Doctor Strange died in the recent Death of Doctor Strange #1, but as we've recently learned, he's made contingency plans for this possibility - which includes the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. As part of the Sorcerer Supreme's last will and testament, he has asked Marvel's premiere wall-crawler to become New York City's resident magical protector as his replacement… but there's one small problem.
Peter Parker is in a coma (although presumably, it will be short-term), and Ben Reilly has once again assumed the role of Spider-Man. And although Strange and Reilly worked together briefly during the recent 'Damnation' event, their relationship isn't what Stephen and Peter's is.
But Reilly will attempt to step up in the December special, Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1, by writer Jed MacKay (who also writes the main Death of Doctor Strange series) and artist Marcelo Ferreira.
"Doctor Strange is dead. However, his obligations live on. All across New York City, there exist magical threats that Doctor Strange attended to, and with him gone, that duty now falls to Spider-Man," MacKay tells Newsarama. "But the Spider-Man that is currently available is not the Spider-Man that Strange had been counting on, and now Ben Reilly races against time to keep New York's weirdness under control and prove that he's worthy of the title."
Check out this preview of Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1:
Reilly will have a little help as NYC's new magical protector, but it won't be from Wong - it'll come from the Black Cat, one of the first people that learned Reilly had assumed the Spider-Man role back in the '90s 'Clone Saga.' But true to Felicia's nature, she has an ulterior motive for the pseudo-Spider-Man; as MacKay tells us, she "wants to be there to see it when he crashes and burns."
This 'deputizing' of Spider-Man in service of the Sorcerer Supreme has some similarities to a bit from the recent What If … ? episode 'Zombie Apocalypse,' Doctor Strange's Cloak of Levitation briefly became Spider-Man's Cloak of Levitation after Strange was zombified.
Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1 goes on sale on December 1.
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