Spidey-fans everywhere are rejoicing as news of the return of the one rightful web-slinger spreads across the internet. Thirteen months ago, writer Dan Slott effectively killed one of Marvel’s most beloved heroes, and in turn making himself Spider-man’s greatest villain. In the following months, Slott, joined by his go-to artist Humberto Ramos and a crew of other amazingly talented artists, have been telling the story of how Doc Ock has dismantled Peter’s life in the efforts of being the Superior Spider-man.
This feels like an old friend coming home.
Broken in a New York Times article yesterday (because that’s where comic fans go for news), Slott was finally able to come clean about the story that has broken fans’ hearts for 13 months. Knowing that things would only be temporary didn’t make it easier. In the article, Slott laments having to lie to the faces of Spider-man’s biggest fans.
“To do that for a solid year of my life, that’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do — to look small children in the eye at a convention and lie to them,” says Slott. “One of them with an honest-to-God Little League uniform and a quivering lip. Inside, part of me was dying.”
In hindsight, the Superior Spider-man run may been seen as a triumph for shaking up the paradigm of the Spidey mythos, but over the long and grueling time in Peter’s absence, fans everywhere have turned their back on the new wall crawler. Slott has been on the receiving end of a lot of negativity from old fashioned hate mail to straight up death threats.
The death of one of Marvel’s most beloved characters has been tough for everyone, so it should be to no one’s surprise how nerve wracking the concept was. Editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said,
“It would have been great if you took a photo of my face at that time. I was not very thrilled… Let’s just say that as cynical as the hard-core fanboy was, I was more cynical.”
Fans seem to have a sense of loss without their personal hero Peter Parker. After the loss of young Peter in the Ultimate Universe, things have not been the same. Thanks to other writers like Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Scott Snyder, and Brian K. Vaughn, comics have never lost their appeal, but there has been a hole in the pull list that is the comic lover’s heart, and thankfully it’ll be filled again.
This gives me the confidence to go back and read Superior Spider-man, knowing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Check out this week’s Superior Spider-man #25 for the bread crumbs that will lead to the return of Peter Parker.