Hallelujah! It’s Raining Spider-Men!

This morning, DC Comics, for the second time in a year, set the online comics community ablaze with their Before Watchmen announcement.

This afternoon, Marvel has countered with the following words, and only these words:

Spider-Men. 2012.

It’s a minimalist approach to be sure. Me? I’m picturing a club in West Hollywood, but that’s unique to my experience. Perhaps you’re picturing a punch of dudes trying to grab pizza slices before they’re all gone, with a slight smell of dirty laundry. Others? Clones.

Maybe these are the guys who got off the Spider-Island?

Maybe it will be followed up with Spider-Men of a Certain Age, as they approach their middle age?

Comments

  1. Well it didn’t take long for Peter to leave a secret video tape for Miles Morales to find which will help him become Spider-Man and offer counterpoint narration and cogent life lessons to the action occurring on panel.

  2. I would totally buy Spider-Men of a Certain Age. Depressed Peter Parker, Ben Reilly and Eddie Brock wax eloquent about their 50’s. I’m there!

  3. If Dan Slott is the writer, im buying it.

  4. whatever it is, its probably getting polybagged.

  5. Scarlet Spider, Flash Venom, Spidey? Sounds like fun to me. I hope this is where Pete figures out about Flash being Venom. That moment should be great. You know it’s coming! (Not the Phoenix, them meeting! JEEZ!)

  6. The right half of the logo has the same divot in the spider-head that Miles Morales’ costume features, and Bendis is promoting this, so I assume it involves Ultimate Spider-Miles teaming up with either 616 Peter Parker or a somehow not dead Ultimate Peter Parker. Hoping for the former rather than the latter, because undoing Ultimate Peter’s death this soon would be super lame.

  7. The one on the right is for sure the new Ultimate Spidey logo.

  8. Marvel just can’t break the Internet in half like they used to. A bit more info might be required cause all I’m seeing is Spider-island 2: this time it’s personal

  9. Meh, both this and the wacthmen prequals do nothing for me.

  10. I’m getting over everyone having Spider powers. I’m loving Venom and I like the art of Scarlet Spider, but this is getting kinda tiring.

  11. Well we just had a storyline that could’ve very well been called “Spider-Men.” Also, there was a little (big) story back in the nineties that people love to hate that had hundreds of “Spider-Men” crawling all over it. This news reminds me a quote from Azzarello in the NYTimes article about BEFORE WATCHMEN:
    “Brian Azzarello, a comics author who is writing the mini-series for the Watchmen characters Rorschach and the Comedian, said he expected an initial wave of resistance because “a lot of comic readers don’t like new things.””
    Well Im not afraid of new things, that’s why i’ll be giving Image Comics and all their exciting new titles the majority of my money this year.
    Also, Mr Azzarello, Before Watchmen shouldn’t be considered a “new thing,” it’s a old thing with different coat of paint.

  12. Spider-WATCHmen. Suck it DC, we’ll piss of Moore too.

  13. Its a Bendis book. Bendis was on Twitter/facebook about it, he said he had a big Ultimate project in the summer, and the logo is the EXACT SAME LOGO from Ultimate Spider-Man 160.

  14. I’ll bet this is the same thing they pulled in “Death of Spider-Man” where it turned out it was Ultimate and not mainstream.

    Being someone who reads Ultimate Spider-Man and not mainstream Spider-Man, I hope that’s what this is. Also that it’s good. Which, if it’s USM, it probably will be.

  15. That’s one sad looking spider! Poor little guy! When he walks he looks like a low-rider with one side jacked up on hydraulics.

  16. Spider-Man is going to team up with New Avengers Spider-Man, Avengers Spider-Man, Fntastic Four Spider-Man and Future Foundation Spider-Man, showing us that the reason he can have all those solo adventures and be on 5 teams at once is that there re actually a whole bunch of him.

    This will be followed by “Wolverines.”

  17. They just did this plot in Spider Island. They are running out of ideas, and they are supposed to be the House of Ideas. Someone is just playing with action figures to come up with plot lines these days (ie X-men vs Avengers)

  18. peter parker and ben reilly get a flat together. Odd couple. Classic!

  19. Peter Porker makes an appearance perhaps?

  20. If it’s Ultimate, I suppose it’s indicating Peter’s return, which I’d be very disappointed with.

    If it’s 616, I guess it’s some meeting of the extended Spider-family? Return of Ben Reilly or something?

    Either way, not too enthused. Suppose I’ll wait and see.

  21. are they brining Peter back? please?

  22. This is a bad teaser.

    All it says it that there will be multiple Spider-People in the near future. Which in sets off bells in my mind, at least. How is someone NOT supposed to have a negative reaction when that’s all the information they’re given?

  23. the current 616 spider-men are :
    -Peter Parker
    -Kaine (scarlet spider)
    -Flash Thompson (Venom)
    -MVP clone Patrick of the Scarlet Spiders (although I’m not sure if he gave back the armor)
    -Some dude Osborn gave powers to who has 6 arms?
    -anyone who possibly remained un-cured from Spider-island

    In the past 4 years, we have gone from 1 spider-man to a minimum of 5, spider-men indeed.

    • The “dude” that Osborn gave powers to, he didn’t give powers to. He merely gave him something that would alter him into being humanoid in appearance. Ai Apaec was introduced in the Osborn mini as a creature with the torso and head of a human, lower body that of a spider and gorgon-like snakes for “hair.” He showed up under the thrall of The Queen in Spider Island after escaping the “underground gitmo” in Osborn in the Shang Chi side story in Spider Island. Osborn found him later and made him his new Dark Spider-Man.

    • good to know, i switched lcs mid osborn and didnt get to finish past issue 2. thanks.

  24. So… this is the answer to people absolutely forgetting about Miles Morales, right? I’m reading the book and liking it, but I’ll be damned if anyone has been talking about this book since Issue #2.

  25. Who Spiders the Spider-men?

  26. If it’s a team up of each one from each universe, do not like it at all.

  27. Loving usm. Really nervous of Peter returning.
    I’m pretty sure that’s what it is, though.
    Ugh.

    I’d love an inter-universal team up, but honestly, it won’t be.

  28. And maybe it’s just me, but have you guys noticed a pattern?

    Batman inc- buttloads of Batmen.
    Fear itself – buttloads of Thors.
    Spider island – buttloads of Spidermen
    New krypton -buttloads of supermen
    Tornados path -buttloads of red tornadoes
    The council of Reed Richards- buttloads of Reed Richards
    Flash rebirth- buttloads of flashes
    New world order- buttloads of martian manhunters
    Majority of green lantern stories- buttloads of green lanterns
    Majority of captain America storylines – buttloads of captain Americas
    Every major threat to iron man- buttloads of iron men

  29. Spider-Ham!!!!!!

    • Bendis just retweeted this link to iFanboy and said “lots of guesses, but who is right?” Pretty sure that means this is Ultimate Spider-man related which probably means the return of peter parker, which i’m not really feeling to be honest but who knows Ultimate Spider-man has never let me down in the past so I doubt it will now.

    • damn sorry that was supposed to be a separate post not a reply. my bad.

  30. No doubt to be followed up by Grumpy Old Spider-Men.

  31. So here is my hypothesis:
    New spiderman movie = return of Ultimate Peter Parker. Marvel doesn’t want people going into a comic shop and picking up a spiderman comic (Ultimate line is for new readers), and NOT seeing Peter Parker. So what do they do? Two spidermen. How do you accomplish this?
    Sheild took away Parker before he died and replaced his body with a clone. If you recall, Shield was training PP to become a better superhero. I’ll bet they carted him off and has been training him to BE an actual superhero, since he did get his ass kicked. Then he will return in “Ultimate Peter Parker: Spiderman” or “Ultimate Spiderman: Agent of Shield.” Either way, I want ultimate Peter back. Not that anything is wrong with Miles, but as a character, Ult PP is one of the best ever.

    • Then that was a clone of Peter that Thor saw in Valhalla along with all the other fallen heroes? Your logic is flawed.

    • Also, Ultimate line stopped being “for new readers” when all their own tangled continuity threads were introduced. Everyone knows Peter is Spidey. You want new readers (younger ones at that) reading Peter as Spider-Man, give them the Marvel Adventures line.

  32. Before Ultimate Osborn broke out of shield in the death of Spiderman arc they were about to start running test to figure out why he wasn’t dead anymore. My guess is the formula that gave Osborn and UPP their powers has resurrection properties and we’ll see Peter clawing his way out of a coffin.

    • Just like in the above comment, doesn’t make sense. What, Peter got bored with Valhalla and was all like “eff eternal glory and partying, I want to go back to getting my ass kicked on a daily basis. Oh, and to where everyone on God’s green earth knows I’m a 16 year-old.”