Third time's the charm? Marvel teases Doc Ock's return as Superior Spider-Man
Writer Dan Slott is also back for the new series
Superior Spider-Man is returning for a third volume with its original writer, Dan Slott, Marvel revealed in a tweet on Saturday. Precisely how and when is yet to be announced, but this will be the character's third series and the first time Slott has written for him since 2014.
Superior Spider-Man first spun out of 2012's Amazing Spider-Man story, Dying Wish. In that, a dying Doc Ock swapped minds with Peter Parker, taking control of his body while Parker was left to die as Otto Octavius. The hero's last wish was that a new Spider-Man rises to protect the city - a wish that Octavius decided to fulfil, with the intention of proving himself to be both a better superhero and person than Peter Parker.
Although as cynically-minded as you'd expect from the villain, Octavius genuinely grew as a person and a hero in the process - though of course, Parker was never going to stay dead for long. Octavius eventually sacrificed himself and restored Peter's consciousness.
The series began in 2013 and ran for 33 issues, written by Slott and drawn by Ryan Stegman, Humberto Ramos, and Giuseppe Camuncoli. It returned in 2019 for a second 12-issue volume, this time written by Christos N. Gage and drawn by Mike Hawthorne, which eventually ended with Otto making a deal with Mephisto to be restored to his younger, healthier body - at the cost of all the memories and development he had gone through as Spider-Man. This makes the character's return for a third round of adventures even more intriguing...
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Will Salmon is the Comics Editor for GamesRadar/Newsarama. He has been writing about comics, film, TV, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he has previously launched scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for over a decade. He sometimes feels very old, like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places and he runs the micro-label Modern Aviation, which puts out experimental music on cassette tape.