It’s official: writer/artist Kaare Andrews is headed back to the future of his controversial Marvel series for Spider-Man: Reign II.
“I never imagined that I would ever be creating a sequel to a comic series from so long ago, my first major work in comics,” Andrews said via a press release provided to Comic Book Club. “Nor did I anticipate that a four-issue mini-series would continue to vibrate in the public consciousness today. But without fail, Spider-Man: Reign is mentioned in articles, lists, and social media posts. Many call it the most infamous Spider-Man story ever told. But for me, what’s kept it relevant is the love behind creating that book. This is the character I grew up with, the one that taught me how to be a man, how to live with failure and keep standing back up, the unrelenting force of trying to make things better.
“Reign was full of tragic and dark absurdity that only a young creator could come up with. A way to challenge the idea of personal power and responsibility. But as I’ve grown older, and after sitting with this story for so long, I started to ask myself this question, ‘what if there was a way to go back and change what happened? What if I could fix everything?’”
The first series from 2006 was essentially The Dark Knight Returns, but for Spider-Man, which some readers found an odd fit. However, most of the headlines on the series revolved around two moments: one where we saw an older Peter Parker’s penis; and the other where it was revealed that Spider-Man had essentially given Mary Jane cancer with his radioactive sperm. On a recent re-read, other than these hot-button moments, we did find this to hold up better than remembered. But yeah, that’s the book’s main legacy.
In the sequel, we’ll get to catch up not just with Old Man Peter Parker, but also meet the new Black Cat, and find out what happened to Miles Morales.
You can check out two covers from the series below, which will hit stores on July 3, 2024:
