Marvel’s Spider-Man is Getting New Manga Series

The Spider-Man franchise has had a pretty big last few years, and there are no signs of it slowing down as Spider-Man: Far From Home is gearing up to hit theaters. Japan has been celebrating the occasion in a pretty big way with not only a special promotional campaign featuring a popular anime series, but it will also see the release of a brand new manga story starring the character.

With the premiere of Spider-Man: Far From Home in Japan, Kodansha announced that they will be launching a new Spider-Man manga series. It will run on their Manga Pocket app in Japan later this Summer, and will be based on the Marvel’s Spider-Man iteration of the character fans got the chance to meet in the PlayStation 4 game.

Titled Spider-Man: Fake Red, this new manga will have a story supervised by Marvel themselves with art illustrated by Yusuke Osawa. Unfortunately there are no other major details about the series such as potential villains or allies included, but fans get to see a little of what this series will look like in the announcement visual for it.

Osawa admittedly isn’t the most widespread manga illustrator, but he has created (or contributed to) works like Six Bullets, Dr. Duo, and Green Worldz. Though dedicated Spider-Man manga fans might recognize his name as he once won a major Marvel Manga Awards competition held by Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine. The competition challenged creators to write special stories involving any of Marvel’s major characters, and Osawa was recognized for his take on Spider-Man.

His story, Spider-Man: I’m Not A Hero, was officially recognized by Marvel executives for telling the story of Peter Parker in an interesting way. Though the special never got an official release, nor an English translation, maybe his work there helped kickstart conversations with Marvel when they were looking to brand Spider-Man into manga again.

This isn’t the first Japanese take on Spider-Man by any means, and it’s not the first manga incarnation of the character. Though with big new properties like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse introducing a multiverse into the Spider-Man film franchise, there could be potential for smaller manga stories like this to make their way into a big animated film someday. If not, at least fans can enjoy seeing the manga inspired Peni Parker in the film now currently streaming on Netflix.