Free Republic

It seems treating Spider-Man fans mean is the way to keep them keen. After withholding the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home for months, the trailer — launched Tuesday — has smashed viewing figures records. Sony Pictures says the teaser trailer broke the 24-hour all-time record for most global views with 355.5 million trailer views, eclipsing the previous record holder, Avengers: Endgame, which drove 289 million views. Responding to the news, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland promised on Instagram: "It only gets crazier".

Marvel's experiment to expand its trademark alt-history 'What If?' stories from one-shots to limited series appears to be a success. Chip Zdarsky and Pasqual Ferry's Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow limited series has been given an extra issue, going from four to five issues in length. This comes 12 days after the Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow #1 went on sale - an issue which sold out, with a second printing scheduled for late May. The concept of Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow is pretty simple, but with massive storytelling implicates: what if Peter Parker wasn't able to resist the dark turn the Venom symbiote was...