While current Daredevil writer Chip Zdarksy has a great love for Spider-Man, he just revealed that he doesn't want to write for the ongoing Amazing Spider-Man series because of its fans. Currently on its 878th legacy issue, Amazing Spider-Man is one of Marvel's major mainstays, with a dedicated fanbase that tends to chime in on the Wall-Crawler's adventures. Amazing Spider-Man writers have found themselves in the hot seat whenever they take the character in new directions. While experimentation is a part of mainstream comics and can yield dynamic and exciting stories, taking risks with Peter Parker is usually polarizing, and has been particularly fraught since 2007's Spider-Man: One More Day catastrophically derailed his status quo in the eyes of many readers.
Since 2019, Chip Zdarsky has been writing Marvel Comics' Daredevil alongside frequent artist Marco Checchetto. He's also the writer for DC's Justice League: Last Ride, and he'll soon be writing the Batman: The Knight limited series about a young Bruce Wayne training to become Batman. Zdarsky is no stranger to Spider-Man - he recently wrote Spider-Man: Life Story and Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow; both miniseries set in their own respective universes as standalone tales. Zdarsky even wrote on the mainstream canon Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, handling a story in which the hero revealed his identity to J. Jonah Jameson. Nevertheless, Zdarsky says he has no plans to take on the hero's main ongoing comic.
In a recent AMA Zdarsky hosted on Reddit, the Daredevil writer was asked when fans could expect him to take over writing duties on Amazing Spider-Man. While it's a logical question based on his past work and Spider-Man's dynamic appearances in recent issues of Daredevil, Chip Zdarsky is pretty adamant that he wouldn't want to take the job, even if it were hypothetically offered by Marvel Comics' editorial at some point down the line. He's also pretty clear about the reason why: Amazing Spider-Man's fans. Zdarsky writes, "It just seems to be a ludicrous amount of work for a readership that has too many specific ideas of what should happen, and get too angry when their expectations aren't met."
Zdarsky is absolutely right as far as fan expectation is concerned. Spider-Man is one of the biggest literary characters and pop culture icons of all time, and people have a lot of opinions and greatly care about how he should act and operate, which can leave very little creative freedom on the part of the current writer. While that's not inherently wrong, it seems as though trying to navigate those expectations and running the risk of being on the receiving end of heavy criticism isn't something Zdarksy wants to deal with. He even says in response to a different question from the AMA that the greater creative freedom that comes with writing Daredevil is something he very much appreciates. After all, locking the comic's hero in prison for close to a year as he recently did Matt Murdock isn't something Peter Parker fans would take lightly.
While Chip Zdarsky does offer a "never say never" about one day tackling Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man, fans shouldn't hold their collective breath. While he could very well go on to write other pieces where Peter Parker makes an appearance or even new limited series starring the Web-Slinger, it seems as though writing for the ongoing Amazing Spider-Man is great power the current Daredevil writer doesn't want to be responsible for anytime soon.
Source: Chip Zdarsky