Happy 50^th Birthday Spidey! Just in case everyone missed the memo, it’s our resident wall-crawler’s 50^th anniversary this year! And what better way to celebrate than getting his ass kicked back and forth between a newly formed Sinister Six? That’s exactly what ole’ webhead has to look forward to in the upcoming ‘Ends of the Earth’ story arc hitting shelves this month in March and carrying over into the summer.

And who is the main villain spearheading this new assault not only on Spiderman, but the world itself? Well who else but Doc Ock himself, who hasn’t been too credible of a threat in the years past to his arch nemesis but has been making power plays throughout the Marvel U, as writer Dan Slott points out in an interview with Comic Book Resources:

 As for Dr. Octopus himself, the villain has shown up in a number of other titles, which Slott said has been building to the story he has planned. “We’ve seen Doc Ock and the Sinister Six slowly building and percolating this master plan,” he said. “On the way it’s stretched out into the Marvel Universe proper. We’ve seen Doc Ock totally smack down Iron Man. He totally wiped the floor with Hank Pym’s team in ‘Avengers Academy.’ Over in ‘Spider-Man’ during an FF team up, Doc Ock pwned Reed Richards! He took over the Baxter Building and stole all kinds of stuff. Doc Ock’s been taking out the biggest brains on his stomp to global domination.”

 The Iron Man issues featuring Doctor Octopus were excellent, and not to mention beautifully drawn by Salvador Larocca. It showed us a glimpse of Otto in the past and his dealings with Stark’s family business and not to mention he pretty much beat Iron Man in his own way. To me, this arc is huge in terms of the Sinister Six. The Sinister Six, although cool in theory was only a big thing because it was a villain team up and their main goal was to destroy Spidey. This time though they are going to be helping Doctor Octopus in his bid for world domination and from the looks of some of the teasers it appears that they will be going to some extremely grim measures.

Slott also mentioned that even though the Sinister Six would be starting off with certain members that they would be different by the end of the arc. Does that mean deaths or good old fashioned ass whoopings from Spiderman? We’ll have to wait and find out. Check out the starting lineup and awesome cover art for the Sinister Six in Ends of the Earth:

Continue reading The Sinister Six Returns in ‘Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth!’ →