First image of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man

Marc Webb’s reboot of the Spider-Man franchise doesn’t come out for a good year and a half, but already Sony/Columbia has released an image of Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”) as our new friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. See the full image after the jump.

The first thing that comes to mind is that somebody needs to feed this Spidey. Aunt May (who will be played by Sally Field) must be an awful cook. Anyway, Garfield and the suit look good. I’m sure you’ll hear thousands say they don’t like the suit for whatever reason. No one ever likes the first image of a superhero’s suit and this one is up close and personal.

More interesting than the suit is that it’s tarnished — to put it mildly. Notice those scratch marks? Looks like Spidey just got his butt handed to him, quite possibly by the clawed Lizard (Rhys Ifans) who will be the film’s central villain.

Garfield’s going to make a hell of a Spider-Man and I think this image will convert some skeptics into believers. That’s probably why Columbia Pictures has released this image only a month and a half into filming (and as I mentioned, a year and a half before release). Then again, “Spider-Man” (no other title has been given at this point) marks the first reboot of a hugely successful 21st Century franchise — so that’s new marketing territory. Columbia and Marvel have to re-sell this new Spider-Man universe to a public who paid out the tush for the previous three films starring characters whom they had grown comfortable with. So I would bet heavy money that if a Sam Raimi-directed “Spider-Man 4” starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst were filming right now, you wouldn’t see a thing from the set for another few months at least.

So if this is the first kind of gooey hint we’re going to get from Columbia, I can only imagine what the rest of 2011 has in store up until we see a trailer drop, likely at Christmas time.