Just How Powerful Is Madame Web?

Madame Web might have some Spider-Man fans scratching their heads. Now that Sony has released the first trailer, it does look like an interesting take on the character—one who typically acted as a guide and mentor to Spider-Man.

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) has a power that lets her change the future, basically by seeing it before it happens. In the trailer for Madame Web, we can see how she manipulates it to help the women around her—Julia Carpenter, Anya Corazon, and Mattie Franklin. But that’s not the only power that Cassandra has.

Cassandra actually has three powers: Telepathy, clairvoyance, and immortality. Aside from those, there are other abilities, like her ability to see into the future as well as astral projection (which means she can project her consciousness outside of her body and travel that way). Whether or not the Cassandra in the movie will have these same powers, we don’t know yet. I think a paramedic who is immortal is pretty cool, to be honest.

What the trailer does show us, though, is that this version of Cassandra is coming into her powers as Madame Web begins. For the most part, Johnson’s Cassandra seemingly has a normal life—outside of this new ability to see into the future. That life is already different from her comic counterpart, who was born blind, but also born with her abilities. This sets us up with questions about where Johnson’s Madame Web persona is going and how it can connect to the Spider-Man universe as a whole, especially given the changes to the character we’re seeing here.

Glimpse into the future with Cassandra

Outside of Cassandra’s future sight, as well as her ability to astral project (and never die), she can also perform psychic surgery (again, great for this take on the character as a paramedic) and alter minds. All of these powers make her very connected to those around her, spinning a web—if you will—that keeps them close to her. Just like Julia, Anya, and Mattie say in the trailer, they’re all connected, and that seems to be because of Cassandra.

We don’t know if the Madame Web version of the character will have all the powers she does in the comics or in previous Spider-Man properties. Still, it’d be kind of cool to see this paramedic Cassandra use some of those powers in her work. For now, we know that she can see into the future, and the trailer presents this in a pretty fun and exciting way. It might get old really fast, so I can’t wait to see how they make Cassandra’s glimpses into the future fresh each time.

(featured image: Sony Pictures Releasing)