One of the key jobs of any writer of a Spider-Man comic is to mercilessly screw with Peter Parker. Take his money, make his beloved aunt sick, have the Daily Bugle hound him… Peter is the Charlie Brown of the 616, and let’s face it, fans like it that way.
Apparently, come January, Peter is due for another round of abuse, this time at the hands of Dan Slott. It’s going to be coming in the oddly named book The Superior Spider-Man.
Is it me, or does that sound like some sort of racist parody of Spider-Man made by skinheads? It’s really kind of an unfortunate title.
Slott, however, has said some interesting things about it.
As he told USA Today:
“I’ve always been the omniscient hand that’s been protecting Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and not letting anything too bad happen to him,” he adds. “And now I’ve become this cruel god. There’s something exciting about that, about going, ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha, here is what’s going to happen to you, Spider-Man!’ And it’s drastic and it’s big and it’s exciting and it’s never been done before.”
This apparently ties into issue #700, which you might remember will also be the issue Marvel puts a bullet in Amazing Spider-Man.
Slott is also hinting that it may not be Peter Parker under the mask, which I’ve got to say has uncomfortable echoes of a certain Saga that must not be named, even if the speculation that it’s Spider-Man 2099 under the mask make the ’90s kid in me really, really happy. One way or the other, he’s got a new suit and a new power set, although somehow I suspect these aren’t going to stick to the Wall-Crawler in the long run.
I’ll give the book a shot. That’s fair. Marvel deserves a chance to win me over and Uncanny Avengers, the first Marvel NOW! book, is actually not bad if a bit unintentionally campy. Still, I have to admit: I’m feeling comics-fan deja vu. And not in a good way.
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its not too far fetched that the 616 might ALSO have a Miles Morales, you know.
Actually, Spider-Men dropped a massive hint about precisely that. But I’m not sure that’s where they’re going with this.
I still feel cheated for not getting a divorced Peter Parker. I feel like back when they did the ‘One Day More’ or whatever storyline Peter had Mephisto annul his marriage to MJ (sorry, I’m a casual-at-best Spidey fan these days) to save his aunt from sniper wounds….that is easily the worst story in Spider-Man cannon, including clones and all.
Why can’t we let Peter Parker grow up? I feel like everyone wants him to stay a teenager forever, but there’s plenty of angst and drama in adult life for Peter Parker. I would’ve read the shit out of a divorced Spider-Man. Just have him an MJ get a divorce rather than contrived, stupid plots where reality is warped to reset him to a more naive time. Have him admit that he never got over Gwen and MJ divorces him, he has to deal with all-new adult drama that the average Spidey-reader can relate to, as the average comics reader (as much as the industry doesn’t want to admit it) is closer to 40′s rather than teens.
And realistically, most teens can dig on a story about divorce these days too. I want to read Spider-Man swinging literally by webs and also dating three women because he’s hurt and can’t commit to anyone fully. That would’ve been more radical than a deal-with-the-devil, a divorced Super hero, Spider-Man at that.
Sorry to tangent about old stories, I just feel like that was really the leap over the shark for Spider-man stories.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of One More Day. And I always wonder what his wife thinks Joe Quesada’s anti-superhero-marriage campaign.
Will we finally get Donald Glover as SpiderMan?
Goddamnit you beat me to it.
REQUEST DENIED.
The new Spider-Man will be a mutant. AKA “homo SUPERIOR”.
I collected comics for roughly 33 years. During that entire time I’ve never collected a spiderman title (unless you want to count the old Marvel Team-Up). I may just give this a peek. Though I’ve heard bad things about Slott’s recent work, I’ve never read anything of his I didn’t like on some level.
I’ve thought Slott’s work on ASM has been phenomenal.
My top three contenders for the man under the mask are Harry Osborn, Eddie Brock, and Miles Morales (although I doubt anybody but Bendis will do anything with a 616 Morales). Harry hasn’t been seen since he took off for parts unknown with his baby, and he does have experience with being a costumed adventurer (both good and bad). Brock is no longer Anti-Venom, and that could very well be the Toxin symbiote he’s wearing and not a costume.