When one of your characters is very popular, you make more of him or her to raise that bottom line!
For instance, DC has been adding Bat-books by the boatload recently, including Batman: Eternal, Gotham Academy, Arkham Manor and Gotham by Midnight. After all, if Batman sells, as the old potato chip commercial used to say, “We’ll make more!”
Marvel’s doing something similar, but making it an event about their biggest-selling hero instead. It’s called “Spider-Verse,” and it begins this Wednesday.
WHAT IS ‘SPIDER-VERSE’ ABOUT?
Here’s the description according to Marvel.com: “When the unstoppable Morlun returns, it will take every Spider-Man EVER to stop him! Dan Slott and Olivier Coipel spearhead a massive event that unites wall-crawlers across all universes against a single threat, swinging through Amazing Spider-Man and a web of tie-ins!” This event will happen from November, 2014, to March of 2015.
Most of us have a fair idea who Spider-Man is, so I won’t recap his existence here. But not many of us know who Morlun is, so again I turn to Marvel.com for more about him: “Morlun is a vampiric being who has walked the earth for centuries. He feeds on the totems — the core power sources of the universe. While he can feed on lesser sources such as humans and super humans, he requires a pure source to fully satiate his hunger.
”In his initial appearance, Morlun drew Spider-Man, who possessed the power of a pure totem, to him. Spider-Man and Morlun battled in the streets of New York, but it was quickly revealed that Spider-Man was no match for Morlun’s overwhelming powers. Before he left, Spider-Man was warned that now that Morlun had touched him, he could find him anywhere. Hoping to throw Morlun off, Spider-Man changed into his civilian clothes, but Morlun’s warning struck true, and Spider-Man was found.”
Morlun has faced Spidey several times, including a battle at a nuclear power plant and in the nation of Wakanda in Africa.
This time, Morlun will have more power than just one Web-Slinger can win against, so we’ll see Spider-People from across the multiverses join the fight.
GUEST SPIDER-PEOPLE
During this event, we’ll see Spider-Men and women of all kinds, including the Superior Spider-Man (Doctor Octopus), Spider-Woman, Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Girl (Mayday Parker).
Other characters we’ll see includes the current Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan as a spider-hero, Gwen Stacy (who is the one bitten by the radioactive spider in one universe, often called “Spider-Gwen”) – she’ll be getting her own title, and Silk. That latter heroine is described like this: “When Peter Parker was bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his powers, it managed to bit another before dying. This woman, hidden for years by Ezekiel from Morlun, has been found by Spider-Man … and is the new spider woman known as Silk.” She’ll also be getting her own book.
Another book, this one called Scarlet Spiders, will star Ultimate Jessica Drew, the Black Widow; Kane, the Scarlet Spider in the current Marvel Universe; and Ben Reilly, the original Scarlet Spider. All three clones go on a mission that is clone-related.
There will also be a Spider-Verse Team-Up miniseries, featuring heroes from across the galaxies. One even has Miles Morales meet Spidey from the current Ultimate Spider-Man animated series on Disney XD as they try to rescue the Spider-Man from the 1960s cartoon.
WILL WE BE ‘SPIDEY-ED OUT’ BY THE END OF THIS EVENT?
I’ve mentioned many times in this column that I fear Batman will at some point become over-exposed, that fans will become tired of his exploits, imploding in on DC. I mean, all these books, movies and animated series! When will too much finally be too much?
I wonder much the same thing about “Spider-Verse.” When every single incarnation of Spidey, including ones we haven’t seen before, demands our hard-earned money for about six months, when it is finally done, will Spider-Man have “shot his wad,” as it were, as far as fan interest goes? Or is that impossible?
Well, it hasn’t happened to Batman yet, so here’s hoping Spider-Man will also continue on as Marvel’s most-popular hero.
Wolverine used to hold that title, but he’s dead now, right? RIGHT???
What do you think, Spider-Fans? Will this event only whet your appetite for more Spider-Man? More Spider-Books? More Spider-Heroes? Or will you have had it by then? Hey, you also could have tired out with Spider-Man already, too!
Stay tuned, and we’ll find out as we journey through this next Marvel event together! Be sure to share your opinions below!
1 Comment
I’m just waiting for my favorite non-traditional Spidey, Takuya Yamashiro (the one from the TOEI Spider-Man TV series where he had his own mecha), to show up. It was confirmed earlier in the year that he’d be showing up, I just haven’t seen anything mentioning his actual appearance yet.