Amazing Spider-Man writer says "people will be very mad at me" after May's big shocker, and Marvel has cautioned him against conventions because of it

Zeb Wells and Spider-Man are old friends. Wells began his relationship with Spidey in 2002 when he wrote a few issues of Spider-Man’s Tangled Web, and had a short run on Peter Parker: Spider-Man. Their relationship grew deeper when Wells joined the Spider-Man 'Brain Trust,' a writers room that rotated duties scripting the 'Brand New Day' era of Amazing Spider-Man. This led to the launch of Avenging Spider-Man, a title that teamed Spidey up with the heroes of the Marvel Universe.

Wells and Spider-Man kept in touch, with the writer joining a rotating creative team during the 'Beyond' era of Amazing Spider-Man. Then the title relaunched in 2022, with Wells serving as the primary writer. In the past year Wells has had Spider-Man fight in a gang war, separate from his true love, reignite an old romantic relationship, and form an uncomfortable alliance with a former enemy. Wells and Spider-Man may be old friends, but sometimes the writer enjoys challenging the hero.

Thanks to Wells, Spider-Man is about to face one of his biggest challenges. Amazing Spider-Man #26 will be released in May, and Marvel has teased that it will be the most shocking issue of the title in 50 years. A tease like that naturally got us curious, so Popverse sat down to have a conversation with Wells. The writer discussed the past year of his run, the creative decisions he’s made, and the creation of the fan favorite character Rek-Rap. Wells also teased the future of the title, and why his editor want him to avoid comic conventions after his current storyline concludes.

Zeb Wells: You know, I’ve learned a lot. It's been a whirlwind, but overall I'm feeling great, I've done a lot of fun stuff with a lot of great people, worked with great artists and I'm writing Spider-Man. I could not be better.

I think I feel most at home with the street level stuff. But then because he's such a street level character, it is fun to push him into other things. So it makes it fun to do both, to push him into the magic, and the supernatural, because he doesn't belong there.

Exactly, which is good for Spider-Man. He should always be the odd man out.

Well, I think I'm a much more skilled writer - I would hope. I'm more confident. I've just done it for a lot longer, and so my process is a lot more dialed in. I have more fun doing it because I am more disciplined. And that's one thing you have to learn, more discipline leads to more fun. Spider-Man, he's got some more miles on him. He's seen some more stuff, some more traumas, some different traumas.

I am! I am!

And Nick Spencer, who was writing it before me, added a bunch of fun trauma and story points to the soup. So there is just a lot more nuanced stuff to play with.

What Nick had teased up was giving me a chance to write Peter Parker and Norman not trying to kill each other, which we haven't seen since the first hundred issues of Amazing Spider-Man. I knew I wanted to live in that world as long as possible because I don't know when I'd ever get to do that again.

You want to respect what came before, and try to buy a world where Peter would stick around with Norman. It makes sense to me that Peter would want to stick around in order to help Norman not go back to the Green Goblin. Peter knows how damaging that would be if he does, and if he trusts that Norman really does want to change. Peter is a very kind hearted person and he's been a jerk in the past, so I think he's always looking for the best in people.

I see it as very fun. They're both superheroes. Felicia is clearly not his equal because she's more of just about everything that he is - she's more. It's fun to put him in a situation where he can barely keep up and to see if now that he's a little older, see if he can hang with her a little bit better.

For sure, and Jed MacKay has filled in so much of her character in the meantime. It's fun to play with.

It was so much fun. And it all comes from Ed McGuinness' design. He came with that character and said, "Here, I've got an idea for a character. Here it is. I think the name is Rek-Rap. Is there room for this in the story?" And I was like, "Well, there's got to be, because whatever that is, he looks like he’s too much fun to write." I went in and reread the Rek-Rap stuff that I wrote and I was kind of cracking myself up because it's so stupid. This stuff coming out of his mouth is so stupid in a funny way.

They're just so dumb. Like when he calls it web-wanging. It's just insane. I loved being able to write something that silly. You don't get to write that very often.

Definitely. Ed would choke me out if I didn't bring Rek-Rap back.

I think that Ben is like at the midpoint of a very interesting arc. I would never leave the book without doing more with Ben Reilly or trying to bring that story to a close. He's going to be a big part of the book going forward. And now that he's in that tower with Madelyne Pryor there, there's even talk of other books using him, which would be great fun.

It was good because me and Gerry (Duggan) know each other from the X-Men days, and I'm no stranger to the X-Slack (editorial note: The X-Men group Slack). It was just fun to be able to work with that office again, because I love all those guys and I love doing Hellions with them, and I had a special run with all of those guys.

I didn't want to do a Hobgoblin story that didn't have some sort of mysterious identity, because it just didn't feel like I was doing Hobgoblin if I did. But I did it all in three issues! I reread the original Hobgoblin saga and that mystery went on for so long, so I didn't want to stretch it out. I wanted to just do the reveal quickly. So, take all of that Hobgoblin stuff and maybe just kind of take the cream of the crop and squeeze it into 3 snappy fun issues.

I would think so. There are no hard plans, but I want to use as much of Peter's social circle as possible.

Yes. We will definitely see how that came about, and what happened and see the origin of Mary Jane as a hero.

I can tease that many people will be very mad at me. I can tease that Nick (Lowe) told me not to do any comic conventions after this issue comes out (laughs). People will be upset.

Nick's a mad man, so he was completely down. I don't know how it went when he ran it up the ladder, but I'm very excited for people to read issue 26.

Well, I see myself a little past issue 50 at the very least. Once we get there we just have to see. I'm getting busier with other things, but I'll be on this as long as I can humanly do it. If I can do it, they will have to kick me off this book. The exact length is undecided, but I'm in the long haul. I'm here until at least issue 50.

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