Amazing Spider-Man becomes Superior Spider-Man: Peter Parker is no more?
Big things are happening in the Spidey comic book universe. If you have been catching up on the Amazing Spider-Man, then you’d know that Doctor Octopus was inside Peter Parker’s body, and Parker was inside Doc Ock’s old and dying body. So what happens when one of Peter Parker’s greatest villains is inside Parker’s body with superhuman strength? Beat the crap out of Peter Parker to death while he’s inside of Doc Ock’s body. And that’s what happened in issue 700 of Amazing Spider-Man. What better way to celebrate 50 years of Spider-Man than to kill off the main hero. Wait, what?
Before Peter Parker died, he gave Doc Ock the “With great power comes great responsibility” speech, and this has converted Doc Ock to becoming a good guy, since he now understands what Parker had to go through with losing important people in his life. He vows to become a “superior” Spider-Man. After issue 700, the Amazing Spider-Man will now become Superior Spider-Man #1.
“This is Moriarty in the head of Sherlock. This is Prince John inside of Robin Hood. This is the greatest villain inside the body of the greatest hero and trying to do good,” says writer Dan Slott.
The story sounds very interesting, except for one thing. Peter Parker frakkin’ dies! That means that there are no more Peter Parkers in any of Marvel’s Spider-Man comic books, since he died by the hands of the Green Goblin in Ultimate Spider-Man. As you can predict, this has lead to many fans causing an uproar, even to the point of sending death threats to Dan Slott on his Twitter.
Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso explained to Newsarama that they take death threats seriously.
This isn’t the first time a creator has received a death threat here at Marvel, and we take all threats of physical violence — to a Marvel staffer or freelancer — very seriously. If you threaten one of us, even if it’s just as a joke, we will do a thorough investigation to determine who you are. Count on it.
Alonso mentions that although he listens to the internet, it’s not the only outlet for feedback.
“With all due respect, I don’t know if the Internet is really the ultimate indicator of what fans desire, want or need,” he said. “You don’t predict your next president by only polling red states, know what I mean? Most of our most successful stories and initiatives have been met by Internet cynicism. Our job is to create buzz and excitement, and then deliver a quality story to back it up. The sales of Amazing Spider-Man #700 — a triple-sized issue that’s on track to sell more than 250,000 copies in print alone — speak volumes about the popularity of the character, the deep love people have for Peter Parker. We completely understand fans’ grief, rage, anger, angst and curiosity when you do something like this a day before Stan Lee’s birthday. [Laughs.] How they stay tuned in months and years to come will be the ultimate test of whether or not this story was successful.”
There have been many controversial attempts on killing comic book characters, but they always survive somehow. This looks to be the final straw for Peter Parker. What do you guys think of Doc Ock as the new Spider-Man?
Source: USA Today, Bleeding Cool
