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For two decades, Dan Slott has been a mainstay at Marvel Comics — and responsible for some of the publisher’s biggest releases during that time, including best-selling runs on The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, She-Hulk, and Iron Man. He’s been responsible for creating the concept of the Spider-Verse, as well as the tone of Disney+’s She-Hulk: Attorney At Law series, and helped come up with fan-favorite characters including Silk, Spider-Boy, and Mister Negative. And now, after 20 years, he’s jumping ship.

To be fair, it’s unclear whether or not Dan Slott is leaving Marvel entirely — certainly, the most recent round of advance solicitations through March have him writing the Spider-Boy comic with no end in sight, and he posted on social media about writing future issues as recently as December — but the writer’s Marvel exclusive deal is definitely over, with the news that he’ll be writing Superman Unlimited for DC starting in May 2025.

Slott has been under exclusive contract with Marvel since 2004, and announced an extension to that deal in December 2023, saying at the time that he was “very grateful to be part of Team Marvel and hope[d] to keep earning my keep with them for years to come!” So… what changed his mind? A line in the announcement for his new DC project offers a pretty sizable clue.

“He’s the first and the greatest superhero of all-time, and I’ve been waiting my whole life to tell stories about him,” Slott is quoted as saying about Superman — and, let’s be honest: part of that statement is stone-cold fact — that he’s the first superhero — with another part being an opinion that many, many people (including your humble reporter) happen to share. Given the opportunity, who wouldn’t want to jump at the chance to write Superman?

So, while it might be a sad day for Marvel to say goodbye to being the exclusive home for Slott’s superhero stories, the company can console itself with the fact that it literally took one of the most iconic characters in all fiction to lure him away. And a 20-year-run of exclusivity is nothing to be sneezed at…!

Superman Unlimited launches at DC in May. 

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