Superior Spider-Man, issues 28 & 29

Greetings, citizens! Today is the second to last look at Superior Spider-Man, so let’s dive right in.

This cover is really nice and works both for people who’ve been following the series, and new readers (though I do feel bad if someone who hadn’t been following the series decided to just now pick it up). For a new reader, it shows the Green Goblin, heavily cast in shadow with a smug and devious smile and his glowing eyes, grasping the little Spider-Man pawn between his fingers. It sets a nice, ominous tone and makes you intrigued as to what Osborn’s up to this time. For those who’ve been following the series, it perfectly symbolizes the situation that was set up in the previous issue and reinforced with this one. All of the red pieces representing Spidey’s forces are scattered off the board, most knocked over. The only red piece still on the board is one with the likeness of Anna Maria, which is knocked over, making one wonder what’s happened to her. A nice little touch that I only got after a good long look at the cover is how Osborn is holding the Spidey pawn. He’s only got a light grasp on it, using only two of his fingers and thumb. It’s a negligent gesture, showing that Osborn feels that he’s already achieved victory. He doesn’t care if Spidey does escape, there’s nothing that can be done to stop him. It’s reinforced by the relaxed posture that he’s displaying while sitting in his Jack O’lantern throne. Props to Giuseppe Camuncoli for one of the most well put together comic covers I’ve seen.

So the issue opens right where the last one left off, with Spider Island being blind-sided by the Goblin King’s lieutenants, Menace, Monster and the Goblin Knight. Spider-Man is overwhelmed and isn’t sure how to react. Because of this, he only barely manages to escape on the back of the Living Brain (I love that that thing is still around), and all of his Spiderlings are killed and the base leveled. The lieutenants attempt to give chase, but Spider submerges to lose them.

We cut away to Ghost-Pete, who’s still trapped inside of Otto’s memories, and he’s seeing a lot of parallels between the two of them, which I really like. They were both intensely bullied when they were younger, escaped into science which they excelled in, and had a loving mother figure. There are some key differences though, perhaps most notably with their respective father figures. Peter’s Uncle Ben had was a loving figure who helped provide Peter with a strong moral grounding. The whole “power and responsibility” lesson Ben taught to Peter is as much a part of the character as the radioactive blood. Otto on the other hand had an abusive father. We saw this before, back when Ghost-Pete first was delving into Otto’s memories, but we see more of it here. Hell, we see more panels of Otto being beaten by his dad than getting bullied at school, so either it was more frequent, or just holds more prominence, possibly both. Another point of contrast is that it seems like Otto might’ve been a bit better in the romance department than Peter, as we see a memory of him with a girl when he seems pretty young. Unfortunately, Otto’s mother smothered him and was overprotective, so that killed any possible chance for his love life. It’s these parallels that make me like Otto as a character; he serves as kind of a “what could’ve been” for Peter. I’m reminded of a panel from Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, where Peter actually does say “Some day I’ll show them! Some day they’ll be sorry!” I get that it’s from really early on, and both writing styles and the character have evolved since then, but I don’t think it’s too out of character for Peter to indulge in petty revenge every now and then. Hell, in one of the first couple issues of the re-launched Amazing Spider-Man, Peter punched Captain fucking America over an honest mistake that Cap made. It’s a trait that I’ve also seen him display in other media, but I don’t necessarily count those, what with them being adaptations.

Okay, enough side-tracking. Back in the real world, we see the Goblin King arrive and survey the damage that his underlings have caused. The Goblin Knight is hesitant to tell his liege that Spidey escaped, but when he does, Osborn doesn’t seem concerned. It makes sense, because the two have worked together before, so Osborn knows how Otto-Pete thinks. Osborn then gives the order to his minions to go forth and start taking care of people close to Peter.

We cut away from the goblins to a press conference being held by Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, who’s unveiling the Spider Slayers that he secretly had commissioned, calling them Goblin Slayers, and for some reason he thought that having the creepiest looking image of his face possible on them was a good idea.

Just look at those. They’re supposed to be protectors of the city, but they look more like they plan on kidnapping children in order to harvest their souls for fuel. MJ and Ollie are watching the press conference, and she’s skeptical of them as well (though not because of the creepy visage). Their TV time is interrupted by the goblin children, who I’ve kinda just glossed over ever since we saw Osborn recruit them. They’re attacking MJ for the third time, which is apparently one time too many for MJ to take. While Ollie holds them off, she heads to a safe and retrieves a pair of web shooters that Peter apparently gave her, webbing up the kids. I was surprised at this when I saw it, since I’ve never seen or heard about MJ being a badass. Her badassery continues by grabbing Ollie and enacting a plan that she’s apparently had prepared fro awhile, getting May and Jay and telling her aunt Anna to take the first flight out of town. This actually makes a lot of sense, given how long MJ’s had to deal with this kind of bullshit, and she’s not a complete idiot. I mean, who wouldn’t be prepared for a villain to attack after it’s happened a dozen times or so?

We rejoin Otto-Peter as he emerges from the bay (in his civilian clothes instead of his Spidey suit) just outside of Parker Industries, where Sajani just happens to be. What, was she taking a soothing night walk along the waterfront? Anyway, she starts berating Peter for being absent for a month, and then bringing Spider-Man’s stuff here, making this place a bigger target for the goblins. Before she can berate him further, Captain Watanabe leaps from the shadows, dressed as her alter ego The Wraith. I haven’t been commenting on the art as much with the Spidey issues because I’ve more or less talked about the things I like and dislike about each art team that’s done the issues so far, but there are some panels where there’s something I have to comment on. Case in point, the Wraith’s boobs here:

Those things are friggin’ huge! Squashed down, sure, but jeez! We’ve seen Captain Watanabe and she’s not packing a pair of cantaloupes in her jacket. Anyway, she attacks Peter and demands he confess to what he did with Carlie, and he just flat out tells her that he has no idea where she’s gone. The interrogation is fittingly interrupted by Monster (Carlie altered by the Goblin Serum). The Wraith’s lenses have the same facial recognition software that all the Spider-bots had, so she can’t see Monster at all, allowing Monster to knock her out before revealing who she is to Peter.

We get another two-page spread of Ghost-Pete living through Otto’s memories, and we see that he’s having an even harder time separating himself from the memories. The last time, even though he was seeing all of Otto’s life, he still knew who he was, and the panels were divided by a spider symbol. Now however, he’s having a hard time remembering his name, and the panels are divided by Doc Ock’s signature tentacles. Also, Otto totally looks like a DJ with a weird turntable suit.

Back with Otto-Peter, he leads Carlie into Parker Industries, which he’s outfitted with defenses, including his signature tentacles. He quickly gets her into a secure room and delivers a boot to the head. Carlie takes this opportunity to claim that he destroyed her earpiece, before actually doing just that so Osborn can’t listen in. She tells Peter that she wants his help in undoing what the Goblin Serum has done, but that he needs to hurry before she loses control again.

At an unspecified different time, we see Anna Maria being picked up by Menace who’s dressed in casual clothes, and claiming to be doing it to protect all of Peter’s loved ones. Of course, this is bullshit, but it serves as a nice, ominous way to end the issue.

Once again, we’ve got a good cover, but in a different way than the previous one. Where that one was laden with lots of symbolism, this one is pretty straightforward. It’s just one of Jonah’s Goblin Slayers holding Spidey and 2099 Spidey by their heads. It works though because it’s completely unclear how this situation arose, given that there was no setup for this in the previous issue. Oh and Jonah’s face is just so damn creepy.

The issue starts off with Menace bringing Anna Maria to Osborn, but he’s too fixated on the various news reports to give a damn. He’s paying special attention to one, which is interviewing Sajani, who says that part of the PI building collapsed right after Peter and Monster went inside. We cut away to Jameson and the Alchemax people also watching the news. Tyler Stone is trying to convince Jameson to send out the Goblin Slayers. Wait, he needs to be convinced? In the last issue, it seemed like he was already planning on sending them out. What the hell was the press conference for then? Was that just a teaser conference? Did he have a giant banner saying “coming summer 2014” or something? Oy, so, while Tyler is confident in the robots, Liz Allen says that while they’re field ready, they’re not combat ready. So… they’re not field ready then, unless she means that they’re ready to prance about in a field. I can’t imagine that there’s too many times when you would need a robot to prance about in a field though. I guess she could mean that they can help with rescuing civilians, but in that case they should definitely be sent out. We see that the city’s superheroes are stretched to their limit, any help that can be given with making sure civilians are safe would mean more superheroes and police dealing with the goblins themselves. Oh, and Jameson’s secretary quits and storms out because Jameson’s too focused on his hatred of Spider-Man.

We have a brief cutaway to MJ and the others that she rescued who are safely in Connecticut. Peter calls briefly to make sure that MJ and the others are safe, but he doesn’t bother letting Aunt May or Jay know that he’s okay. Back with Peter, we see him and Sajani working on an antidote to the Goblin Serum while Carlie is restrained. But of course Osborn interrupts this by calling Peter’ secure Spider-Hotline number. He tells Peter to put on his mask, so he can see something. He does so, and we get a two-page spread of Osborn blowing up places of significance to Otto and then telling him that he’s got a hostage. Peter, thinking the worst, assumes that Osborn has Anna Maria and races off to rescue her, swearing vengeance. While he’s swinging through the city, people cry out to him for help, but he’s too busy to be bothered with people. He calls the police chief to try and direct their efforts there, but the police chief is under the impression that he’s in league with the Goblins. Instead, Jameson orders the Goblin Slayers to the location, and to sweep out from there in search of Spidey.

Peter arrives at Empire State University and finds Osborn with the hostage. In a nice little twist, it’s not Anna Maria; it’s Dr. Lamaze! Osborn says that from what he found, Lamaze was the closest thing Otto ever had to a friend, and he mistakenly thought that it was Lamaze that he was trying to save from being crushed by a bus back in issue 21. Peter lunges at him, but Osborn snaps his fingers and Peter’s mechanical limbs start trying to kill him. It’s a bit of a stretch, but Osborn is a genius with lots of experience with mechanical devices, and he conceivably could have studied Otto’s designs for his original ones (which his current ones are based on), so it gets a pass. So, Peter is fighting his robotic limbs while Osborn gets away. He tells Lamaze to get out of there. While he’s distracted though, one of the limbs is poised perfectly to strike. Before it can, Lamaze … um… somehow gets in the way?

I get the intention, but, exactly how did Lamaze get in the way of the limb? It doesn’t look like he shoved Spidey out of the way since there’s no sign of impact between the two, and even if he had run into Spidey, the limb still has to go to the same point relative to itself. Did it decide to just stab Lamaze when he ran closer? Well, however it happened, Lamaze saved Peter. When Peter asks him why he did that, Lamaze tells him that he felt ashamed of how he reacted when he and Anna Maria were in peril back in issue 21, that he’s been wanting to do the right thing ever since and that Spidey showed him what it meant to be a hero. It’s actually a poignant scene for a fairly minor and, up until this point, unlikable character. Even Spidey’s affected by his death.

No time to mourn though! Before Spidey can start tracking down Osborn, the Goblin Slayers arrive and attempt to apprehend him. They get shut down by none other than Spider-Man 2099, AKA Miguel O’Hara, AKA Michael O’Mara who helped build the Slayers. He demands answers from Peter, but before he gets any, the Slayers come back online, courtesy of Osborn, which brings an end to the issue.

Once again I find myself in a situation where I wanted to do three issues, but I think this entry’s gone on long enough as is. We’ve only got two issues left (sort of), and while I would have preferred to do the finale issue by itself, upon further reflection the penultimate issue fits in better when looked at alongside the finale rather than these two. Normally, I’d have that review ready by next week, but I’ve got something special in mind and I’m not sure how long it’ll take to do. That doesn’t mean I won’t update weekly though, it just means that the schedule is in a somewhat fluid state right now. So come back next week for… whatever next week happens to be! Until then, citizens!

Superior Spider-Man issues 26 & 27

Greetings, citizens! I’m finally getting back on track, so let’s waste no time in looking at the issues today.

Let’s start with the cover. It’s not really a bad cover, but it’s also kind of bland. The Green Goblin looks like he’s shoving the Hobgoblin with his left hand, while Hobgoblin’s got a bomb ready to go in his left hand. Pretty sure he’d be in the blast radius, but if he wants to go out in a blaze of glory, that’s his business. We also see something rather strange for this series; a long list of names of people who worked on it. Most of the previous issues have had 3-4 names; Dan Slott as the writer, the penciler, the inker, and the color artist (almost always Edgar Delgado). The previous story arc had 5 names listed, including a second writer, Christos Gage. The extra hands on these issues really reinforce my theory about Marvel deciding to rush the book’s conclusion. Anyway, for this issue, Dan Slott’s the sole writer, three different pencilers (Ramos, Rodriguez, and Martin), three different inkers (Olazaba, Lopez and Martin again), and three colorists (Delgado, Rodriguez again, and Martin once again). Having this many different artists can be a problem when trying to keep the look and feel of a book consistent, but they’ve addressed that problem in a pretty good way here. The book follows three different stories, each one worked on by a different set of artists. Since each story would have it’s own feel anyway, the widely different styles doesn’t make it a jarring read.

The issue begins with the two main goblins, The Green Goblin (or Goblin King as he likes to be called now) and the Hobgoblin, engaged in all out war with their minions. The King calls for a ceasefire, and he and the Hobgoblin talk for a bit, deciding that instead of sending all their minions to their deaths, the two of them should just have a duel, winner take all. It’s somewhat surprising for an archvillain to actually have the thought of “I’ll do it myself,” let alone two of them to agree to it. Not doing things yourself is the point of having minions! Well, that and to counter enemy minions.

Speaking of minions, our Superior Spider-Man has his own minions preparing to square off with a large group of A.I.M mooks. The big battle is aborted prematurely by the arrival of the Avengers, saying that they’d like to have a word with Spidey. He attempts to blow them off, saying he’s busy, but they just take care of everything in a nifty looking splash page.

I love how all of A.I.M’s forces are divided up among everyone else, but Cap just takes care of all the Spiderlings himself. Cap tells Spidey that his probation is over, but before we can see what he means by that, let’s focus on something we haven’t seen in awhile.

Inside “the shattered psyche of Otto Octavius and Peter Parker,” we see the remaining vestige of Peter staring at the mostly barren landscape. The only things to be seen are some of the more iconic Spider-Man imagery that have been ubiquitous of the character. I’m more than a little surprised we don’t see him trying to save someone from falling off of a bridge. Anyway, ghost-Pete bemoans how he’s barely there and doesn’t think he’ll be able to beat Ock. Psht, and he claims that he’s barely Peter, seems just like normal Petey to me.

Back with the Goblins, the fight between the King and Hobgoblin begins. It’s a pretty brief and not all that satisfying fight. The only real noteworthy thing about it at first is that they both doubt the identity of the other. It interesting because we haven’t actually seen which Green Goblin this is. The one and only time we saw the Green Goblin without his mask on, his face was completely in shadow. Hobgoblin manages to get a cheap shot in by calling Harry Osborn a disappointment.

We cut away from the fight back to the Avengers. They’re confronting Spidey about the fact that he deleted the results from the brain scan that they ran way back in issue 8, and saying that they’re debating kicking him out of the Avengers. Spidey counters that the results could give away his secret identity, but this is just the latest excuse he’s given them, and they’re kind of sick of his BS. They want him to tell them what exactly is going on, but of course he refuses, and decides quitting the Avengers is the only way to get them off his back.

Back with ghost-Pete, all the staring at iconic moments in his publication history has strengthened his resolve to fight Ock, regardless of how impossible it seems. I’ll admit that Peter’s tenacity was always one of my favorite traits of his, but for some reason these scenes with him doing this just ring kinda hollow. It might be because I’ve seen Peter have these sorts of moments so damn much, or it might be because I was really enjoying this series and Peter’s return was the harbinger of the end. Or, it would have been, if I’d been managing to keep up with the series… Due to a series of unfortunate personal problems, I fell behind on the series and didn’t have an opportunity to read issues 24 – 31 until after 31 had hit the shelves.

Okay, back on track, we get to see the end of the goblin fight. The cheap shot that Hobgoblin had managed to score on Green Goblin destroyed a large chunk of his costume, revealing his chest and… a dent?

I will admit that I’ve never studied medicine, and this is a comic book so there is a large degree of suspension of disbelief in regards to almost any injury a character receives, but what in the hell!? How does his chest have a freaking crater? Is he not a human, but a Realdoll or maybe an action figure? Is he some sort of robot with a clay exterior? Is he, in fact, Norman Osborg? I don’t know whether that was a failing of Dan Slott for how he scripted it, or Humberto Ramos for how he drew it, but that little hiccough is baffling.

Anyway, the crater apparently confirms that it is indeed Norman under the mask and not some pretender. Normy then proceeds to beat the ever-loving crap out of Hobgoblin, and then choke him to death. When Normy and the rest of his underlings go off to celebrate, our old friend Ben Urich the Goblin Knight decides to check under the mask. He sees that it is in fact NOT Kingsley, the real Hobgoblin. We cut away to Kingsley, where we see him brainwashing someone into thinking that they are Kingsley. Apparently he does this so that he can fake his death when he feels like it, which isn’t a bad idea considering how many enemies he has.

We’re back down to a regular sized team with this issue, and we’ve also got Camuncoli as the penciler this time around. This cover works pretty well, with Spidey being heavily shadowed in the foreground representing danger. Behind him is a beat-up American flag sporting the heraldry of the Goblin King. The only problem I really have with the cover is in the upper right corner, where we get the title of our final story-arc in the series; Goblin Nation. First off, it’s a misleading title considering that this is (like oh so many things in the Marvel Universe) contained entirely within New York City. It’s not even the Goblins taking over the entire state, just the city! Second, there’s the giant #1, making it seem like the thing is the first issue of a new ongoing series, as opposed to the 27^th. This was supposed to be keeping in line with a bunch of other Marvel NOW titles, serving as a jumping on point to various series, which would be great… if the series wasn’t going to be ending in like 2 months! If people haven’t bothered to pick up the series yet, and they can already see solicitations for a relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man, why would they bother picking this up? The only reason I can think of is that they’re just trying to trick people into buying something that they wouldn’t normally pick up.

The issue begins a month after the last one. While Spidey narrates about all of his data indicating that organized crime has been eliminated in New York, we see various scenes of the Goblin’s minions causing havoc. He doesn’t understand how this is happening, but he does finally understand who is behind it.

So wait… Osborn spent all this time quietly absorbing all of the elements of organized crime in New York, trying (and succeeding) to keep a low profile the whole time. He’s the undisputed crime lord of the largest city in the country, and even has taken over the Hobgoblin’s villain franchises schtick. So why is he having his men drawing attention to themselves like this? Why is he doing it himself!? If this were some other place, fine, I could accept it. But this is NYC in the Marvel universe! The Avengers and the Fantastic Four both have their base of operations here, not to mention all of the other heroes who live there like Doctor Strange! How is Osborn stupid enough to think that all of this wouldn’t draw the attention of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?

I really hate to belabor this point, but this is YET ANOTHER thing that makes it seem like the series finale got pushed up by several months. Sure, Osborn’s got a bunch of supervillains on his side thanks to absorbing Hobgoblin’s little empire. That might be a reason to think he could make a go of things, except for the fact that all of those guys are D-listers! The Avengers exist almost exclusively to take on A-list threats (when they’re not fighting their colleagues, of course), a horde of D-listers aren’t even going to slow down Thor or Wolverine, let alone them and all of their friends! Osborn could rule the criminal underworld unopposed for a long-ass time, making millions upon millions of dollars, and he blows it in order to… what? Have people know it’s him? Who the fuck cares! None of this makes any damned sense, especially when we learn his supposed motivations later on.

Sigh. I suppose I should get back on track. Deep within his mind, we see Ghost-Pete once again looking at the fragments that make up his existence. It seems that there is in fact the iconic bridge scene in there, but we just didn’t see it last time. We’re looking at it now, and so are Ghost-Pete and Ock, since Normy decided to use that particular bridge to send his message, which makes sense. Ghost-Pete looks around to try and find a place to hide from Ock, and he decides to try hiding in Ock’s memories, and to also try and find a weakness within them. Unfortunately, Pete doesn’t get to root around like he did before, probably because he’s a lot less “solid” this time around. Instead he gets swept into the memory of Ock being born. Hope he gets to skip the spanking part.

Back with Ock-Pete, we see him fiddling around with one of his Spider-bots, trying to find out how Osborn and his men have escaped notice for this long. There’s also something else I missed before;

Yeah, Ock-Pete’s planning on asking Anna Maria to marry him. Unfortunately, we don’t get to linger on that for too long because there are superhero shenanigans afoot. He discovers that the flaw is not in any of his programming (of course not) but instead is in Uatu Jackson’s facial recognition program that he’s been using since the whole Massacre incident. He tries to call Uatu, but just gets hung up on. We cut away briefly to Mayor Jameson, who’s checking on the progress of his little Spider Slayer project, which is all done but for the testing. Back with Ock-Pete, he’s confronting Uatu in his Spidey garb, and the two of them actually manage to use the hack in the software to trace it back to where Osborn’s hiding out.

We once again have another one page cutaway, this time to Captain Watanabe. She’s at Parker Industries looking for Peter, since he’s still considered a person of interest in Carlie’s disappearance. Wait, this is taking place a month later. How is Captain Watanabe still looking for Peter? He’s hidden from the cops for a month, and nobody finds that suspicious? There aren’t any cops watching his apartment? Anna Maria hasn’t been questioned about where he is? What has the NYPD been doing this whole time!? Ugh, yeah, so Captain Watanabe is still looking for Pete, Sajani is also wondering where the hell he’s been. While I’m glad the whole plot thread hadn’t been forgotten, I really think that this cutaway would’ve worked better right after the Jameson one, instead of going back to Peter for a page.

Back to Peter, and thankfully there are no more cutaways for the rest of the issue. He’s following the signal to the Goblin Underground, marveling at how Osborn managed to run all of this so discretely. Speaking of Osborn, he and a group of his D-lister minions have apparently been waiting for Peter. Before Ock-Pete can formulate a plan to deal with all the thugs, Osborn sends them away and invites Spidey to sit down for a chat. Osborn reveals that he knows exactly who “Spidey” really is, and of course makes the whole “join me and we can rule the galaxy” offer. To be fair, this is one of the situations where the offer is most likely to be accepted, and it almost seems like Ock might go for it. That is, until Osborn says that Ock would be his second, at which point he flips out. The Star Wars parallels continue, as Osborn zaps Spidey with lightning. But of course it turns out that Spidey is just a Force-ghost- I mean, he’s using the hard-light hologram-projecting thing from issue #21. Which was a good idea, not going into the proverbial lion’s den like an idiot. Of course, the plan would be better if Spidey’s lair wasn’t public knowledge. The issue ends with the Goblin Knight, Menace, Monster and a bunch of nameless mooks bombing Spider Island.

I had intended to look at issue #28 in this review as well, but I’ve gone on for long enough. These issues aren’t terrible, but they do have their problems. They all seem to stem from the overall rushed feeling that the series suddenly has. It’s frustrating, because I would love to see exactly what how Osborn’s master plan would’ve reached fruition. Unless this was the intention from the outset, in which case I’m really disappointed. I was really enjoying Dan Slott’s writing, and it all seemed to be going great. Osborn was pulling off an excellent long con, and could’ve kept on going with it until he had amassed enough power to actually challenge the combined might of the various superhero factions. Instead, this all feels very forced and moronic. It’s also disappointing that we have other plot threads that aren’t amounting to much. Sure, the NYPD is looking for Peter, but it’s not causing any sort of problems in his life (or the lives of his loved ones). He’s planning on marrying Anna Maria, but with Ghost-Pete’s return, that means we’re just going to have another frustratingly disappointing romance for “Peter.” I enjoyed the issues at the time, but after looking at them again, the faults are really showing.

As close as we are to finishing the series, we’re going to be taking a break from it. March is the month of my birth, and as such, I feel like celebrating. So, instead of any of the stuff that I had scheduled, I’m going to be looking at a bunch of stuff that is important to me. What are these things? Well, you’ll just have to check back in the coming weeks and find out. Until then, citizens!

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!

Superior Spider-Man, issues #22 and 23

Greetings and Happy New Year, citizens! What better way to celebrate this auspicious occasion than by looking at a series we’ve already looked at numerous times, and that most people don’t care about?

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Okay, so there are probably better ways. However, we’re nearing the end of Superior Spider-Man, and I’m sure some people feel like I’ve drawn it out long enough already. However, I have my reasons for continuing to look at the series, not the least of which being that it is a new take on someone who was formerly one of my absolute favorite comic characters. So, let’s get right into Superior Spider-Man issues 22 and 23.

We’re back to Humberto Ramos doing the pencils for these issues, so the cover is also his work. I’m kind of at a loss for what to say about it, including whether or not it’s good. It is certainly eye-catching, being almost entirely black, and there’s a good balance to the whole thing. Spidey looking up at the title to this story arc is kind of a weird meta touch, and I don’t know how I feel about it. Speaking of the title, this is actually the first story arc we’ve had that’s not three parts, this one is instead a four-parter. Why are we only looking at the first half instead of the entire thing? Because doing three issues in a single review is difficult enough to keep a decent length. I think if I tried doing four, I’d lose just about all my readers by the end of the second issue anyway.

Before getting into the issue itself, I thought I’d bring up something that I’ve noticed with both Superior Spider-Man, and the re-launched Amazing Spider-Man. It’s become something of a cliché to start off a Spider-Man story with him swinging around New York. It’s a lazy and unimaginative way to begin a Spider-Man story, especially since we’ve seen it a dozen times, and we’re likely to see him doing more of that during the rest of the issue. Dan Slott has avoided this cliché with every issue of his that I’ve read, I think. Hell, most of the issues don’t even begin with Spidey or Peter, instead giving us the setup for the issue, and then showing us how Spidey/Pete gets involved. It’s a good way of playing around with members of the Spider-Man supporting cast.

The above is true with this issue’s opening, giving us Venom. Venom is one of my all-time favorite Spider-Man villains, which is impressive considering all the ways they’ve fiddled with him over the years. Currently, the symbiote is joined with Flash Thompson and is a hero. I was actually reading the Venom series when it first came out, but fell out of it after moving away to college where I couldn’t find a comic shop. It wasn’t a bad series, and I liked the struggle of Flash trying to maintain control of the symbiote, so I was pleased to see him here. He’s come to town because he’s heard that the Crime Master is doing business again, and Venom’s got some beef with the guy. Also, he’s supposed to be dead, so that’s mildly concerning. He takes the place of one of Crime Master’s men, having the symbiote disguise him. Ramos may not be my favorite artist, but he does an excellent job at drawing the symbiote. He makes it look like more than just goo, giving it a good sense of motion and life, so kudos to him on that.

We cut away to Peter, giving a speech to the newly hired employees of Parker Industries. It’s a little on the supervillain side of things, but it certainly gets across the kind of business he’s planning on running. After the speech, Sajani tells Peter that Jay and Aunt May are there, and he rushes off to greet his two investors, who are currently being given a tour by Dr. Wirtham. You guys remember Dr. Wirtham right? He was the “villain” Cardiac in issues 7 and 8. He’s going to be serving as a consultant to Parker Industries, which is kinda neat to me. Once Peter catches up with them, Aunt May insists on having brunch with him and Anna Maria in order to meet her. Peter accepts, and also informs May that his nanotech limb thingy is ready to be used, and insists that she be the first person to receive it.

Meanwhile, at the apartment of Carlie Cooper, we see Captain Watanabe going to check in on Carlie, but finds that she’s not there and her computer is missing. Kind of odd for a thief to only steal the computer, so she assumes that it’s connected with the Spider-Man investigation.

Back with Peter, we get a tender moment between him and Anna Maria in Anna’s lab. She’s been experimenting with bioluminescent light sources, so the lighting really sets the mood for the inevitable sex. I’m not joking, they start going at it right there in the lab. This is their first time together, too. It’s oddly fitting, actually.

But we don’t get to see any of this. Instead, we see that at Spider Island, the Spiderlings (as I have dubbed them) have learned of the situation with Venom and Crime Master, and decide that this is worthy of Spidey’s notice. He is annoyed at first, given what they interrupted, but tells them that they made the right call. He has them deliver a couple of special bracers and goes to the confrontation. Venom and Crime Master’s men are engaged in a firefight, except it’s not much of a fight, because Venom is Venom. Once Spidey shows up, Crime Master decides that he’s had enough of this and surrenders. He also unmasks himself and says that he’s not the real Crime Master, he just bought the costume and name from Kingsley. This makes yet another costumed villain that’s just leasing the name and such. Kingsley’s got quite the racket going on, if so many people are paying him obscene amounts of money for the privilege of being foiled by superheroes.

Anyway, with Crime Master’s surrender, Venom thanks Spidey for his help, and Spidey promptly shoots a jet of flame at him.

Huh, so that’s why this Spider-Man hasn’t really done any team-ups. Except for that one time with Deadpool, but that’s neither here nor there. The two fight for a few moments until Spidey manages to gain the upper hand. He also does enough damage to the symbiote that it can’t maintain the mask over Flash’s face, revealing his identity. Flash tries to talk to Spidey, but Spidey doesn’t recognize, what with not having any of the old Peter’s memories left. The issue ends with Spidey standing over Venom, about to execute him.

The cover for issue #23 is pretty good. It shows the Venom symbiote abandoning Flash, who’s reaching out for it with a pleading look in his eyes. Once again, I really enjoy how Ramos draws the symbiote, he’s got a great knack for it.

The issue opens where the last one ended, with Spidey about to kill Flash. Flash manages to do some quick thinking, surrendering in order to buy himself some time to escape. While he keeps Spidey distracted with talk, the symbiote sets off some smoke grenades, allowing Flash to fight his way free. The Symbiote’s weak though, so instead of throwing down, he escapes, disguising himself as an EMT. Spidey unfortunately has to leave in order to start getting preparations for brunch ready.

But enough about the struggle between good and… ostensibly good, let’s check in with some real villains. Beneath the city in the Goblin Underground, we see the Green Goblin, Menace and the Goblin Knight interrogating Carlie Cooper. Gobby is intrigued by Carlie’s findings, especially with who’s really in Spidey’s body, but he wants to know whose body that really is. Apparently all of Carlie’s notes omit Peter’s identity. Gobby decides to leave Carlie in Menace’s hands, while he goes out and pretends to be the Hobgoblin some more.

Back with Peter, we see him and Anna Maria arriving at his apartment to start preparing for brunch. Anna Maria is shocked to see that Peter’s place is cluttered with all kinds of equipment for Spider-Man. She’s not surprised by the equipment itself, just at how cluttered the place is. She insists on getting the place cleaned up, and Peter agrees, after mild resistance because some of the stuff is at “a critical stage.”

Over to Flash, who sneaks into a supply closet at the hospital and steals a bunch of stuff to help the symbiote recover. He finds a wheelchair and teels the symbiote it can relax, only having it provide him with clothes instead of also having to be his legs. Oh yeah, probably should have mentioned that for those not familiar with this Venom. Flash lost his legs while deployed overseas. He actually volunteered to be the host for Venom because the symbiote allowed him to continue serving his country. I don’t believe he’s working for the government anymore though. Last I heard he was with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Uh, anyway, Flash overhears a cop and a firefighter talking about MJ’s newly renovated club, which gives Flash the idea to lay low with an old friend.

And speaking of MJ, we get to see the re-opening of her club. While there, she gets a visit from Captain Watanabe. She tells MJ that the last call Carlie made before disappearing was to MJ. The two listen to the message, and Captain Watanabe develops suspicions about Peter, marking him as a person of interest.

Back to Peter and Anna Maria. Man, this issue jumps around a lot. Pete and Anna are continuing with the preparations when Flash shows up. Peter realizes this is a golden opportunity, providing he can figure out a way to get the symbiote away from Flash.

More jumping, this time to Aunt May. We see that her surgery went well, and she can walk just fine without her cane. Jay is kind of annoyed that neither Peter nor his son were able to be there though.

And speaking of his son, let’s see what Mayor Jameson is up to! He’s paying a visit to Alchemax, bringing them a big, fat government contract. What does he want them to do? He wants his own squad of Spider Slayers, and even wants them to use the research from the Smythe family to build them. This idea can’t possibly go awry.

Back to Peter! Brunch is more than a little awkward, with Anna Maria making wheat cakes better than Aunt May’s, and Aunt May is concerned about Peter dating a little person. Flash attempts to leave, in order to escape the awkwardness, but Peter insists he stays. He tells Flash that after how successful Aunt May’s surgery went, he’s ready to proceed to phase 2 of his nanocybernetics; full artificial limbs. He manages to pressure Flash into doing the procedure, because it will help other veterans who’ve lost their limbs.

So back at Parker Industries, we see Dr. Wirtham prepping Flash for the procedure, while Peter does some mysterious stuff. Flash is hesitant, but doesn’t change go back on his word. Just before everything starts, Peter comes back as Spidey, which surprises Wirtham. But because they’ve worked together before, he allows Spidey to do what he wants, which is to activate a sonic pulse. The pulse drives the symbiote off of Flash and into a containment tube. Flash demands to know what the hell is going on, and Spidey says that there’s nothing to worry about. The containment device was based on the designs that Reed Richards created. However, the symbiote has grown in power and breaks free from the containment unit, flying straight at Spidey. The issue ends with… well, I’ll just let the final panel speak for itself.

These two issues are not bad. My only real complaint is that the second one bounces around so freaking much. Most scenes are only a page long, and it breaks up the flow of the story. But the dialogue is, as always, good and the overall plot is also solid. The artwork is for the most part good, but there are a couple of weak spots. However, I think the excellent artwork on Venom makes up for any shortcomings.

Next week we’ll take a look at the second half of this story arc, which will bring us into the final plotline of Superior Spider-Man. We’re in the home stretch now! So join me next week! Until then, citizens!