Superior Spider-Man, 24 and 25

Greetings, citizens! My deepest and most sincere apologies for the lack of updates these past few weeks. I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump as of late, and it’s not helped by being at a loss for what to say in regards to today’s subject.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I really enjoyed Superior Spider-Man. However, that doesn’t mean that the series is without faults, and issues 24 and 25 are certainly full of them. I’m going to approach this a bit differently than I’ve done with other reviews. I’m just going to give a (very) brief recap of the events of the issues, and then get into what my issues with these… issues are.

Superior Venom decides to prove he’s in control of the symbiote and starts cracking down on crime even more than he already has. The Avengers get notified, and they fight Venom. Eventually, the symbiote shows that it’s in control and Peter has to get the thing off of him, only doing so with the help of Ghost-Pete. Yeah, that’s the big thing in these issues, the beginning of the end of Ock-Peter. Although, we actually do see Ghost-Pete emerging from the rubble of his deep subconscious in issue #19, while Ock-Peter is desperately digging through his memories. It’s a neat bit of foreshadowing, in hindsight.

Oh, and while all that’s going on, Carlie gets dosed with some Goblin serum and assumes the name of Monster. She does some perfunctory task in order to prove to the Green Goblin that she’s a true goblin.

Let’s start with the story. The pacing in these issues (and to an extent, issue 23) is terrible. They’re constantly jumping from one scene to the next, giving the reader almost no time to absorb what’s going on before changing gears completely. It gives the whole thing a sense of being rushed. To me, it seems like the stuff with Peter was advancing at the proper speed, but the stuff going on with the Goblins was way behind where it should be. Because the stuff with the Goblins is the endgame of the series, it almost makes me wonder if right before writing these issues, Dan Slot was told that they had to wrap up Superior Spidey several months before they planned on it.

The artwork is… not that good either. I will give props to Humberto Ramos for how he draws Venom. Superior Venom is very different than any version I’ve seen before. The body is so alien, elongated and with lanky limbs. I’d say that it’s reminiscent of a spider, but to me it just comes off as too alien and disturbing to be likened to something of this world. But other than Venom, everything else just has weirdly distorted proportions, or is just not drawn terribly well. It might just be my stylistic preferences, but even ignoring that, there are still problems. One, which a friend of mine pointed out to me, was this panel:

First off, Thor looks like he’s missing his body. I get that it’s supposed to be behind Cap there, but come on, Thor’s huge, there’s no way his massive, Asgardian body could be concealed behind Cap. And what the hell is Wolverine doing there? I get that he’s supposed to be cutting through the tentacle, but that’s got to be the least efficient way he could possibly be doing that. It really looks more like he’s jazzercising or something. Venom seems to also be missing a leg, and his left arm is enormous compared to his right.

So that’s issues 24 and 25. Short entry this time, as I’m still somewhat at a loss for what to really say, and also just because I’m sick of having these issues hanging over my head. I will endeavor to have the next review up on time this Thursday. Until next time!