Over on Tumblr, Jake Wyatt has posted a first look in both color and black and white what his upcoming Spider-Verse character SP//dr will look like. SP//dr will be featured in the last “Edge of Spider-Verse” issue, written by Gerard Way of “Umbrella Academy” fame (and My Chemical Romance, of course).
It comes on the heels of an interview from Marvel.com, which gave a bit of information on the character, though nothing visible. According to the interview, though, SP//dr is a girl in a future version of New York City inspired by Paul Pope and Katsuhiro Otomo, which is the exact sentence needed to convert a good portion of our readership into fits of frenzy. Take a look:
As Way explains,
In a futurist city fairly different from the New York we are familiar with, our version of Spider-Man takes the shape of a government project: SP//dr. SP//dr is comprised of three vital components: a pilot, a machine, and a radioactive sentient spider acting as one half of the brain that makes it all work. Peni Parker is a young girl, who, left parentless, is adopted by her Aunt May and Uncle Ben, the two heads of the SP//dr project. When they realize Peni is the only one who can successfully pair with SP//dr, they make the unorthodox decision to train her as SP//dr’s newest pilot.
So SP//dr is a female Japanese Spider-person, based on the idea Way had of a “little girl piloting a machine” wih “a psychic spider friend,” which sounds like a rather fun diversion from the regular spider-romps we’ve been given. That, and everything Wyatt brings to the table — the Otomo influence, in particular — make this a rather exciting prospect and project. I do rather love the idea of a young girl piloting a Spider-Man-styled mech suit while communicating telepathically with her tiny arachnid companion.
Take a look below for the black and white version of SP//dr, and get psyched for when this hits later this year. It’s Gerard Way’s first Marvel book and Jake Wyatt’s last for a while (according to him). We’ll be sure to check this out.
