The following is the full text of an article in the August 7 issue of Comics Buyer's Guide (issue #1290) entitled Marvel Revamps Spider-Man and sub-titled Relauches and new titles scheduled for this fall. The article is by Brent Frankenhoff.
After re-launching several of its titles as part of "Heroes Return" Marvel has announced that it's starting its longest-running title all over again in November with "Amazing Spider-Man" #1. The relaunched series is joined by the relaunched "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" (formerly just Spider-Man) #1 and two new titles: "Spider-Man: Chapter One" and "Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man". "Spectacular Spider-Man" and "Sensational Spider-Man" have both been canceled with their September shipping issues (#263 and #33, respectively). "Spider-Man Unlimited" is also scheduled to end in September with issue #22.
"Spider-Man: Chapter One" is the first of the new titles, scheduled to premiere in October. The 13-issue series is written and rawn by John Byrne, who plans to retell the webslinger's origins and early adventures, originally told by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Byrne also provides the covers for the final issues of three of the four core Spider-titles in September, as well as the next to the last issue of Spider-Man.
The relaunched "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Peter Parker" Spider-Man" (also scheduled to bein in November) will be written by Howard Mackie, with Byrne as artist on Amazing Spider-Man and John Romita Jr. continuing as artist on Peter Parker: Spider-Man.
Webspinners #1 is a series in the style of DC's "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight" series with short story arcs focusing on various eras of Spider-Man's career. The series begins with a double-sized issue, which includes a 10-page story on the last week of Gwen Stacy's life pencilled and inked by John Romita, Sr. Writer Mark De Matteis and artist Michael Zulli have also been mentioned as creators for the series.
Marvel Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras said, "The relaunch of Spider-Man will be a reinvention of the original Spider-Man through the perspective of one of the most talented creative teams in the industry. Simply put, Spider-Man will return in his original form - the character that was embraced and loved by fans 36 years ago.
"Our goal is to launch Spider-Man into the new millennium in a re-energized, streamlined fashion. The new approach will be accessible to a wide range of readers while re-capturing the qualities and quirks that made our world-famous webslinger the pop-culture icon that he is today."