For those missing their superheroes on the big screen, Marvel is returning with an expanded Spider-Man universe as well as new characters and villains. Madame Web – starring <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2021/09/07/dakota-johnsons-style-evolution-in-46-photos-how-star-became-guccis-golden-girl/" target="_blank">Dakota Johnson</a> as the titular character, alongside <i>Euphoria </i>actress Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter – is set to be released in the UAE in February. The film also stars <i>American Horror Story</i> actress Emma Roberts as Mary Parker, who is <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/film-tv/2023/05/10/egyptian-animator-behind-spider-man-homecoming-on-how-to-create-believable-characters/" target="_blank">Peter Parker’s (aka Spider-Man)</a> mother, and Adam Scott as Peter’s uncle Ben Parker. The film pre-dates the narrative involving Parker as Spider-Man. Madame Web’s real name is Cassandra Webb. She first appeared in <i>The Amazing Spider-Man</i> comic number 210 in November 1980, in which she helped Spider-Man find a kidnapping victim. According to Marvel, in the comics Webb is an elderly woman who is a mutant and clairvoyant. She is also blind and partially disabled due to a neuromuscular disease. She has a web-shaped chair, which doubles as a life-support machine. Madame Web knows about Parker’s crime-fighting alter-ego and keeps it secret for him. She also uses her psychic powers to help him fight villains. She is killed by Kraven the Hunter in the comics; before she dies, she passes on her psychic powers and also her blindness to Carpenter, who becomes the next Madame Web. The trailer is, as the film's title suggests, a tangled web. The character Webb (Johnson) is a paramedic who, after plunging off the Brooklyn Bridge into the Hudson River while saving a man trapped in a car, is brought back to life and begins experiencing visions, including the ability to see into the future. Webb’s prophecies aren’t taken seriously, until Ezekiel Sims (played by French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim) turns up, boasting the same abilities as her, as well as slick superpowers, which foreshadow Spider-Man's. In the trailer, Webb tries to stop Sims from attacking a group of teenage girls in a diner. The teens – Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) and Carpenter – then establish that they are all connected in different ways. After Sims tries to kill the girls again, this time on a train, Webb also realises she knows him, saying: “He was in the Amazon with my mum when she was researching spiders right before she died.” When Sims later tells Webb: “You have no idea what those girls have coming,” she realises he’s set on killing the teenagers in a bid to change the future. In the Marvel comics, Franklin eventually becomes Spider-Woman and Corazon becomes Spider-Girl, alongside Carpenter’s Madame Web, indicating that Sims will stop at nothing to prevent them from fulfilling their destinies. <i>Madame Web is expected to reach UAE cinemas in February</i>