While the first printing of DC Comics' Superman/Spider-Man #1 will remain in comic book stores while supplies last, demand for the historic crossover continues to surge. Today, DC has announced that it's taking the issue back to press for a second printing, which arrives on May 27.
The second printing of Superman/Spider-Man #1 will feature a new main cover by Dan Mora, along with open-to-order variant covers by Gabriele Dell'Otto, Jorge Jimenez, and Yasmine Putri.
The second printing features the lead story, "Truth, Justice, and Great Responsibility," written by Mark Waid with art by Jorge Jimenez, and all the bonus tales by an all-star lineup of writers and artists including Tom King and Jim Lee; Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber; Sean Murphy; Gail Simone and Belen Ortega; Christopher Priest and Daniel Sampere; Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott; Jeff Lemire and Rafa Sandoval; and more.
Originally released on March 25, Superman/Spider-Man #1 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the classic Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man crossover with a new collection of stories from some of the most acclaimed creators in comics.
Waid and Jimenez's main story brings Clark Kent and Peter Parker together as they uncover a conspiracy that pulls Superman and Spider-Man into a universe-spanning threat involving Brainiac and Doctor Octopus.
Explaining why he chose those villains, Waid recently said, "The plan was Norman Osborn and Lex Luthor. Then I found out way late in the game that Brad Meltzer’s doing the same characters in Spider-Man/Superman, and his script was already done. I didn’t want to step on his toes, even though we came out first."
"So, I was trying to figure out who would be good. I put together the sort of robotic/metallic visual motifs that both of them have, Doctor Octopus and Brainiac," he continued. "That suggested something to me, and then it went from there."
Later, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Batman/Superman World's Finest writer elaborated on the unique dynamic between Peter and Clark:
"That’s always what I land on. That is the most important thing to me as a writer. Whenever I take two characters and put them together, I always look for what they have in common that is not obvious immediately. With Peter, the fact that he was a news photographer and Clark being a newsman, I knew that was the angle. Then I also wanted a little conflict between them."
"Not in a punchy way and not in a mean way, but there’s a running thread throughout where Peter suspects that Clark maybe has some issue with the way Peter does his job as a photographer and how Peter treats the news, because they come at it from such different places. Peter’s there just to get through college and stuff, whereas Clark takes this very seriously—it’s his career. For Peter, it’s part-time. Clark doesn’t quite understand how this works for Peter and what motivates Peter to do this."
Check out these newly released Superman/Spider-Man #1 covers below.