Dota 2's Monkey King comic seems to be teasing a brand new spirit hero

For those of you that might not know, Dota 2 has just been updated to version 7.00 with changes so big we might as well call it Dota 3 now. There's a brand new hero in the form of the Monkey King, heroes now have talents like in Heroes of the Storm, the UI has been completely redesigned, the map has received numerous changes, Roshan has been evicted from his ancient cave, and the list goes on. If you're interested in learning more about the whole update head on over here, but be prepared to lose at least an hour or two reading all of the changes!

And now for the topic at hand - the potential reveal of a new hero. In the recently posted "Legends of the Monkey King" comic the loudmouthed trickster finds him at odds with the four spirits of nature: Xin the Ember Spirit, Raijin the Storm Spirit, Kaolin the Earth Spirit, and an unknown fourth Spirit! While this might sound like a complete stretch, especially when you consider that this is just one little comic advertising a rather expensive Monkey King cosmetic, I do believe that Valve and Icefrog are currently teasing the identity of the next Dota 2 hero.

If you're wondering why I'm so eager to jump on tiny little details in search for clues, the reason would be the simple fact that this wouldn't be the first time Valve has done a sneaky teaser for a new hero. Back in July Valve released a surprisingly funny comic to flesh out Legion Commander's background in celebration of her new cosmetic set, but more interestingly than that, they used the final few panels to show an ominous smoke in the background. For those that didn't know anything about the lore this was nothing more than a simple piece of eye candy to end the comic on, but for those that knew at least a little bit about Legion Commander's story it felt like a clear sign pointing towards Pit Lord. There was no proof, much like how there is no proof right now, but the 'evidence' was there.

Dota 2 Legion Commander comic foreshadowing Pit Lord

As you're probably aware, Pit Lord (or rather Abyssal Underlord) ended up releasing the very next month, meaning that Valve didn't just randomly put that smoke in there - they had a plan! And so I do believe they are currently teasing a fourth elemental Spirit as well, but unlike Abyssal Underlord I highly doubt we're going to see this elusive Water (?) Spirit any time soon. We only just received Monkey King, and with the entire game currently in shambles due to all of the massive changes that came in with Update 7.00 I highly doubt Valve is going to be adding further fuel onto the fire by releasing a new hero in the next couple of months.

While I know its a bit of a disappointment to go through all of that rambling only to leave with a "there's going to be a new Spirit hero, we just don't know when", but I hope you can at least appreciate a sneak peak into Dota 2's future. And perhaps more importantly, maybe you can figure out something I have managed to miss in either the update itself, or one of the two comics!