Superior Spider-Man’s Editor Hints at Fickle Fans and the End of Peter Parker

Dan Slott and Marvel Comics have been determined to impress upon readers that when Superior Spider-Man starts up, it’s a whole new ballgame for the titular hero, and that the decades of history with Peter Parker under the mask may well be over.Still, in an interview promoting his upcoming Alpha series, writer Joshua Hale Fialkov said in an unambiguous way that Peter Parker would still be alive, working at Horizon Labs, and mentoring Alpha come time for that series (something we can see in preview art at the link below), which occurs after the events of Amazing Spider-Man #700. That allowed a lot of fans to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that they weren’t planning on killing the character, or even writing him completely out of the stories in the way they did when Ben Reilly briefly took over as Spider-Man during the Clone Saga.Today, though, Marvel Senior Editor Steve Wacker took to Comic Book Resources to tease the next era in Spider-Man’s publishing history, and to intimate that Peter is gone and never coming back. And while his first answer seems to tease the return of Reilly himself in the new book, cover art released in the interview certainly seems to tell a different story.”I think for years to come the shadow of Peter Parker is going to be draped over the book,” Wacker told CBR. “There’s nothing you can do about that. But new cast members will come in. Life goes on. Peter Parker fans will sort of fade away over the months and years, and you’ll have a bunch of people who only know the new cast. It’s probably similar to what happened with Ben Reilly back in the day. And fans seem to want him back.”