It’s Back To The Early Days In AMAZING SPIDER-MAN YEAR ONE: LEARNING TO CRAWL

Spider-Man writer Dan Slott will be dishing out a double dose of Peter Parker this May. In addition to writing Peter’s return as Spidey in the relaunched Amazing Spider-Man, Slott will pen a five-issue miniseries titled Amazing Spider-Man-Year One: Learning to Crawl, with art by Ramón Pérez (described as “Ditko-esque”). Each issue will follow Marvel’s “point one” numbering style, with the miniseries starting with #1.1 and ending with #1.5.

Taking place in Peter’s first 60 days as Spider-Man, the story will run concurrently with the ending of Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spider-Man’s first appearance) to Amazing Spider-Man #3. Slott said that the story was a chance to look at Peter the high school student rather than just the guy that got bitten by a radioactive spider.

You start looking at it closer and closer and you go, ‘There’s a story here that we’re not seeing. A very pivotal and crucial story that lovingly respects everything that went on but tells you more, so much more about Spider-Man and so much more about Peter Parker.

Artist Alex Ross has also joined the miniseries and will paint each of the story’s five covers. Rather than fight one of his early villains like The Chameleon or The Vulture, Learning to Crawl will have Peter fighting a villain who’s surprisingly quite similar to him.

Someone’s running around trying to be just like Spider-Man and there’s no way in Peter’s mind that he’s not responsible for everything that guy’s going to do. He’s got his first villain who is his own age, someone that he’s inspired. He’s a troubled teen hero fighting a troubled teen villain!

The miniseries will replace the second issue of Amazing Spider-Man each month, so that in one month you’ll get an issue of AMS and an issue of Learning to Crawl. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Slott stated that once the miniseries is over, it will connect to the present day stories in AMS.

Origin stories sometimes cause comic readers to sigh since we already know the background of our favorite heroes, so I’m glad that Slott has decided to go the “untold story” route rather than retread on Peter getting bitten by the radioactive spider. I’ve enjoyed Slott’s work on Spider-Man, including Superior Spider-Man (detractor of the series, feel free to yell at me now), so I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. Plus, cover art by Alex Ross! You can’t beat that.

Forget Spider-Man’s 50th anniversary in 2012. 2014 looks like it’s going to be the Year of the Spider. We’ve got Amazing Spider-Man, Learning to Crawl, the digital-first series Amazing Spider-Man: Who Am I? and the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie and video game. Whew, I’m out of breath.

SOURCE: Associated Press