Things are about to get awkward down at the Hall of Justice.

Not only does everyone have to pretend not to notice the strange sexual tension between the Wonder Twins, but Apache Chief has taco farts and the rec room’s been cleared out.

And on top of that - somehow Spider-Man’s started to date Catwoman and now Batman spends his waking hours crying into a couch cushion. Heroes have feelings too, you know.

Now before any super-nerds start balking about colliding universes, let us state we know Spider-Man and Catwoman could never be together.

Sam Raimi on the other hand…

The first three Spider-Man movies were so phenomenally popular that it’s be really hard to make a follow up that didn’t cause ardent fans to run onto railroad tracks, lay down and patiently wait for the end to come. A big part of all this inevitable insurrection is nailing an accurate portrayal of a much-loved villain – well that sounds pretty hard. Spidey’s readers are intimately familiar with the whole lot of ‘em, and if they’re brought to the screen incorrectly, like say if the Vulture’s feathers are more of a gay emerald than a common suburban lawn green, people are gonna scream fowl.

Pun very intended.

In the first movie Peter Parker had to fight his inner demons come-to-life in the form of the Green Goblin. In the second picture he had to do the exact same thing except with an aquatic feel.

The third movie, of course, is infamously the one where Parker had to defeat Topher Grace with a gigantic wind chime.

Seriously – how do you follow up something like that?

With Catwoman. According to Mania.com, anyway:

“We can exclusively reveal that actress Rachel McAdams has met with the producers of the film for a major role. McAdams (of ‘Wedding Crashers’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes’ fame) is said to be a top contender for the role of Felicia Hardy, known to comic fans as The Black Cat. Our sources tell us that the Black Cat’s story fits well with Raimi’s Spider-Man formula, which always finds the villains troubling not only the costumed hero, but also becoming entangled in Peter Parker’s personal life as well.”

That all sounds like a pretty sexy time – and at least it seems like they’re gonna give CW a more urban feel. We strongly…

Oh what’s that now? Black Cat is miles away from Catwoman you say? Black Cat shows way more Cleave you say? And she has psychic abilities while Catwoman only gets rusty thimble claws you say?

Well it definitely sounds like you’re underestimating the power of tetanus. That’s lockjaw, dude. Psychic brain power’s got nothing on lockjaw.

Just ask our Aunt Judy – not that she’d answer you. A dirty nail rusted her mouth shut.

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But don’t think that Sam Raimi hasn’t learnt his lesson. He’s decided to make Spider-Man 4 intimidatingly cerebral in its complex exploration of themes like Oedipal desire, quantum immortality and the ethical ambiguity of human interpretations of good and evil.

Well, that’s what we assume, anyway. It’s been announced that the script for Spider-Man 4 will be penned by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Great! We loved his play Rabbit Hole – especially the scene where, after wrestling with grief following the accidental death of her four-year-old son, the lead character dances the Twist with Kirsten Dunst, cooks some eggs and then pulls a funny face.

It’s easy to forget that Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 had impressively deep themes. Spider-Man taught us that with great power comes great responsibility, and Spider-Man 2 taught us the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

Then Spider-Man 3 came along and taught us that if you ever get covered in sticky black alien-jizz you’ll end up with hair like Pete Wentz. It rounded the trilogy off nicely, really.

But since then The Dark Knight has been released, and for the first time Spider-Man is playing catch-up. Audiences have moved on – they don’t want their superheroes to fight big sandy men and then dance with Ron Howard’s daughter any more. Now they want their superheroes to wrestle joylessly with ethics, in the dark, while adopting a weird voice that sounds like a farting buffalo.

So, with that in mind, Spider-Man director Sam Raimi has decided to give 2011’s Spider-Man 4 a punt into the realms of the highbrow. He’s hired Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to do the script, as MTV reports:

Apparently, “Spider-Man 4” has landed one heck of a screenwriter in Pulitzer Prize winner and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Since Lindsay-Abaire’s plays focus on (in his own words) “outsiders in search of clarity,” the choice suggests that Columbia wants a return to a character-driven “Spider-Man,” and a Peter Parker who struggles with his heroic powers.

We’re sad to say that this news has actually made us a little bit intrigued about Spider-Man 4. David Lindsay-Abaire’s plays are as universally acclaimed as they are high-minded, and this bodes really well for the movie. And if he remembers that nobody wants to see Kirsten Dunst again, we’re even happy to overlook the fact that David Lindsay-Abaire also co-wrote the low-rent animated 2005 Paula Abdul movie Robots.

But mostly we’re excited because it looks as if Spider-Man 4 will be far more intelligent than Spider Man 3. Don’t get us wrong, there’ll still be an excrutiating kitchen-based dance scene in the new movie, but this time the characters will be doing abstract interpretive jazz-ballet to Bartok’s Rhapsody Folk Dances for Violin and Orchestra No. 2.

So imagine what the forthcoming Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5 movies would be like without Kirsten Dust’s anemic wailing and egg-based dance routines. You’re imagining they’d be quite good, aren’t you. Well, you’re in luck, because Spider-Man director Sam Raimi is giving off the impression that Kirsten Dunst won’t feature in either of the two new movies.

Actually, we should be a bit more accurate – Sam Raimi implied that Kirsten Dunst’s character Mary-Jane wouldn’t be in the new Spider-Man movies. He also hinted that one of the new Spider-Man villains could be a vicious scaly reptilian humanoid, though, so if that doesn’t warrant a callback for Kirsten Dunst then nothing will.

Remember when the Spider-Man movies were good? Remember when the thought of another Spider-Man sequel seemed like a good thing, rather than something you’d happily drown yourself in cattle guts to avoid? We do too, just about.

We don’t any more, obviously – the musical numbers, eggy dancing, evil haircuts, 19-hour running time and bad sand of Spider-Man 3 has made us fear 2011’s Spider-Man 4 with all the dread we’d usually reserve for an exam or a jail rape.

But luckily, Spider-Man director Sam Raimi has sensed our fear and he wants to calm us all down the best way he can – by implying that the services of Kirsten Dunst probably won’t be required for Spider-Man 4. Or Spider-Man 5, for that matter. Raimi told MTV:

“Kirsten, I’d love to work with her again,” Raimi explained to us this week, making it sound as if current plans to include Dunst for “Spider-Man 4” and “Spider-Man 5” are still up in the air. “I hope she’ll be written into it. I couldn’t imagine making one without her, and I think she’s an important part of the movies.” Nevertheless, Raimi admitted that the very nature of an episodic series requires that characters come and go.

Do you hear that? Kirsten Dunst might not be starring in any more Spider-Man movies. But then if that’s the case, who’s going to upside down kiss Spider-Man? And who’s going to provide the emotional core? And who’ll sing in the movies twice despite having a voice like an asthmatic 80-year-old? And who’ll be a shadowy reminder that age, unhealthy lifestyles and ill-advised romances with dirty indie stars can obliterate your once-good looks completely in a matter of years? Actually, come to think of it, no, we’re alright without any Kirsten Dunst in our Spider-Man thanks.

Actually, that’s a lie. We do want Kirsten Dunst in the new Spider-Man sequels. That’s partly because without her we won’t get the creeping sensation that she thinks she’s bigger than Spider-Man or the constant whining about how hard acting is.

But mainly it’s because, if Kirsten Dunst isn’t hired for Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5, it’ll only give her more time to make more films like Marie Antoinette. And that’s worse.

Marginally.

5 - Busuu.com – it’s like Facebook but you learn a new language doing it rather than get publicly ridiculed for the way you’re beginning to resemble members of bad 1990s American jam bands. So it’s better – Busuu

4 – It’s a hamster that looks like a cake. And it looks delicious, which is probably counterproductive - Gawker

3 - The hecklerspray IT department in full force

2 - Known Gary Glitter Aliases. From The Onion, so just as funny as you’d expect – The Onion

1 - How to make Spider-Man 4 not so awful that it makes us want to punch Tobey Maguire in the face as hard we can. Tough job - IGN

Despite Tobey Maguire not really wanting to make Spider-Man 4, Sam Raimi not really wanting to make Spider-Man 4 and an entire planet of people who've had enough time and money stolen already not wanting to see Spider-Man 4, Producer Laura Ziskin has announced that Spider-Man 4 will be released in May 2011.

Awful news, we know. But on the plus side Spider-Man 4 can't be any worse than Spider-Man 3 – that is unless someone decides to give Spider-Man a crime-fighting Scrappy-Doo style son and they go into space together to save the world from global warming and… no, wait, then it'd still be better than Spider-Man 3. No omelette scenes, you see.

Make a list of all the things you'd hate to see in a superhero movie. What's on it? Several extending singing and dancing numbers? A goodie who turns bad when he brushes his hair a certain way? So many villains that they only get about a nanoblip of screentime each? A mid-film interlude about how fun it is to dance the Twist and cook eggs at the same time? Congratulations, you've just described Spider-Man 3.

Spider-Man 3 stands as one of the most clueless big-budget studio movies of all time; a film where the writer, studio, director and each individual actor tried to make a completely different movie. Spider-Man 3 was such a mess that Kirsten Dunst said she didn't want to make Spider-Man 4 before it was even released, and then went off for a boozy little meltdown in rehab afterwards. And Kirsten Dunst was in Marie Antoinette, so she knows cack when she gets paid to star in it.

But even though Spider-Man 3 looked like a franchise-killer of Batman And Robin proportions, it's not over yet. Last week producer Laura Ziskin told cinemas that Spider-Man 4 is still going to happen, and it'll be released in less than three years too. Firstshowing reports:

Producer Laura Ziskin told theaters owners on Thursday that Spider-Man 4 is tentatively scheduled to arrive in May of 2011. Although rumors have been circulating surrounding both Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire's return, nothing is concrete yet. The farthest they've gone is to pay Marvel to secure the rights yet again, which is at least confirmation that they will continue.

There isn't a script for Spider-Man 4 yet, but one is apparently being written by James Vanderbilt, who wrote Zodiac (good) and a film that had John Travolta in it (bad). But however Vanderbilt's script turns out, it still can't be any worse than Spider-Man 3's for the simple fact that it wasn't written in purple wax crayon by a farting egg-fixated toddler.

And only then can discussions start seriously. If the script's good enough, Sam Raimi will direct it. If the money's good enough, Tobey Maguire will return to star in it. And if there's a trail of vodka miniatures leading from her house to the film set, we don't doubt that Kirsten Dunst will make an appearance as well.

Phew! If that happens, it'll be business as usual. Except, you know, Spider-Man 3 was business as usual as well, and that made us want to vomit blood into a bucket. And then drown ourselves in all the blood-sick. And then set ourselves on fire. 

So, yeah, more of that please.

Read more:

Spider-Man Will Return in 2011! But Do We Want Him To? – First Showing