromones than usual around each other, leading to their being almost as drawn to each other as some versions of Peter were to some versions of Cindy Moon. As a result, Candi concluded that she'd have to leave Franco behind in his native universe before she dared interact with the Spiderverse again, lest she corrupt any other versions of Miles and Gwen.

Characters

 * Miles Morales / Spider-Man
 * Gwen Stacy / Ghost-Spider
 * Spider-Army
 * Miguel O'Hara / Spider-Man 2099
 * Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman + unborn baby
 * An unknown Peter Parker, based off of Earth-96283
 * An unknown Peter Parker, based off of Earth-1048
 * An unknown Peter Parker, based off of Earth-199999
 * An unknown Peter Parker, based off of Earth-120703


 * Percolation Warriors
 * Candi McArthur / Ciem
 * Franco Frachetti / Italian Spiderman (+ his penguins)
 * Isitoq Sundue / Anarteq
 * Jissika Sundue / Nemara
 * Pakulihi Lekaho / Kamohoalii


 * SCALLOP
 * Darius Philippine


 * Gobargate goons
 * Gerald Milewing


 * Johnathan Ohnn / Spot


 * Maui
 * Moana


 * Lambrelli Labs
 * Stephanie Barrin / Strawberry

Development
Work on this piece began on December ‎17th of ‎2021, after the first dropping of the teaser trailer to Across the Spiderverse. However, objectionable woke content in Marvel movies, as well as subsequent trailers for Across the Spiderverse led to the cancellation of this series of comics. It was officially ruled as canceled on May 10th of 2023, though lost footage was either re-shot or recovered on May 27th of that year, and uploaded to DeviantArt between May 30th and June 1st of that same year.

Reception
DeviantArt users had generally positive reactions to this alternate take on Across the Spiderverse, although user Kenuchiha16 complained at one point that Candi's interference in the Animated Spiderverse timeline went a bit too far in retconning how quickly Miles and Gwen become attracted romantically, resulting in an opening that "is nothing at all like what we got in the final movie."

Trivia

 * Candi's tone of "You disgust me!" toward Jessica Drew mirrors the time in Anarteq: Tropic Mercenary in which Perchta judged Jissika Sundue to her face for being promiscuous, while Perchta began having flashbacks to being tortured in Belgium by pedophiles back in the 1990s.


 * Chronologically, this work became the last crossover between Dozerfleet and Marvel, given objections to content in the subsequent trailers to Across the Spiderverse, as well as discontent with the general direction of the MCU in Phase 4 and beyond.


 * There was also going to be a sequence of Miles, Peter of Earth-1048, Peter of Earth-199999, Peter B. Parker, Candi, Gwen, and Franco involved in snowboarding; using the Snowy Escape expansion to The Sims 4. The original footage was shot years in advance, in November of 2020, and became misplaced in a file with some raw footage shots for Swappernetters concept art.  These original renders weren't rediscovered until June 9th of 2023.  Re-shoots shot in 2023 restored the original plot points.


 * The meeting of Kamohoalii and Nemara with Maui and Moana was originally going to be a separate and distinct story; but it instead got tacked on to this one.


 * Having learned from the events in Ciem: Caldera, Candi switches from her Variega Ciem suit from Sodality shown on her in the opening panels of this series of panels, to the Carbonica suit that she and Tanya wore when battling Quoll and Duzerit in the Colorado wilderness. This is because she knew that the configuration for the Carbonica was better suited for mountain combat than her Variega suit, and it offered better insulation against the cold.