Everyone’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is getting a decidedly grimmer makeover this October in a Halloween-themed variant cover for Amazing Spider-Man #50, that sees the Wall-Crawler as a katana-wielding, stake-brandishing vampire hunter throwing himself into battle.
The cover is a series of variants coming from Marvel to celebrate both Halloween and the company’s history of macabre comics like Werewolf by Night and Tomb of Dracula. Marvel also revealed horror-themed covers for series including Iron Man, Captain Marvel, X-Men, Immortal Hulk, Avengers, and Black Widow. The company also promises more variants will be revealed in the coming months, including covers for Thor, Spider-Woman, Marauders, and Captain America.
“Prepare to see your favorite Marvel characters like you’ve never seen them before as the X-Men, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and more live out nightmarish fantasies just in time for Halloween. Paying homage to the classic Marvel horror comics of yesterday, the industry’s top artists including Russell Dauterman, Mike Del Mundo, and Leinil Francis Yu, have reimagined Marvel’s heroes in delightfully creepy visions,” Marvel said in an announcement of the line. “See what happens when you cross Iron Man with the swamp monster, Man-Thing, or check out Black Widow staking out her prey as a creature of the night—all this and more when these chilling covers hit comic stores this October!”
The Spider-Man variant comes from artist Aaron Kuder, with Jordie Bellaire on colors. The cover sees Peter Parker’s Spider-Man – decked out in a black and red costume – bounding toward a group of vampires as they feast on their latest victims. And if that wasn’t enough to get Peter’s blood boiling, they’re doing it right in front of Uncle Ben’s grave. Details on the actual plot are scarce for right now, but the story will kick off writer Nick Spencer’s Last Remains story arc, which will see Spider-Man villain and frequent dream-stalker Kindred stepping to the forefront to face the Web-Slinger.
Spider-Man has plenty of history dealing with vampires, having tangled with Morbius the Living Vampire for decades’s worth of adventures. And with Jared Leto’s take on the character coming soon – which has currently undefined ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – it’s not outside the realm of possibility that fans may actually see Spider-Man battling the undead on film in the not-so-distant future. Consider the fact that the MCU will also soon be bringing Blade into the fold, and it’s anyone’s guess what sort of monsters the characters will be facing in the future.
Readers will have to wait a few months to get their hand on the horror-ized variants of Spider-Man and the rest of the Marvel line, but it should make for an interesting – and nightmarish – re-envisioning of the characters.
