8 Strangest Alternate Versions Of Beloved Superheroes

Spider-Man: Reign, a four-issue limited series, follows an elderly Peter Parker who has long since retired from crime fighting following the deaths of everyone he loves and his inability to keep fighting in his old age.

Feel like you've heard this all before? That's because it's a total rip-off of The Dark Knight Returns (something Marvel were totally cool with, considering they actually referenced it in promotional material for the series), except less enjoyable and considerably weirder.

The story follows Peter as he steps out of retirement to face the evil mayor Waters and his police force "The Reign", resulting in him coming face to face with The Sinister Six once more (who really missed the opportunity to rename themselves "The Sinister Sixty Year Olds"). It's much more of a grim tale than Spidey usually finds himself in, featuring child abuse, 9/11 parallels and, oh yeah, Peter Parker accidentally giving Mary-Jane cancer with his radioactive sperm.

The mental image of an elderly Peter web-shooting inside his wife aside, this has got to be one of the strangest examples of the web-slinger's notorious string of bad luck. Not to mention that in the first printing of the first issue a scene featured the elderly Parker sitting naked on his bed with his Doc Ock in full view, resulting in the issue being recalled and edited out of fear it would "corrupt minors".

Oh sure, but the bit about his radioactive semen is totally above board and wouldn't scar children in the slightest.