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| Master Weaver
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| Full Name: | Karn |
| First Appearance: | Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #32 (as Karn) Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #33 (as the Master Weaver) |
| Created by: | Dan Slott Christos Gage Giuseppe Camuncoli |
| Home Universe: | Earth-001 |
| Alignment: | Good |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Place of Birth: | |
| Citizenship: | |
| Base: | Loomworld, Earth-001; formerly Mobile; Manhattan, New York, Earth-TRN461; Earth-000 |
| Affiliations: | Ally of the Warriors of the Great Web; formerly Spider-Army, Inheritors |
| Powers/Abilities: | |
| Height: | |
| Weight: | |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Eye Color: | Red |
| Unique Features: | {{{18}}} |
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"On your side, brother? For eons this family has spurned me. Shunned me. Brought me nothing but pain. I renounce my inheritance! From this day forth... I fight on the side of the righteous!" |
Karn of Earth-001, better known as the Master Weaver, was a member of the Inheritors during his youth, but now serves as the totemic god who spins and protects the Web of Life and Destiny.
History[]
Origin[]
Karn during his time as an Inheritor.
Originally, Karn was part of a family of totemic hunters known as the Inheritors who traversed the Multiverse feeding on the Totemic Gods and Avatars who connected the animal and Human kingdoms. Unlike the rest of his family, Karn took no pleasure in killing, preferring to create rather then destroy, and only hunted in order to survive rather then for sport. This distain for killing and destruction ostracized him from the rest of his family with the exception of his mother who he claimed was the only being in the entire Multiverse who loved him.
At some unknown point in the past, the Inheritors attempted to hunt the spider deity known as the Master Weaver. After a long battle, Karn was ordered by his mother to deal the finishing blow to the Master Weaver will his siblings kept the Weaver preoccupied. When Karn proceeded to attack, the Master Weaver surprised Karn by choosing not to defend himself stating that he nothing to fear from one who takes no please in death. This caused Karn to hesitate for a moment. Infuriated that her son would not do what he was told, Karn's mother choose to attack the Master Weaver herself. Unlike with Karn, the Master Weaver defended himself from the Inheritors' Matriarch by snapping the strand on the Web of Life and Destiny killing her. While he kneeled in shock of what had transpired, Karn's father Solus arrived and subjugated the Master Weaver with the help of Karn's siblings. Blaming Karn for what had happened to their matriarch, Karn's family condemned him to wear a mask created by Karn's brother Jennix for all eternity and shunned him forcing Karn to go into exile.
Eventually, all the wicked deeds the Inheritors had committed in Karn's absence over the years culminated into their most ambitious hunt yet. Using the powers of the enslaved Master Weaver, the Inheritors would kill and destroy all the Spider-totems across the entire Multiverse. In order to regain his place among the rest of his family and finally make them proud of him, Karn returned from exile and joined in his family's hunt.
Spider-Verse[]
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"You may think yourself a god, but that does not spare you being fed upon. It only makes you a more filling meal." |
Karn vs. the Superior Spider-Man
During the early stages of the hunt, Karn encountered the Superior Spider-Man on Earth-50101 as he was attempting to hunt Paviitr Prabhakar. Due to the Superior Spider-Man's intervention, Karn failed in his attempts to hunt Paviitr and became infuriated and resolved to double his efforts in order to impress his family. Unbeknownst to him, the Superior Spider-Man had analyzed the energies that Karn's staff emmited and used the data he collected to track Karn's movements through the Multiverse in order to rescue the Spider-totems Karn hunted before he could kill them in order to recruit them in his Spider-Army.
While he was hunting the Spider-Man of Earth-2818, Karn was ambushed by the Superior Spider-Man's newly formed army of Spider-totems. Even though he had been weakened by their anti-Inheritor weapons and was greatly outnumbered, Karn was able to overpower the Spider-Army and gain the upper hand in the fight. While preparing to begin his counter attack, Karn was joined by his sisters Brix and Bora who came to Earth-2818 after sensing an unusually large number of Spider-totems in that reality in order to steal Karn's quarry from him. As the sibling quailed amongst themselves over who should claim the totems as their prize, their prey escaped.
After successfully killing Spider-Wolf on Earth-13989, Karn called out to his father asking if he had finally collected enough tributes and could finally return home and be with his family again. In response to this plea, Solus commanded the Master Weaver to send Karn to another more challenging world commenting that Karn would have to journey far and wide before he even considered letting him return.
While attempting to devour Spider-Ma'am on Earth-3123, Karn was captured by representatives from Peter Parker's Spider-Army in order to try and convert him to their side. Unfortunately, Karn rebuked their attempts to convert him even after they revealed intimate details about his past. In a final attempt to convince him to switch sides, the representatives stated that they had discovered a method to survive the without having to kill anyone that would also allow him to finally fulfill his lifelong dream of traveling the Multiverse in order to record the beauty of the different dimensions instead of destroying them. They then revealed that the Master Weaver had given them a scroll which contained all the Master Weaver's knowledge regarding Karn and the other members of family. They offered to give the scroll to Karn which he could use to undermine the rest of his family and force them to accept him back into the fold, but they would still resent and ridicule him behind his back instead of truly accepting him. Karn eventually submitted to the undeniable truth in what they had said and agreed to join their cause, but warned hem that he might not be able to control his hunger around so many totems. In order to resolve this issue, the representatives agreed to let Karn have small portions of their life-force from time to time to help keep his hunger under control. He then asked them if they could ever forgive them for the atrocities he had committed in his futile pursuits of regaining his family's approval. They responded by saying that his quest for redemption wouldn't be easy, but they would be by his side to help him take the first step. He thanked them for restoring his hope that he can be a better person and journeyed with them to Loomworld to assist in their final assault against the Inheritors.
Karns assumes the mantle of Master Weaver
After defeating the Inheritors and trapping them forever on Earth-3145, Karn assisted the Spider-totems of Earth-616 in stopping the Superior Spider-man from destroying the Web of Life and Destiny. During the fighting Anya discovered that the only way to fix the damage that had been done to the web was for someone to take the place of the now deceased Master Weaver as the weaver of the web. Silk opted to take the fallen deity's place, but as she as prepared to assume the role, she discovered that the Master Weaver was actually a future version of Karn. This prompted Karn to assume the role in Silk's place the revelation of the Master Weaver's true identity made him realize that everything that had happened in his life up until was meant to prepare him for this day and by assuming this mantle he would finally be able to begin to make amends for all the wrongs he had committed and would finally be able to start creating rather then destroying. After the others defeated the Superior Spider-Man, Karn used his newfound powers to send the Superior Spider-Man back to his own time without any memory of what had transpired during the war with the Inheritors. Karn then stabilized the strands of the web connected to the Earth-616 reality in order to send the totems of that reality home, but warned that due to the damage caused to the web their Spider-Sense would be temporarily nullified until he could fix the damages. He also told Spider-UK that for reasons unknown to him, Earth-833 had disappeared with no trace which made it impossible for him to send Spider-UK home. Without a world to return to, Spider-UK decided to remain on Loomworld with Karn in order to fix the damage the Inheritors had cause and to help protect the realities that had lost their Spider-totems during the conflict. Anya also opted to stay on Loomworld as she believed the knowledge of the totems and the Web of Life and Destiny she had gained from her time with the Spider Society would be invaluable in Spider-UK's cause. Impressed by their conviction and the nobility of their cause, Karn decided to dub the 2 of them the Warriors of the Great Web. After saying their farewells to Anya and Spider-UK, Karn proceeded to send the rest of Earth-616's totems home.
Future[]
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"Our lives are laid out like a vast tapestry that follows the same familiar patterns again and again. Though sometimes there's a twist in the tale and all the strands reweave themselves in strange and wonderful new ways. I know for I am the one who pulls at these threads. I am the Master Weaver and this is the web of life and destiny. It spans and spins into every world that is, was or will be. Spinning and spinning until each last skein is severed. I can see countless lives trapped in its threads. And yet I can also spy those rare souls with the power to walk along its silken strands and the responsibility to spin new paths and change all our fates. They are the Spiders and this is their Spider-Verse!" |
At some unknown point in his Karn traveled back in time to the beginning of history to create the Web of Life and Destiny. He then proceeded to let himself be chained and captured by past versions of his father and siblings his after killing his mother. He was then forced by a past version of his father to use his powers to help the Inheritors in the quest to eradicate the Spider-totems.
Unbeknownst to anyone, this was all part of Karn's plan to ensure history took its proper course. During his time as the Inheritors' slave, Karn secretly manipulated the course of events across the multiverse, which he referred to as "small rebellions", as part of his long-term plan to end his family's reign. The most significant of the actions allowed Jessica Drew to infiltrate Loomworld and masquerade as her Earth-001 counterpart as he used his powers to hide here presence from the Inheritors. He then proceeded to pass on 2 scrolls to Jessica containing all the knowledge he knew the Spider-totems would need to defeat the Inheritors.
Karn's death at the hands of the Superior Spider-Man
The first scroll explained a prophecy where a thousand years after Karn's capture, the Spiders would end the Inheritors reign by preventing the sacrifice of The Other, The Scion and The Bride in a ritual to put an end to Spider-Totems. The second scroll detailed everything the Spiders needed to tell his past self to convince him to switch to their side. In order to get this information to her comrades, Jessica attempted to Inheritors' portals to get to Earth-3145, but Karn stopped her knowing that a totem using the portal would alert the Inheritors to her presence. This forced Jessica to stay on Loomworld and send the scrolls through the portal to Earth-3145 without her hoping that they would find their way to her friends.
During the final battle of the conflict, the Superior Spider-Man decided to kill the Master Weaver will the Inheritors attention was focused on retaining possession of The Other, The Scion, and The Bride as he knew the ritual would be impossible without the Master Weaver. With his plan now complete and content in the fact that he had insured his own future, Karn resigned himself to his fate and let the Superior Spider-Man to kill him.
Powers & Abilities[]
Powers[]
Due to his unique physiology, Karn has a variety of superhuman powers at his disposal.
- Life Force Absorption: Like all Inheritors, Karn's primary power is the ability to absorb the precious life force of all living creatures granting him various superhuman abilities. The degree of these enhancements of his physical abilities is proportionate to how much life energy he has absorbed. Even though Karn can absorb the energies of virtually any being, he must occasionally renew himself by feeding upon pure forms of animal-related superhumans from one of the four categories that make up his own, unusually pure, DNA such as animal, insect, human, and bird.
- Superhuman Strength: Karn has showed varying degrees of superhuman strength based on how soon he has fed and what the source of the life energy was. His strength has been shown to be great enough to crush very dense objects with relative ease.
- Superhuman Speed: Karn can run and move at speeds that are beyond the physical limits of the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Stamina: While his stamina depends on how much Life energy he has absorbed, Karn can physically exert himself at peak capacity for at least several hours before fatigue starts to set in.
- Superhuman Durability: Karn's body is tougher then the body of an average human being as it has been able to withstand being hit by a swinging tree, being electrocuted and falling down a cliff. He has also been shown to be able to withstand gunshot and knife wounds with little injury and appears to be immune to fire.
- Superhuman Agility: Karn's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Reflexes: Karn's reflexes are enhanced to the point where they are superior to those of any human athlete.
- Superhuman Senses: Karn can sense the presence of a person after only touching them once not matter how far apart they are from each other.
- Immortality: Karn is functionally immortal in the sense that he is immune to the effects of aging and all known diseases.
- Reality Manipulation: As the Master Weaver, Karn can warp reality by weaving and snapping strands of the web. The greatest demonstration of this ability was when he isolated Earth-77013 from the Web of Life and Destiny and placed it into its own pocket dimension.
Paraphernalia[]
Equipment[]
- Staff: Karn possesses a two pronged staff that expels unique energy which also doubles as a key for the Master Weaver's harness.
Transportation[]
- Flying Platform:
Trivia[]
- In the 527th issue of Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 they introduced a being known as the Great Weaver who is also said to have been the one who created the Web of Life and Destiny. Whether the Master Weaver and Great Weaver are the same being is as-of-yet unknown, as all other attributes and feats associated with the Great Weaver have been attributed to the being known simply as The Other.
See Also[]
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