Wizards of the Coast Taps Robert Kirkman for Spider-Man Reboot

Magic socials were on fire for the third time this week after Wizards of the Coast announced that they were working with famed comic book writer Robert Kirkman to reboot the Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel’s Spider-Man set.

We sat down with company spokesman Bob Rabiah just after the announcement on the official Magic: The Gathering Twitch stream.

Thanks for speaking with us today, Bob. Can you tell us a bit about how this came to be?
“First of all, we are so incredibly thrilled to be working with a legend like Robert Kirkman. As you know, support for the Spider-Man set has been waning amongst Magic players, and when that happens with a comic book property, that means it’s reboot time.”

In comic books and other media, reboots are often a way to introduce the content to a new audience, but this set just came out. How is a reboot justified?
“It depends on how you define ‘new,’ doesn’t it? Yes, these are technically the same group of individuals we’ll be marketing this set to, but since none of them opened Spider-Man the first time, it’s still “new” to them!”

How do you feel it was received by the Twitch chat?
“I would say the reaction was solidly between ‘angry’ and ‘very angry,’ bordering on ‘lightly raging,’ which is pretty good for one of these streams! In fact, most of chat was still in there raging from the Commander bracket update announcement, so some of that hate might not even be because of Spider-Man.”

Spider-Man comics have been rebooted many times but never by Kirkman. Why not someone like Ultimate Spider-Man creator Brian Michael Bendis?
“We wanted someone with a proven track record on these reboots, and while Kirkman isn’t known for reboots, he did sort of reboot Magic: The Gathering as a whole back when he helped us on Secret Lair x The Walking Dead. I mean, look where we are now — and it’s all thanks to him! Without him, we might not even have Universes Beyond! Also, Bendis said “No,” because of all the negative influencer coverage.”

Are there any interesting themes or ideas that you’ve come up with so far that you’re able to share with us?
“The thing that really got people talking about Secret Lair x The Walking Dead was the mechanically unique cards, so how do we capture that excitement again? Well, how about an entire set with nothing but mechanically unique Spider-Man cards? Also, everyone loves when Stan Lee makes cameos in Marvel films, so we’re putting a guaranteed mechanically unique Stan Lee card in every pack!”

The new set, titled Magic: The Gathering® Universes Beyond | Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: x The Superior Robert Kirkman: No Way Home, is set for release sometime in 2026.