If you’re a Spider-Man fan, then there’s a very good chance you’ve been taken on an emotional rollercoaster ride in the past few days. Long story short, Marvel posted the number “4” formed out of webs on their Twitter page over the weekend, thereby forcing True Believers to think that a comic book based on Sam Raimi’s canned Spider-Man 4 movie was in the works. Well, either that or a possible Future Foundation reunion.
To the chagrin of many, it wasn’t long before those hopes were dashed when a “3,” a “2” and a “1” followed on subsequent days, thus revealing we were enduring a countdown of some sort. Though the speculation was fun while it lasted, someone needs to tell the House of Ideas that nobody starts a countdown at “4.”
As it turns out, the big announcement is that famed movie producer/writer/director J.J. Abrams is actually going to write a new miniseries alongside his son, Henry Abrams. Simply titled Spider-Man, it’ll run for five issues and introduce a new villain, that being Cadaverous, who’ll be a thorn in the sides of both Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Furthermore, J.J. alleges that “The story shows Peter Parker in a way you haven’t seen him before.”
In case you were wondering, Sara Pichelli (Ultimate Spider-Man, Astonishing X-Men) will be handling interiors, with Olivier Coipel (Civil War II, Avengers vs. X-Men) providing cover art. If you’d like to see the first example of the latter, then we’ll refer you to the above image.
If anything, this is a coup for Marvel, as J.J. Abrams has some serious geek cred, already having Lost, Fringe, Star Trek and Star Wars on his impressive resume. The trivia buffs among you should remember how his Superman: Flyby script nearly made it to screen years ago, too, so it’s cool to see him landing a nice gig in the superhero genre.
Spider-Man #1 arrives in comic shops this September.