Back in August when Jonathan Hickman announced he would be leaving the X-line of Marvel Comics following the completion of Inferno, he mentioned he’d be doing so to go work on his “Next Big Marvel Thing.” When Hickman signed on with Marvel Comics, it was to, in his own words “try things.” According to some speculation by Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, the next thing he chooses to try might just be taking the reigns on writing duties for Marvel Comics most popular character: Spider-Man.
Following the end of Nick Spencer’s long run as the writer of Spider-Man, the publisher went to a weekly arc, Spider-Man Beyond, that will end in March. The announcement for this year’s Free Comic Book Day, which will be May 7th, includes a description of Spider-Man/Venom #1, which promised “the first glimpse at Spider-Man’s new era.” Finally, this week artist Chris Bachalo, who worked with Hickman the 2019 Spidey anthology, The Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle, retweeted one of his 2008 covers from The Amazing Spider-Man. As it turns out, Bachalo’s most recent book, Non-Stop Spider-Man, was cancelled and Hickman is a big fan. As Johnston pointed out, the new Spider-book is expected to have a high profile creative team and, given the convergence of events, it is reasonable to speculate that Hickman and Bachalo could be that team.
Hickman, of course, has spent some time with the Wall-Crawler before. Following the death of Johnny Storm in Hickman’s Fantastic Four #587, he replaced him on the newly renamed team, the Future Foundation, with Spider-Man, in FF #1. When Storm returned from “the dead”, Spidey left the team but showed up on and off throughout the remainder of the series.
Hickman’s well-known for his high-concept sci-fi and while Spider-Man is, like many of Marvel’s heroes and villains, the result of a scientific accident, he’d be the most “street-level” hero Hickman has tackled to date at Marvel. If Hickman is indeed the brain behind the main Spider-book, it’ll be incredibly interesting to see what direction he takes the Web-Slinger in next. Of course, Hickman also did quite a bit of work with Miles Morales in Secret Wars, including bringing him into the 616 continuity…
Source: Bleeding Cool
