Update: Writer Kevin Shinick says work continues on W.E.B. of Spider-Man despite Marvel pulling the limited series from its schedule earlier this month.
"They didn't pull it permanently," Shinick tweeted in response to Newsarama's reporting of the hiatus. "We are hard at work on this and excited to share when the time is right!"
For more information on the series and both times it's been put on hiatus, read our original article below.
Original story follows...
The absence of W.E.B. of Spider-Man (and several other series) in Marvel's February 2021 solicitations raised our eyebrows, and now we know what's happening: the series is being postponed, indefinitely.
Marvel informed retailers late Thursday evening that the first two issues of the series have been "unscheduled for the time being," although no reason was given for the change.
Read between the lines, however, and a picture emerges. This five-issue series by Kevin Shinick and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque is a tie-in to an upcoming Disney Parks ride that was announced to debut in 2021.
"Peter Parker. Spider-Man. Scientist. Troublemaker? Thanks to none other than Tony Stark, a new scientific research station for the teenage heroes of the Marvel Universe has just been completed – and Spider-Man just got an invitation to join!" reads Marvel's solicitation for this first issue. "Working alongside some of your favorite faces from the MU and a whole bunch of awesome new gadgets, and with Iron Man keeping an eye on them, surely everything’s going to go great for the heroes, right? ...Right? Face front, True Believers, and treat yourself to this first issue in an adventure of the Worldwide Engineering Brigade!"
Given how the pandemic has affected theme parks, it's conceivable that their 2021 launch plans might be postponed - or at least put into question.
It's a tough break for this W.E.B. of Spider-Man series; it was originally announced in March 2020 for a June 2020 debut, but the pandemic put it on hiatus until Marvel announced plans to begin serializing it in December. That first hiatus led to a change of artists, with Alburquerque replacing the originally-announced Roberto Di Salvo.
Marvel has assured retailers that W.E.B. of Spider-Man will be released, saying "new on-sale dates will be announced as soon as possible."
While you wait, make sure you've read the best Spider-Man stories of all time.
