Spider-Man: American Son???

Marvel today put up an announcement on their web site for a new arc in Amazing Spider-Man titled "American Son." The three-part arc, written by Joe Kelly, should be showing up on stands in late May/early June. Marvel also posted an image for the upcoming arc, featuring a patriotic looking high-tech cop, with a watermark of Iron Patriot standing in a similar position in the background.

It's unclear who the character is supposed to be, but there are a few logical theories. It's obviously someone put in place by Norman Osborn, but that still leave us a with a few possibilities.

The first thought is Harry Osborn. Attending A.A. meetings and getting a lot of support, becoming some sort of authority figure would be a great way for Harry to piece his life back together, and with Daddy Goblin pulling the strings, it's something that is entirely feasible.

The other character that comes to mind is Vin Gonzales, Peter's now incarcerated roommate. Norman has a knack for pulling the bad guys out of the muck and using them for his dirty work, whether it be covert like the Thunderbolts or the Hood, or disguised as something legit like his Dark Avengers. The figure in the picture looks kind of reminiscent of a Robocop type figure, so the idea of it being Vin seems to make a lot of sense.

Regardless of who this character is and what is role in Spidey's life is, it seems to to be safe to assume that things are only going to get worse for Web Head (what else is new).

(UPDATE - 4/18/2009) - Today Marvel updated it's Web site with yet another teaser image for the American Sun story. This image features our wall-crawling friend broken and beaten by non other than Iron Patriot himself, who's keeping him on the ground with a foot of steel. In the background we can see Iron Patriot's Dark Avengers lurking around. The idea of Norman Osborn stomping everything decent of Peter Parker's life is becoming more and more inevitable. What will this mean for Spidey and his continually deteriorating Brand New Day? I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.