Posted in: Comics, Conventions, Events, <a href="https://comicvibe.com/july-29s-new-marvel-comics-the-full-list/” title=”July 29's New Marvel Comics: The Full List”>Marvel Comics, Pop Culture, san diego comic con, Spider-Man | Tagged: junji ito, midnight, phillip kennedy johnson, ScieTronc, sdcc
A Look Inside Midnight Spider-Man As A Junji Ito-Inspired Manga Horror
A look inside Midnight Spider-Man from Marvel as a Junji Ito-inspired manga horror comic by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc
Article Summary
- Midnight Spider-Man is Marvel horror through a Junji Ito-inspired manga lens, as Phillip Kennedy Johnson revealed at SDCC.
- Peter Parker is transformed by Oscorp into a grotesque spider hybrid in a body-horror story about power, ethics, and identity.
- The comic blends Junji Ito dread with Kafka-style transformation, asking whether Peter can stay human as he mutates.
- Midnight Spider-Man #1 arrives October 7, with #2 following November 18 as Oscorp’s hybrid experiments spiral out of control.
Bleeding Cool scooped the news ofMarvel Comics’ new Midnight Universe line back in May, but now we know a bit more about what’s going down and when. At the Marvel Midnight Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the Midnight Spider-Man writer, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, described the comic ashaving a Junji Ito-esque manga-horror aesthetic. Peter Parker is a fan of Japanese culture, reads manga, and has a WW2 pilot’s Imperial mask in his bedroom. Say, maybe one day he could be EIC of Marvel. Sorry, too soon? Here are ScieTronc‘s designs…
Junji Ito, known as the “Stephen King of manga” for his ability to turn the mundane into the nightmarish, features ordinary people encountering inexplicable horrors, with recurring themes of obsession, body transformation, curses, and the fragility of sanity. This include Tomie from 1987 onward, Uzumaki in 1998 about a town cursed by spirals that manifest in increasingly bizarre and horrifying ways, and very much an inspiration for Absolute Carnage at Marvel, Gyo from 2001 with Fish and sea creatures walk on mechanical legs, spreading a deadly “stench” and chaos, Remina from 2004 involving an entity named after a celebrity that threatens Earth, and winning an Eisner for his Frankenstein adaptation. This is the look opf Midnight Spider-Man…
ScieTronc
ScieTronc
ScieTronc
And this is Junji Ito‘sUzumaki for comparison…
Junji Ito also created Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, a humorous self-portrait of life with his cats. I do notice that Midnight Spider-Man has a Black Cat who appears to reanimate dead cats… Junji Ito does Pet Semetary, maybe? While Midnight Doctor Octopus has other people to be his “arms”, looking like Pinheads from Hellraiser, his name will mean something different, as he is much more involved in the origin of this Spider-Man…
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #2
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
There’s also a Franz KafkaMetamorphosis approach here through a superhero morality. That Midnight Spider-Man has a Peter Parker who dreams of transformation, to prove that you can have power and wield it ethically, even as power makes monsters of everyone. As his body keeps changing and changing, can he stay the same? Can he change others? Should he?
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #2
- MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #1
Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Art by ScieTronc
A young man is transformed into a hideous spider hybrid by the ruthless Oscorp Corporation in their pursuit for eternal life. When Oscorp begins to use the secrets unlocked by his mutation to create more human-animal hybrids, he must embrace his grotesque new form to fight back.
40 PAGES $5.99 US | PARENTAL ADVISORY | ON SALE OCTOBER 7
- MIDNIGHT SPIDER-MAN #2
Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Art by ScieTronc
Where is Peter Parker? A new Oscorp employee is missing. An NYC teaching assistant is missing. In Queens, a municipal services tech didn’t clock in this morning. And for some reason, Oscorp defense contractors are scouring their building’s security tapes… for a spider
On Sale November 18.
Marvel Comics: Midnight Universe Saturday July 25, 2026 1:45pm – 2:45pm PDT Room 6A
The light had its turn. The cloak of secrecy is removed around Midnight, a terrifying new Marvel Comics universe featuring monstrous incarnations of the world’s biggest heroes. The writers behind this new creator-driven initiative reveal what readers need to know, along with insights into the world and its origins. Attendees who remain until the end will receive an exclusive black-and-white ashcan edition preview of the Midnight Universe.
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