Issue #31 dropped a bomb on Peter Parker. May, the woman who raised him, has a biological son. His name is Cormac Crane, but everyone calls him Mac. May had no idea as she thought her son passed away shortly after birth. Issue #32 picks up right after that gut punch. Honestly, it’s less about Vulture and more about how Peter deals (or doesn’t deal) with the news.
Peter asks Mac to keep a secret
Right after leaving May’s place, Peter & Mac talk while walking in the rain. He tells Mac flat out that May doesn’t know he’s Spider-Man, and that finding out would honestly “kill her”. Mac agrees to keep quiet.
Here’s the thing though. Is that really fair? Peter is asking May’s son to start their relationship by hiding something from her. That’s a rough way to build trust with your new family member. And you can tell Peter knows it too, because he can’t stop thinking about it. May has a real son now, and that son knows Peter’s biggest secret. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one relationship that’s barely a day old.
From sparring to a real fight
So how does Peter cope with all this? He picks a fight. Sort of by accident.
Earlier, Rae (short for Raelith, if you’re new to the series) wanted to practice her fighting skills. Nothing serious, just some sparring. Glitch brought up Rae can’t fight humans – she would kill them. Peter thought it sounded like a decent idea. Peter and Rae headed to Killington House, a spot the comic has used before for this kind of underground fighting scene.
But once Spider-Man starts swinging at Vulture, something shifts. He starts feeling unstoppable. Like the fight is the only thing that makes sense right now. And that’s exactly what worries Rae. She’s watching him from the sidelines, and she doesn’t like what she sees. This isn’t training anymore. This is Peter using violence to avoid thinking about May and Mac.
Rae takes the hit so Peter doesn’t have to
Then Plague RX steps into the fight. If you don’t know Plague RX yet, he’s basically a healer whose power comes with a nasty catch: the pain he takes from people has to go somewhere else eventually. So when he steps up to hit Peter with that pain, Rae jumps in first. She takes the full blast herself.
That’s when the fight finally stops. Rae tells Peter she took the pain for him, her dear friend, because he wasn’t ready to carry it on his own yet. It’s a small moment, but it says a lot about where these two are as friends. She’s not letting him spiral, even if it costs her something physical to stop him.
Tombstone and the gauntlets
Naturally, Peter wants to take Rae home to patch her up. But Tombstone isn’t having it. He runs the fighting ring, and the rules say a match doesn’t end until someone’s out for the count. So Peter has to explain himself.
Turns out he wasn’t there for bragging rights. He wanted Herman Schultz’s gauntlets, better known as Shocker’s gauntlets, so he could bury them for good. Why? Because Shocker died, and it happened because of Spider-Man. That’s weighing on Peter just as much as the May situation is, even if it’s not getting as much screen time. Tombstone respects the reason enough to let them go. The gauntlets end up buried in cement, which feels like Peter trying to put one guilt to rest even while a new one is piling up.
Ice cream, honesty, and letting go
Back home, Peter, Rae, and Symbie do what a lot of us do after a rough day: they eat way too much ice cream. Peter thanks Rae for helping him through the fight, and she gives him some advice that sticks. Pain always passes, but only if you actually let it go. Peter says he’ll try. Whether he actually can is a different question, but at least he’s willing to hear it.
May’s guilt runs the same direction
Meanwhile, across town, May is talking to her boyfriend Ricardo about the whole situation. She admits she feels ashamed. How could she not know she had a child? Was there some kind of connection she should have felt, some sense that he was out there?
And that’s where the issue gets clever, because doesn’t that sound a lot like Peter’s situation? He’s spent years hiding that he’s Spider-Man from the woman who raised him. How could she not know Peter is Spider-Man?
She’s now grappling with not knowing about a son she never got to raise. Both of them are carrying secrets and shame about things they couldn’t fully control. It’s a nice bit of writing that ties the two storylines together without having to spell it out.
A few honest thoughts
I get why finding out about Mac is a shock for Peter. But that shock doesn’t mean May would love him any less. If anything, it seems unrealistic at this point for Peter to think he can keep his identity a secret forever. So many people already know he’s Spider-Man. Add in May’s heart condition, and I get why he’s tried so hard to hide it. But is it really fair to keep asking people to lie for him?
Honestly, it feels like Marvel still hasn’t figured out what to do with May as a character. It’s a little strange that none of Spider-Man’s enemies have used her as leverage yet. Telling her the truth would hurt Peter without anyone laying a finger on him. That’s a move a smart villain would make.
It’s also worth pointing out how similar this is to Daredevil’s situation. Matt Murdock has dealt with the same hidden identity struggles for decades. I’ll admit I like that in the Daredevil TV series, his secret is finally out in the open. Maybe that’s the direction Spider-Man needs too, eventually. Not tomorrow, but eventually.
