PREVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man #666

Spider-Island - Amazing Spider-Man 666 Preview

Talking with USA Today, scribe Dan Slott reveals more information about the upcoming Spider-Island story arch of The Amazing Spider-Man. Here's the best of what was discussed. Warning plenty of Spoilers in the below conversation.

"Spider-Island" will run through October in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man— two issues a month — and beginning with No. 667 in two weeks, issues will be available the same day digitally as they are in stores.

The core concept of Spider-Man is with great power comes responsibility, but what happens when Spidey finds that his powers given to him by a radioactive spider bite so many years ago weren't so great anymore?

Thanks to a bunch of bed bugs genetically engineered by the Jackal, who has figured out a way to re-create the process that made Spidey Spidey, an infection breaks out among the populace that gives them wall-crawling abilities and other traits.

And any longtime Spider-fan sees the irony of J. Jonah Jameson, newspaperman-turned-mayor, being endowed with spider powers since he has spent decades pegging the superhero as a menace. "This will be Mayor J. Jonah Jameson's finest hour. He always knew Spider-Man was more trouble than he's worth, and now he's facing spider flu," Slott says.

"This is an epidemic. The heroes will be holding the line. It's a full-on quarantine and they're going to be making sure no one gets in or out of Manhattan, so we'll be seeing lots of bridges and tunnels all over New York."

In issue 666, only .01% of New York is infected, "but that is thousands of people," Slott says. "It will continue to keep spreading. It will reach the point where everybody in Manhattan will have, let's just say, been bitten. Everyone will get a taste of what it's like to be Spider-Man."

And why the Jackal instead of another Spidey foe? Slott says he has the longest history of toying with Peter Parker's DNA, so he's the perfect mad scientist for this tale. "Right now we think the Jackal is the only person behind this, but there might be something else going on. There might be another mastermind at work."

Shang-Chi will have his own adventures as will others such as Spider-Woman (who gets a one-shot) and the returning team of Cloak and Dagger. The Avengers and the Future Foundation will also chip in to help solve the situation, and the new Venom, Flash Thompson, is dropped into New York by the government and has important roles to play in both Amazing Spider-Man and Rick Remender's Venom book.

The events of "Spider-Island," though, will build mostly toward setting up the "Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: End of the Earth" arc next spring.

Doc Ock is just a normal guy with mechanical arms, but after decades of superheroes smacking him in the head, he has received massive brain damage and doesn't have much longer to live. So he's reuniting the Sinister Six for one last shot to take out his web-slinging arch-nemesis.