After yesterday's Marvels next big thing announcement which revealed that Marjorie Liu and Mike Perkins would be taking over Astonishing X-Men starting with issue #48 of the series, we knew that wasn't all we would be seeing come out of the house of ideas. Today, Marvel announced during a live blog panel that Dan Slott would be launching "Ends of the Earth," the next big Amazing Spider-Man story arc. "Ends of the Earth would not only lead up to the massive issue #700 of Amazing Spider-Man, it would also serve to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Spidey, himself. The new story arc will launch this March and will run six issues starting with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #682. If you have been following Slott's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN series thus far, then you may recall that back in issue #600 Doc Oc discovered he had only a little bit of time left to achieve all of his goals. According to Slott, this is going to be big.

"He's [Doc Oc] not just going for something small, he's going after the world. This is it. This is Otto Octavius' big grab at one last master plan. He knows Spider-Man and the Avengers will oppose him, which is why he's got the best Sinister Six ever on his side."

Slott revealed that with this new arc he will be expanding the scope considerably. While the Spider-Island event was confined to the island of New York City, this new event will have Spidey "operating globally." The story will run from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #682 to #687 and the seeds for this story were planted as far back as AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600.

== TEASER ==

While Spider-Man's primary adversaries in this next event will be the Sinister Six, Slott revealed that the Sinister Six that starts out "Ends of the Earth" may be different than the Sinister Six that ends it." The current Sinister Six includes Doc Ock, Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, Rhino and Chameleon. To operate on a "global scale" against the Sinister Six, Peter Parker is going to need some serious new technology -- and he won't be going into this event unprepared.

"Spidey has known that the Sinister Six was a'comin', and the same way he designed specific tech when he heard Hydro Man was on the loose at the beginning of Spider-Island, he has been preparing and building a new suit specifically for going to war with the Sinister Six...I haven't done a Spider-Man arc on this scope before. It's fun to let loose. A lot I do is centered on character, but here the focus is on action and adventure. The fallout will be huge. When it's all over, the pieces on the table will be in some pretty interesting spots

The upcoming series does tie into Spider-Island in that the premonition that Madame Web has at the end of the arc could very well be referring to what is happening next. Spider-Man won't be taking the Sinister Six on his own, however; he'll be getting a little bit of help from Iron Man and the Avengers. And while Slott didn't reveal which Avengers team members would appear in the series specifically, he did hint that the Avengers characters appearing in the upcoming Marvel Studios film may also appear in the "End of the Earth" event.

What do you think of the news about Marvel's next big Spider-Man story arc, "Ends of the Earth"? Are you looking forward to issue #682 of Amazing Spider-Man which will launch the major story arc? What do you think of the preview images?

Source: Marvel