I remember my early years, and my first encounters with the WallCrawler. “Spider-man and His Amazing Friends” brought Spidey into my world and dazzled me with wit, feats of strength, web slinging and swinging, and of course heroics.
My true love for the character would come years later as I sat in a doctor’s office reading a reprint of Amazing Fantasy #15 from 1963.
I had known of course like most kids how a teenage Peter Parker was bitten by a spider that had accidentally been exposed to a large dose of radiation. Radiation of course being a prime way to gain super powers back in the 60’s when so little was known about radiation to the common man in the Marvel Bullpen. But I didn’t know that there was more to the story. The bite gave Peter powers, but didn’t turn him into Spider-Man, at least not the Spider-Man I had known from television and a few comic books. It was learning a valuable lesson at the end of the book, with a catch phrase that we all know all to well by now.
I took that lesson to heart, and I’ve been a Spidey-Fan ever since that day. I’ve collected for years and have a pretty significant run on Amazing Spider-Man comics.
When word got out in the early days of the internet that Marvel and Sony had reached an agreement giving Sony the movie rights to Spider-Man, I was exhilarated!
I drove my future wife crazy with my fandom on overload!
With two successful movies and one less than, Sony kept fans like me happy by remembering that Peter Parker’s life is a balance of trying to maintain some sense of normality with his high-flying adventures as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Along comes Marvel Studios, a Marvel company focused on bringing the Marvel Cinematic Universe to life. Unfortunately by this time, Marvel had already signed away their biggest icons, Spider-Man and The X-Men to other studios, making them untouchable.
That didn’t stop the plan from taking shape as some lesser known (there were people who’d never heard of Iron Man) Marvel heroes came to the big screen with a promise of uniting them as The Avengers! Finally the Marvel Universe I had loved for decades was brought to life for all the world to share.
But there was a problem. I’d mention how Spider-Man and Wolverine were actually a part of the team (at the time) and even co-hosts of well-known Disney podcasts thought that was too much information. I won’t name drop, but he’s a good guy. Disney fans had embraced these characters, but only the ones being released by Disney and Marvel Studios. It seemed the rest of the Marvel Universe didn’t matter to them.
Oh, but times have changed as of Monday.
“Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s great characters, beloved around the world. We’re thrilled to work with Sony Pictures to bring the iconic web-slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which opens up fantastic new opportunities for storytelling and franchise building.” This from Walt Disney CEO, Bob Iger. This part of the announcement that Marvel Studios and Sony have finally reached an agreement to bring Spidey into the MCU.
July 28, 2017 will see the release of a new Spider-Man, with a new cast. Produced by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal who oversaw the launch of the MCU 13 years ago. Sony of course, still gets to release the film, but it’s a new start. Hopefully we don’t need to see Spidey’s origin again, but perhaps a toss to Peter being bitten at a Stark exhibition?
Spidey has also been promised to appear alongside Iron Man and Captain America in Civil War. And my hope is that this will also allow him a place with the Avengers during the Infinity War films that we highly anticipate.
After all, we have Luke Cage coming in a Netflix series, and pictured above standing as an Avenger, couldn’t we see more Avengers standing against Thanos?
This new announcement has caused some delays for previously announced Marvel Studios films.
Thor: Ragnarok will now arrive November 3, 2017
Black Panther to July 6, 2018
Captain Marvel to November 2, 2018
Inhumans to July 12, 2019.
The two-part Avengers: Infinity War is still set for release May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019.
Welcome home, Spidey!
