Spider-Man Is Getting A New Villain In A Comic Written By J.J. Abrams And His Son
Earlier this week, Marvel Comics caused a bit of a tizzy when they posted a singular image of the number "4" created by spider webbing. This had many fans thinking that Marvel was going to turn the abandoned idea for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 movie into a comic book. But the next day, they posted a webbed number "3" and it was clear a countdown was happening that would end today. And while it didn't end with news of Sam Raimi's unmade movie becoming a comic, it's still pretty cool.
Today, Marvel Comics announced a new limited Spider-Man comic book series written by Star Wars and Star Trek franchise director JJ Abrams and his 20-year old son Henry Abrams. The comic will introduce a new villain called Cadaverous.
JJ Abrams Spider-Man Comic Announcement
The five-part limited Spider-Man comic will debut in September with art by Sara Pichelli, colored by Dave Stewart. Meanwhile, the cover artwork that you see above and in the video was created by Oliver Coipel and Dave Stewart.
Keeping in line with the Mystery Box that Abrams loves to keep closed, the father and son duo would only reveal that the new villain Cadaverous will cause problems not only for Spider-Man, but his alter ego Peter Parker and his girlfriend Mary Jane Watson. But the two did sit down with The New York Times to talk about how this project came about:
Henry Abrams: "Nick Lowe, the editor of this comic, reached out about 10 years ago. More recently we began to develop an idea: a new and different and exciting take on Spider-Man."
J.J. Abrams: "Nick had been pressing me to do a book with him. A year or so ago, I started talking about it with Henry and it sort of happened organically. And that has been the joy of this. Even though I've been talking to Nick for a long time, weirdly, this feels like it just sort of evolved from the conversations of Henry and I, having ideas that got us excited and Nick being open to the collaboration."
Spider-Man fans will be happy to hear that Henry Abrams was drawn to the visual designs of Steve Ditko as a kid. It was the art that first connected him to Spider-Man around age six or seven, though he admittedly didn't start reading the actual comics until he was around 11 or 12 years old. The young Abrams says, "And at that point, I realized that this is a character that I see myself in and that was probably the first time I ever felt that way with any fictional character."
For their approach to Spider-Man, the Abrams' called back to what Stan Lee loved about the character he created. Henry elaborated:
"Spider-Man is one of those superheroes where the more you read about him, for me at least, the less I understand him. He's so anti-everything that you'd expect from a hero. I think Stan Lee said something about putting the human in superhuman. That is what we're trying to do."
Plenty of people would love the opportunity to create their own Spider-Man comic, and Henry Abrams knows he's in quite the fortunate place thanks to his father. But soon he hopes he won't have to rely on that:
"Obviously, there is an undeniable privilege here, and I'm not ignorant of that. I think part of creating is creating on your own. My hope and my goal is to do that after this. I can't believe this opportunity was afforded to us. It's been a great excuse, especially during the year when I'm in college, just to call and talk about the story."
Henry Abrams will always have the legacy of his father helping him in some way. But once he starts putting his own work out there without collaborating with his father, he'll be responsible for himself, and that's very respectable.