Marvel’s Mighty Avengers Mystery Spoiled By Spoiling Jerks At Marvel: Identity of Spider Hero Revealed

Editor’s Note: This story contains spoilers for upcoming issues of Mighty Avengers. So if you’re digging the mysteries that were presented in the first issue last month, please feel free to pretend that we are still upgrading our Web server, and that I am still shrieking impotently at our Web caching software, which apparently only accepts upgrading when it is convinced that you are who you say you are, and that game four of the World Series is safely past the third inning.

We really enjoyed the first issue of Mighty Avengers, written by Al Ewing with art by Greg Land. It was, unlike many recent Avengers titles, a more human, character-based story, with an interesting mystery at the code: who is the “muscular” and “intense” dude who has a history with Monica Rambeau and wears, at least for now, a rotten “Spider Hero” costume into battle?

There was a lot of speculation that it might turn out to be Miles Morales behind that mask, giving that character a place to go if the upcoming Ultimate Universe Cataclysm event does, as it appears it will, fuck all that Universe’s holes and leave it for dead. But regardless, it was meant to be a fun little guessing game for a few months before Ewing pulled back the curtain sometime in the next few issues.

Yeah, I said that it was “meant to” be a mystery. Past tense. Because Marvel went and gave the whole thing away.

Another Editor’s Note: Spoilers will follow after the jump. Last chance to bail, turn on the TV and watch the Red Sox show St. Louis how we do things in Boston…

Still with me? Yeah: Spider Hero is Blade.

I know this because Marvel’s C. B. Cebulski will be scouting talent and reviewing portfolios at the upcoming Festo Comic Con in Mexico. And Marvel provided a sample script for aspiring artists to follow to show off their storytelling chops. And that script?

You guessed it: Mighty Avengers #1.

Here’s the relevant section:

There’s a silhouette in the doorway, leaning out — BLADE’S. The reason I want to do it this way is so as not to let the readers know who this is until further down the line. So we hide Blade’s identity this way, and tell it in Monica’s reaction — he’s someone she knows or has heard of, and she’s a little surprised to see him here, but she knows what it means if he shows up: vampires. Blade explains that he needs her help…

Enter Blade, in the SPIDER HERO suit. This is basically a spandex, old-style spider-man costume, in a hideous combination of neon pink and neon green with SPIDER HERO written across the chest in place of the spider logo. It’s incredibly cheap looking. He’s going to be wearing this at least until issue #4, when probably he’ll change into the Ronin outfit.

On one hand, this is welcome news, as my co-editor Amanda is a huge Blade fan, up to and including Blade 3, which I can only pay attention to for the four seconds during which Ryan Reynolds utters “cock-juggling thunder cunt.” And considering Blade’s recently gotten play in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series on Disney XD, it’s probably a good time to put him back front and center of a Marvel comic book.

But at the same time, who really wanted to be spoiled on this? Having a mystery man in a Spider-Man costume while the Ultimate Universe faces extinction would have been a nice head-fake to keep readers guessing about the fate of Miles Morales, particularly since Brian Michael Bendis said, at the Ultimate Universe panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, that he considers Cataclysm to be a sequel to Spider-Men, which caused me to infer that there’s a decent chance that Miles will wind up in the 616.

And he might still, but it won’t be via Spider Hero in Mighty Avengers. And while Mighty Avengers isn’t one of Marvel’s biggest books, and its only tangentially (so far) attached to the Infinity event that’s occupying everyone’s attention, this is still a big fuck-up on someone’s part at Marvel, because it robs the reader of one compelling reason to stick with the book.

But as an aside: don’t let this be the reason not to try Mighty Avengers. Mystery or not, it’s still a pretty good book.

(via Bleeding Cool)