Dan Slott is a friend to all who love comics, and a friend of The Book Report podcast. He’s also the writer of Superior Spider-Man, a very hot property on the sales charts right now. He had the stones to end Amazing Spider-Man, shove Dr. Octopus’ mind into Peter Parker’s body and claim he’s superior.. People are fascinated by this new, jerky version of Spidey and they’re wondering just how and when the presumed-dead real-deal Parker is going to get control back.
In this interview from Wondercon over the weekend, Slott says the sales numbers are so good, maybe it will never end (cue maniacal laughter). The engaging writer also tells us about how he managed to land his gig on Amazing Spider-Man in the first place after being convinced that “Brand New Day” would be the end of his time writing a character he never wants to stop writing. He tells us why his Mighty Avengers run centered around Hank Pym and a “legion of losers,” he gives us more details on his promised Spider-Man 2099 appearance (it won’t be the teenager from Timestorm, but the real deal! And it’ll be a full story!), and does a lot of teasing for what’s coming up in Superior Spider-Man.
He also hints about a new side project series he might be starting up, but provides no details. However, that news might have broken after we spoke that he could be writing a new Silver Surfer series. I’m sure we’ll find out more soon. Until then, find out more about lots of other stuff, Spidey-related and beyond, right now, by reading my exclusive conversation with Dan Slott.
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CRAVE ONLINE: How much fun is it to write Peter Parker saying Doc Ock stuff?
DAN SLOTT: Oh, it is great. I have people asking ‘what should it sound like?’ It should sound like Peter Parker doing a Doc Ock impression. It shouldn’t sound like Doc Ock. We didn’t put a voice chip in him. If you’re one of Peter’s friends, it’s like ‘it looks like Peter, it sounds like Peter – what is wrong with Peter?’
When this was first announced, I was a bit skeptical due to the creepy stuff, but you handled it in #2 and just went on.
Got it right out of the way.
Thank you for doing that, so I can just enjoy it wholeheartedly. How big of a deal was that to work through?
You looked at the laundry list and you go ‘okay, we’re not going to get anywhere until we get this out of the way.’ So face it head on. I loved the passionate individual who started up the ‘Superior Spider-Rapist’ hastag, went into the triple digits on tweets for how there would definitely be a rape in Spider-Man, and then finally, when there was no rape, he went ‘I was wrong about that – but there was a rape! Peter Parker’s mind was raped!’ You’re like ‘oh my god, really? Were you this angry at any episode of Star Trek that did something like that? I hope you set up your mind-rape counsel centers around America dealing with all the horrible cases of science-fiction mind rape.’ Holy moses.
But that does lead into what you’re setting up with his new tutor –
But she meets him – Anna Maria Marconi only knows Peter Parker as this Otto Octavius person, and right off the bat, when they have their first meeting, she’s like ‘wow, I thought you were just this slick veneer, this handsome Peter Parker type guy, but you’re an Otto Octavius genius, and I like that.’ She has looked right through the veneer to this guy on the first real sit-down the’ve had. So if there’s chemistry, she has it with… well, with Otto Parker. That’s who she has chemistry with – if she does.
