Shay Daniels (Earth-47)

* Tarantula
* Unmasked

**Nicknames**

**Editorial Names**

**Friends**

**As Tarantula**

## Origin & Living Status

### Origin

Given powers on his 14th birthday after being eaten by a giant prehistoric spider (circa. 2002)

### Birthplace

Spring Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada (circa. 1988)

## Personal Information

### Base of Operations

Stark-Daniels Tower, Manhattan, New York City

## Creators & Appearances

### Creator(s)

Morpheus

Affectionately known as Bones by his two multiversal halves, **Shay Daniels** of Earth-47 is better known as Your Friendly Neighborhood **Tarantula**. Much older than his counterparts, Shay was born in 1988 to an absentee father and a loving mother. In 2002, he gained powers on his fourteenth birthday after being eaten by a Zinchari Spider in the Mojave Desert. After being inspired by Mademoiselle Carver, Shay donned a costume and became Tarantula but moved to New York shortly thereafter.

His track record as Tarantula was a bit spotty. He wanted to live a normal life but kept his promise to Mademoiselle of keeping Manhattan safe. His adventures would lead him to work with Midnite, Ikari, and Iron Maiden who would become his wife in later years. However, his group of villains only grew as he fought people such as Flask, DLZ, Vultress, and the most notable of them, Tombstone who killed his girlfriend Alicia Howard. Later, Shay would become a founding member of The Knights with Midnite, Ikari, and Iron Maiden.

Recently, Shay retired and moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Maria, after she revealed she was pregnant. After a while, the family moved back to Manhattan with Castiel "Cass" Stark-Daniels. However, when Cass turned five, an unknown villain named Mandrake caused problems in Harlem. Maria forced Shay to remember his promise to Mademoiselle and he donned the suit, becoming Tarantula again. Later, Shay would be involved in a multiverse event that granted him the ability to meet two alternative versions of himself. He continued to be inspired by more of them. However, it was his now fifteen-year-old daughter that forced him to continue as she operated as The Astonishing Tarantula with his permission.

## **Attributes**

### **Powers**

**Zinchari Avatar**: After being eaten by a giant prehistoric spider, Shay was given a second chance in life but it came with a majority of his DNA being changed to that of the spider. This was years ago and now, Shay has gained an extremely deep understanding of his abilities and knows how to use them in ways that even astonish other Zinchari Avatars. He was able to accurately walk his daughter through her transformation process and have an answer to all of her questions. He has been called the wisest of the Zinchari Avatars as his age and resources have allowed for him to become well-versed in the Zinchari culture.

* **Superhuman Physiology**: Shay has shown that he can lift well over 50 tons at his peak. He has grabbed and stopped cars and even caught them in mid-air. He’s strong enough to lift a semi-truck over his head with no effort and has stopped a ceiling from caving in inside a house. Daniels can move faster than any Olympic athlete, being able to keep up with cars that accelerate past 180 mph. His upper-speed limits are unknown but he can move fast enough that it leaves an afterimage of where he once was. Shay’s equilibrium, agility, and bodily coordination was enhanced to superhuman levels to the point that he can balance on anything and everything, coupled with his wall-crawling ability makes him one of the most agile heroes in his community, allowing him to perform complex stunts and tricks, some of which are not humanly possible. Shay’s reflexes are so enhanced that he can dodge a fury of bullets, incoming cars, punches, and various attacks with ease. This also works hand-in-hand with his accelerated vision. Shay’s advanced musculature generates fewer fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of a normal human. At his peak, he can physically exert himself for at least several hours before the build-up of fatigue toxins in his blood begins to impair him. Shay's body is harder and more resistant to certain types of physical injury than the body of an ordinary human, though he's far from invulnerable. His bodily tissues are conditioned to allow him to withstand great impact forces and he has resisted impacts, such as falling from a height of many stories and being repeatedly struck by a superhumanly strong opponent, that would severely injure or kill a normal human with little to no injury to himself. He once fell off a tower and effortlessly walked to a hospital, where a doctor said that with broken ribs and massive fractures, it was amazing that he could even stand up.

* **Heightened Vision or Accelerated Vision**: Shay's visual acuity is considerably beyond that of a normal human. He can see objects at much greater distances, with perfect clarity, relative to an ordinary human. What appears as a blur to most people, he can see perfectly. This has also allowed him to be a better doctor as his eyesight allows for him to see microscopic details with his patients and not have to use medical tools. His eyesight mutated further and evolved into this:
	+ **Pheromone Reading/Spider-Sense**: His eyesight can see pheromones that are released into the air if he concentrates hard enough. The negative pheromones are given off by somebody or in an area that automatically alerts his brain and forces his eyesight into the direction of the negative pheromones. It acts as an early warning system, a Spider-Sense, but for all the other pheromones, he has to concentrate on them to be able to see them. The bad pheromones come off as scarlet red while the others come off in different colors depending on the pheromones. When his eyes/brain detect the negative pheromones, his vision turns into, “a black and white sketchpad” as described by Shay when the danger is clear, present, and in front of him about to attack or already attacking. This gives him a severe headache the closer the danger gets and the more intense the negative pheromones. A not-so-subtle side effect of this is that his eyes turn neon blue. His early warning system gives a distinct noise in his ears whenever it goes off.

* **Wall-Crawling**: After the spider ate him, he would later gain the ability to stick to walls but due to him not having a doctor he can trust his secret with, Mademoiselle made a theory. This ability is mental and it allows Shay to stick to any surface with any part of his body as well as stick things to his body such as his mask. This requires no concentration seeing as how it is seemingly involuntary now but in the beginning, he had to learn how to control it.

* **Accelerated Healing Factor**: Shay's genetically-enhanced metabolism/physiology affords him a self-healing ability that lets him regenerate damaged bodily tissues at a highly accelerated rate. Injuries such as slashes or puncture wounds can heal completely within a matter of a few minutes.
	+ **Longevity**: Shay ages at an extremely slow rate to that of his peers. This does not mean he is invincible because he can still die but it means that if he didn’t die, he would live a very long time.

* **Retractable Talons**: Shay possesses short, retractable talons at the tips of his fingers and toes. The talons are extremely sharp and coupled with his strength, they are said to be as durable as quartz. They are capable of cutting skin and even killing somebody.

* **Retractable Fangs**: It is unclear when these came about but his canine teeth have become sharp enough to draw blood but when he tested them before he left, they released a highly potent and fast-acting venom that would shut down the body quickly and painfully which causes paralysis upon immediate injection, ultimately ending in death. The only cure that he and Mademoiselle were able to find was his blood.

### **Abilities**

* **Indomitable Will**: Tarantula is incorruptible as claimed by Tombstone, Ikari, Midnite, and Maria. His sense of justice and the will to act on it is so unbelievably ingrained into who he is as a person that he can’t not be Tarantula. He has stopped and stepped away but in the end, he has always come back because of his responsibility. Arguably when Shay came back as Tarantula, his will had become hardened even further over time. He has thought of murdering Tombstone but he can’t bring himself to do it, or even fight like he wants to kill him. His mental fortitude was shown when he fought Daniel Beckhart (Mysterio) and cut through his illusions without having to use his “Spider-Sense”.

* **Doctoral Supreme**: Shay is a highly-skilled mechanical engineer, fixing things for people all over Clark County. He had been doing this since he was 10 years old but doesn’t enjoy talking about his intelligence, seeing it as a selfish thing to do. He often creates things and sells them for money which he uses to buy things he needs to be Tarantula. Later, his intelligence would serve him well as he went on to become a successful businessman and doctor, using his intelligence to pass medical school with flying colors. Later, as Shay began to utilize his medical prowess, he showed extreme skill in surgery and other types of medical fields as he has treated animals, people, and at one point, extraterrestrial beings. His doctoral prowess has led to him being labaled "Doctoral Supreme" by The Watcher of Earth-505 and Evan Edwards.

* **Singing**: A talented singer, a trait inherited from his mother, Shay was in many bands in high school but the one that was and still is the most popular is Guessing Tomorrow. The band still does shows around Clark County but he is very modest about this, saying his singing is horrible. Alicia has described his singing as smokey R&B mixed with a beauty that throws him off whenever he tries to think about it.

* **Capable Hand-To-Hand Combatant**: Despite having no formal training, he wings how he fights using a mixture of all of his abilities to do so.

* **Gifted Guitarist**: He learned how to play guitar from his step-father Patrick in the early 2000s.

* **Athletics**: Shay used to play basketball when he was in middle school but stopped whenever he entered high school. He was good at the sport and won many games.

### **Weaknesses**

* **Optical Photosensitivity**: Due to his heightened vision and how his eyes are more acute than the average human, he has to wear sunglasses inside and during the day.

* **Sulfur Trioxide**: For some reason when Sulfur Trioxide in a gas form is sprayed on Shay, he loses his abilities for 3 hours.

* **Pheromone Overload**: If too many negative pheromones are in the air, his brain will lose track and effectively blind him as a flashbang would, disorienting his vision for an unspecified amount of time. The longest this has happened was a day.

## **Paraphernalia**

### **Equipment**

* **Tarantula Suit**: This is the name of suits that Shay has worn or donned in his superhero career. Later, Shay would make his primary outfit with his best friend Terry inside of a Hart International lab. By the time he turned 30, Maria created his classic suit.

* **Web-Shooters**: Something from Shay’s design, his web-shooters varied between bulky and relatively small and subtle. He has used only one out of the two web-shooters he has created but later Shay had created new web-shooters at Hart Corporation.

## **Trivia**

* All alternative versions of Shay have nicknames for each other to help people differentiate between them. This version of Shay is nicknamed "**Bones**" from Star Trek.
* This Shay is currently 35.