Marvel Confirms New Superior Spider-Man Series

By Spencer Perry

While fans are still ecstatic from seeing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse this weekend, Marvel Comics was quick to announce a major development in the world of the webslinger though. In a quick tweet on Saturday the publisher confirmed that the fan-favorite Superior Spider-Man would be returning. Marking the third volume to star the character, Marvel also confirmed that Eisner Award-winner Dan Slott will return to write the new series which arrives this Fall. Though they added "More info swinging in soon," it seems likely we may not know more about the new Superior Spider-Man series until San Diego Comic-Con.

As readers recall, the events of The Amazing Spider-Man #700 at the end of 2012 were a major moment for Marvel Comics. Longtime Spider-Man villain Otto Octavius, aka Doc Ock, died. Marvel characters have died before obviously, but not like this, because Otto didn't really die. The villain was able to swamp his mind with Spider-Man's, planting him inside Peter Parker's healthy body and putting Peter's mind inside of Otto's dying one. After successfully pulling this off though, Otto found himself in a position to replace his nemesis.

And The Superior Spider-Man was born. Forced to take on Peter's own life, combine it with his own ambitions, and his desire to "out due" the OG, Octavius declared himself the best and wore the suit for 30+ issues. Naturally, the story ended with Peter taking over his own body again, with Otto choosing to sacrifice himself to save another. Through comic book machinations though, Octavius was able to return after placing a copy of his consciousness into the robot body of the Living Brain. Eventually though he transferred his mind into a clone of Peter Parker's body and returned to his Superior Spider-Man ways.

A second volume of Superior Spider-Man kicked off in 2019 with an even bigger, galaxy-brained idea. Still inhabiting the cloned body of Peter, Otto found himself targeted by a multiversal version of Norman Osborn. After making a deal with Mephisto, Otto was placed in a copy of his OLD body, returning to his classic Doc Ock look and style. Superior Spider-Man Vol. 2 even ended with Otto throwing away his Spidey costume ala the classic "Spider-Man No More!" cover. 

How Marvel and Dan Slott will figure out how to get around that cliffhanger and bring back the character is a mystery, but considering the wacky ways that he's been brought back before, the sky is the limit truly. 

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