{"id":581558,"date":"2026-04-02T22:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:21:10","slug":"marvel-might-have-finally-dealt-with-one-of-the-most-hated-spider-man-characters-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581558\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Might Have Finally Dealt With One of the Most Hated ‘Spider-Man’ Characters Around"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s few people who could\u2019ve ever predicted that one of the most unpopular contemporary characters at Marvel Comics wouldn\u2019t be some vile villain, or some wildly mismanaged hero, but a dude named Paul<\/a>. And yet, poor Paul Rabin\u2014not so poor, to many\u2014is definitely up there on comics fans\u2019 shit lists.<\/p>\n

Why? Because he was created, and continues to exist, to largely be an off-switch in the on-again, off-again relationship between\u00a0Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, maybe\u00a0\u201ccontinues\u201d is a strong word. Last summer, to the delight of fans<\/a>, Mary Jane broke up with Paul after three years (and some timey-wimey stuff that brought them together in the first place), no longer willing to salvage what was left of their romantic relationship while she handled her duties as the latest host of the Venom symbiote. Now?<\/p>\n

\"Io9<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s dead. Womp-womp!<\/p>\n

The ongoing Venom series has been dealing with a mysterious new serial killer villain named Torment, who has been trying to target the family lines of the Watson, Parker, and Brock families as part of a desperate bid to fulfil his death-spiralling dreams, leading to a team-up between Mary Jane, Peter, and even Eddie himself, back and hosting Carnage, to try and stop him from getting to Eddie\u2019s wayward son Dylan, who\u2019s been in MJ and Paul\u2019s care for a while now.<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s Venom #256, by Al Ewing, Carlos G\u00f3mez, Frank D\u2019Armata, and Clayton Cowles, however, Torment comes knocking. And after Paul buys a moment of time for Dylan to try and escape, the villain simply grabs him and puts a knife clean through his chest.<\/p>\n

\"Venom\u00a9 Carlos G\u00f3mez, Frank D\u2019Armata, and Clayton Cowles\/Marvel Comics <\/p>\n

The issue handles Paul\u2019s death surprisingly cruelly in some parts, in a way that it wouldn\u2019t be hard to read by people who\u2019ve disliked Paul\u2019s characterization and entire existence in the Spider-Verse these past years as almost gleeful in finally getting the chance to off him. Torment tells Paul, as he\u2019s preparing to kill him, that no one has ever cared about him, and in the end, all he did was get in people\u2019s ways. Paul\u2019s final words, when Venom, Spider-Man, and Carnage catch up and chase Torment off, are him telling Mary Jane that he doesn\u2019t matter and never did. When even Eddie tries to give Peter an apology and a chance to mourn him, Peter flatly declares that Paul wasn\u2019t a friend\u2014acknowledging that the death happened to a person, sure, but not a person Peter cares about.<\/p>\n

Do you know how bad you have to be that your dying doesn\u2019t affect Spider-Man? The answer is very.<\/p>\n

But before Paul haters start popping bottles\u2014or rather, continue popping them; they\u2019ve been celebrating since leaked pages from Venom #256 started circulating online last week\u2014we do have to remember that not every character in the comic is going to feel like the audience does. As wild as it is to see Paul\u2019s death dismissed by some, in Venom #256, it becomes clear that his passing is going to have a huge impact on Dylan going forward, who collapses in Venom\u2019s arms tearfully when he realizes that Paul is dead. He might not be a present figure, but Paul taking on a quasi-Uncle-Ben role in Dylan\u2019s own journey means that, knife-to-the-chest or not, Paul is going to have at least some kind of lasting legacy within the story (although a legacy as long as Uncle Ben\u2019s remains to be seen).<\/p>\n

\"Venom\u00a9 Carlos G\u00f3mez, Frank D\u2019Armata, and Clayton Cowles\/Marvel Comics <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the perpetually lingering shadow over every superhero comic: since when has death stopped anyone before? Even non-powered characters have come back over the years, either temporarily or permanently, so just because Paul is dead\u00a0right now doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that will always be the case. Plus, there are other mediums to worry about too\u2014remember a few weeks back when the Brand New Day<\/a> trailer released and everyone feared that Eman Esfandi\u2019s character flirting with MJ meant that he was the MCU\u2019s Paul<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s been a rollercoaster time for Spidey fans lately. From the giddy hype of\u00a0Brand New Day, to Ultimate Peter Parker\u2019s grisly death (at the hands of Carnage, no less) in the pages of\u00a0Ultimate Endgame, Spider-fans exist to suffer almost as much as Peter himself does. Maybe it\u2019s okay to treat this as a tiny win.<\/p>\n

So RIP, Paul. Not out of a particular affection or anything\u2014but mostly because if you do, the blood pressure of the average Spider-Man reader will go down significantly.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s few people who could\u2019ve ever predicted that one of the most unpopular contemporary characters at Marvel Comics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,64438,344,284896,35258],"class_list":{"0":"post-581558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-marvel-comics","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-paul-rabin","14":"tag-spider-man"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}