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Marvel Registers "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" – Could This Be Nick Spencer's Next Comic?

Published Tue, 20 Jun 2017 09:30:32 -0500

Last updated Tue, 20 Jun 2017 11:59:31 -0500

Okay, two things combine. There's a little speculation here. But the foundation is more than that. Marvel have just registered trademarks for Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man for all manner of things, including (breath in) "Entertainment services, namely, providing online non-downloadable comic books and graphic novels, Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of comic books, comic magazines and stories in illustrated form, Comic books; printed periodicals in the field of comic book stories and artwork; posters."

This could be as a result of the prominence of the phrase used in the Marvel Studios/Sony trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, as spoken by Robert Downey Jr. But there's also the possibility it will actually be used as the title of a new comic book. Which is the easiest way to lock that trademark down and prevent lots of other "Friendly Neighborhood" wannabes trademarking their own.

There are already registered trademarks for Friendly Neighborhood Technicians, Friendly Neighborhood Grime Fighters, Friendly Neighborhood Transport Analysts, Friendly Neighborhood Medicine Women, Friendly Neighborhood Pub, Friendly Neighborhood International Giant and, I kid you not, Friendly Neighborhood Weapons Dealer.

But what I am also hearing is that, post-Secret Empire, Nick Spencer will be writing a Spider-Man comic book for Marvel. Now Dan Slott will have to be dragged off Amazing Spider-Man kicking and screaming for dear life, and the title has remained a bright spot in Marvel's… challenging economics of late. So if indeed, Nick Spencer is on a new Spider-Man title. It is likely not to be Amazing.

Could it be Friendly Neighborhood instead? Marvel published a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series in 2005, that trademark may need renewing with actual publication.

The phrase itself, "Friendly Neighborhood" didn't originate with Spider-Man, though these days you are hard pressed to find a reference that doesn't, thanks to the ubiquity of its use in the TV animated series of the seventies and eighties. Its first citation courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1955, with W Gaddis recommending "Just tell Mummy to ask about Cuff next time she visits her friendly neighborhood druggist."