The Arms of the Octopus Review (Mike Costa, Kris Anka)

If you were hoping for some kind of story referencing Doc Ock’s fate regarding the whole Superior Spider-Man storyline like I was, you won’t find that in The Arms of the Octopus. Instead it’s a weak irrelevant crossover between Superior Spider-Man, Indestructible Hulk and All-New X-Men wherein a time-displaced young Doc Ock appears in the present temporarily. But writer Mike Costa won’t even commit to too much Doc Ock in the main story, shunting him off to the side so we can focus on the far less interesting Dr (Hey) Jude!

Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Volume 3: Game Over Review (Nick Spencer, Steve Lieber)

Boomerang’s complex plan involving the rare portrait of Doom sans metal mask concludes - except the Sinister Six aren’t above backstabbing each other as Shocker, possessing the head of Silvio Silvermane, vies for control of the mob and the others look for ways to ditch everyone but No. 1 for a fortune. These supervillains, right?

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Volume 2: The Crime of the Century Review (Nick Spencer, Steve Lieber)

Well, that was a let-down! After a slew of bad Marvel comics, I thought I could rely on Superior Foes to come through and it totally dropped the ball. Put simply, Volume 2 is a birruva mess. 

The first book’s creative team of Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber is broken up with the pair only collaborating on two of the five issues, thank you insane Marvel shipping schedule! In addition, there are three writers and five or six artists also contributing work – this many cooks in the kitchen? Never a good sign! 

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up, Volume 1: Versus Review (Chris Yost, David Lopez)

This is what happens when a character becomes popular - you spin-off them off as many times as you can, which is why Wolverine’s in a million titles! So when the gamble of Superior Spider-Man paid off, we got titles like Superior Foes of Spider-Man (surprisingly good), Superior Carnage (unsurprisingly crap), and this one, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up, which is the most boring and worthless of the bunch. 

Superior Spider-Man #33 Review (Christos Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Superior Spider-Man #33 (or the fourth part of the Edge of Spider-Verse event), sees the villain Karn taking on the assembled might of multiple Spider-Men from across the various universes. But Karn’s strange past catches up with him as two of his siblings appear and the three duke it out. There’s also a backup story included that looks into Karn’s motivations. 

So I got suckered into buying another issue of Superior Spider-Man, still believing in the brand’s quality but realising that Marvel are just using it as a cheap (as in shameless, not price - this issue was $4.99!) ploy to unload more of their crappy Spider-Verse comics. 

I suppose it’s cool seeing the various incarnations of Spider-Man like Spider-Monkey from the Marvel Apes series and Spider-Man Noir from the Marvel Noir series, but other than that, this issue sucks! 

Christos Gage just isn’t much of a writer. There’s lots of bad exposition from the start followed by pages of pointless, unexciting fighting which ends in the least satisfying way possible: a sudden retreat. It was like Gage was saying “that’s your lot for this issue - more crappy fighting to follow in the next issue, and so on until this thing is done!”. It’s pointless because Karn (KAAAAAAAARNNN! - I bet you someone says that) can literally get stabbed in the chest and have no effect on him - there’s no consequences to anything. 

The backstory is mystifying and yet also boring. Karn and his weird family - are they vampires or something? - are in some chamber where the Master Weaver is (a spider guy who creates life and destiny or whatever) and they fight him because Gage doesn’t know how to write comics any other way than one dumb fight scene after the other. 

This leads to him getting a weird diving helmet welded to his head and quantum leaping everywhere until he kills all the Spider-Men in every universe. Karn may be the worst Spider-Man villain in quite some time. 

Giuseppe Camuncoli’s art is quite good throughout because if there’s one thing this guy knows how to draw, it’s Spider-Men. But really, it’s not enough to elevate Gage’s pitiful script or make this a worthwhile comic to justify the price. 

I really liked Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man and recommend that to any comics fans who haven’t read it yet, but these new Gage-scripted issues revolving around the Edge of Spider-Verse event really aren’t worth your time or money. They add nothing to the existing Superior storyline, they barely feel like Superior comics anyway, and they can quite easily be skipped. 

Superior Spider-Man #33 is a well-drawn but very poorly written comic that totally fails to interest the reader on any level - avoid!

Superior Spider-Man #32: Edge of The Spider-Verse #1 Review (Dan Slott, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

What what whaaaaaaat - Superior Spider-Man’s back!?

Well, yes and no. This is a new Superior Spider-Man ish however it’s set during the events of Superior Spider-Man #19, before Peter Parker reclaimed his body and banished Doc Ock to oblivion, so it’s both new and old at the same time.

SS#19 was slap-bang in the middle of the Spider-Man 2099 storyline and this issue picks up the events inside Horizon Labs when Ock was trying to stop the lab from imploding. In the process, he’s sucked into a time portal where he’s transported to 2099. While trying to return back to his timeline, he discovers there’s a monster hunting down and murdering all of the Spider-Men from every universe, and decides to band together as many as he can to fight this threat. So begins: Edge of Spider-verse! 

Maybe it’s because I’m burned out on time-travel Marvel comics, maybe it’s because this seems like a feeble cash-grab, maybe it’s because it feels like Dan Slott’s run out of steam thanks to the double-shipping schedule for Spider-Man and needs to take some time off; but this comic didn’t really do it for me.

I want to read more Superior Spider-Man but a time-travelling Doc Ock teaming up with various different Spider-Men (“every Spider-Man ever!”, the blurb announces) to fight Some Guy doesn’t seem interesting to me. Nor does Slott’s script make it seem very engaging. Ock does lots of boring science stuff, he fights some boring futuristic dudes, and then the issue’s over. No real surprises crop up and it felt like Slott was on autopilot the whole way through.

Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work is as wonderful as ever, tackling Slott’s ambitious story with panache and drawing some explosive (albeit brief) action scenes. It’s fun to see the designs of the various Spider-Men too, but it doesn’t make up for the lacking script. The whole idea just seems like a less funny version of Deadpool Vs Deadpool.

I got nothing from this comic. My interest peaked when I found out a new Superior SpIder-Man was coming out, then it dipped once I realised it was a flashback issue, and it spiralled ever downwards as I read it. Superior Spider-Man #32 is a snoozer of an issue that doesn’t make me hopeful for this Spider-Verse storyline.

Superior Spider-Man #32 (Edge Of The Spider-Verse)

Superior Spider-Man, Volume 6: Goblin Nation Review (Dan Slott, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Superior Spider-Man has been one of the best and most consistently high quality titles of the Marvel NOW! relaunch. The controversial body-swap idea of Otto’s mind inhabiting Peter’s body while Peter’s mind was lost in the ether and Otto’s Spider-Man becoming a different kind of hero could’ve gone either way but Dan Slott managed to make it work really well and proved all the naysayers wrong; Superior Spider-Man was a success, critically and commercially.

But it was never going to be the status quo (though that didn’t stop some gormless cretins from sending Slott death-threats for getting rid of their beloved Peter Parker), and so with Volume 6: Goblin Nation we see the end of Superior Spider-Man, the series and the character, and the return of Peter Parker once again as Spider-Man in the forthcoming All-New Amazing Spider-Man title (this last point is not a spoiler - Peter Parker’s return has been publicised heavily these last few months and with Superior ending, what else was going to happen to the character?).

So is Goblin Nation a fitting finale for this great title? For me, not entirely.

What made Superior stand out when it first started was how fresh and exciting it was. Otto did things differently and, despite having read Spider-Man before, you could never quite guess what he was going to do next. He even lived up to the name and really WAS the Superior Spider-Man, setting up the ultimate crime-fighting network, toppling Shadowland in no time, even shocking readers by executing some criminals - he was a controversial “hero” but he wasn’t boring and was enormously pro-active in reducing crime. Goblin Nation, on the other hand, is nothing if not predictable. I won’t go into specifically how things play out but suffice it to say that what you expect to happen, happens.

The Green Goblin, here calling himself the Goblin King, has launched all out war on New York City and has managed to evade Spider-Man after hacking his spider-bots so they failed to detect anyone with a goblin mask or logo. As the Goblin army descends on New York City, the spirit of Peter Parker ascends, making his way through Otto’s Mindscape to return triumphantly.

I liked how in this final volume Dan Slott did a round-robin of everything that had happened in the series by including characters as minor as Don Lamaze to Spider-Man 2099. It was like reading a greatest hits of Superior Spider-Man before the classic final close-out between Spidey and Green Goblin and in that respect was a good way to end the series.

But I don’t think Otto got the great exit he deserved. Slott gave him a great final speech as he prepared to hand over the reins to Peter and you do see that he’s really grown as a character, though I thought his exit was a bit anti-climactic and rushed. I was also hoping he wouldn’t say the line he ended up saying (twice!) which was “YOU are the Superior Spider-Man!” (groan). I would’ve preferred if his final words were about Anna-Maria instead.

Superior Spider-Man #30 was really the final issue as that’s Otto’s last appearance while #31 is Peter’s triumphant return though its a bit tedious to read. Peter cleans up all the loose Superior story threads in that issue, ready for a whole new storyline in All-New Amazing Spider-Man, and the way he does this is both efficient and unimaginative. There was no excitement with his fight with the Green Goblin and no question that the Goblin Nation would fall - the only surprise was the Goblin’s identity reveal but even that was more of a mild “oh... ho hum” than a shocking revelation.

Superior Spider-Man has been a high watermark in Spider-Man comics and one of the most enjoyable and original storylines the character’s ever had. The first few trade paperbacks are superb and are Dan Slott at his finest. The last couple trades though? You can feel things were being hurried along so All-New Amazing Spider-Man #1 could coincide with the latest (and lamest) Amazing Spider-Man movie, so the comics suffered in declining quality as Slott was rushed and Christos Gage was brought in to co-write the issues to fit the demanding release schedule.

Goblin Nation is a decent last bow for Superior Spider-Man but definitely not amazing.

3.5 stars. 

Superior Spider-Man Volume 6: Goblin Nation (Marvel Now)

Superior Carnage Review (Kevin Shinick, Stephen Segovia)

Carnage: is there a more 90s character? Looks awesome, has zero substance. Well it’s the 21st century now and Carnage hasn’t changed, he’s still as one-dimensional as ever. The Carnage symbiote’s host, Cletus Kasady (a serial killing redneck), has had his brain eaten away after years of being bonded with Mister Red and Slobbery so he’s now a zombie for Carnage to run around in. Except Carnage has been captured by the Wizard who has other plans for him - wait, who!? You know, the dude from the Frightful Four. The what!?! Yeah - Superior Carnage is where all the lame villains gather. 

It’s kind of about Carnage but it’s really about the Wizard, whose own brain is starting to fall apart, and he just wants to impress the clone of his dead son - Bentley-23 - just once, to show him his old dad isn’t a loser, so he decides to reform the Frightful Four and take City Hall. Seriously, that’s the plot of this book. 

Unlike Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Superior Carnage does feature Superior Spider-Man (could I ram any more “superior”s into that sentence?) and there’s some cool Spidey on Carnage action. I do appreciate Kevin “Robot Chicken” Shinick is trying to make the reader care about the Wizard in this book even though he doesn’t accomplish it - not for lack of trying, it’s just such a flimsy storyline for such a weak-ass character. And, hey, it’s an unexpected direction to take for the Carnage book, so kudos? I just wish it were more interesting to read! 

Stephen Segovia’s art is pretty good, it’s about what you’d expect for a Marvel superhero comic and is kinda like Steve McNiven-lite, even though his design for Superior Carnage looks like the Red Skull cosplaying as the Punisher. 

I suppose Superior Carnage is for fans of Carnage and/or the Wizard but I’m not sure there are many of those (especially the latter!). For the rest of us, is it essential reading? Not in the least. It’s a quick, painless and forgettable offshoot of the Superior Spider-Man franchise and totally dispensable (then again, it’s a five-issue mini-series so that was probably the point. Mission accomplished, chaps!).

Superior Carnage

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Volume 1: Getting the Band Back Together Review (Nick Spencer, Steve Lieber)

I blame cynical marketing for making cynics of us all (or at least me)! 

Superior Spider-Man has been a huge bestseller for Marvel and spinoff titles were inevitable. So when I saw the multiple Superior titles appearing – Team-Up, Foes, and Carnage – I stayed away thinking they’d be derivative knock-offs. And it’s that attitude that kept me away from one of Marvel’s hidden gems from the last year: Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber’s Superior Foes of Spider-Man (a series which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with Superior Spider-Man). 

Boomerang, Shocker, Speed Demon, Overdrive and Beetle are the new Sinister Six (and yes they’re aware they’re only 5!) who’re tired of being beaten by Spidey and winding up in jail. But of course they didn’t get to where they are today without failing to learn from their mistakes so they jump right into another criminal plot! During his latest stint in jail, Boomerang comes up with one big heist to put the new Sinister Six back on the map and in the money: steal the head of Silvio Silvermane (a cyborg gangster) from the Owl! 

Foes follows in the footsteps of Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye and FF and Mark Waid’s Daredevil, in that it’s a strongly character-driven series with innovative art, jokes aplenty, and a minimum of traditional superhero shenanigans. Boomerang is a dude who throws boomerangs and wears a boomerang on his head but he becomes more than a gimmicky D-list villain in this book and turns into a real character that you actually care about. 

Care about or at least laugh at. Foes looks at the life of a loser villain who: hangs out in crummy basements while planning heists with his equally loser villain colleagues; has a former friend as his parole officer, Abner Jenkins the original Beetle now Mach VII (a cheap War Machine knockoff); falls for a baseball-loving bartender; attends supervillains anonymous (Wreck It Ralph had a similar scene); and gets fleeced by his sleazy lawyer. 

Spencer’s script is filled with great scenes and jokes that work. When Beetle tries to rob a comic book store, she leaves exasperated when faced with the nerdiness of it all: “which variant covers did you want? Bags and boards?” etc. At the supervillains anonymous meeting, Boomerang hugs a giant hippo character in a scene parodying the Ed Norton/Meat Loaf scene from Fight Club when Norton’s face gets smooshed into Meat Loaf’s moobs – Lieber even positions the characters in exactly the same pose! 

Lieber’s art matches Spencer’s comedic script perfectly. Taking its cue from David Aja’s approach in Hawkeye, creative and different styles get thrown into the mix alongside solid artwork. Symbols replace banal dialogue so when girls flock to Mach VII for a photograph, you just see a symbol rather than the words “can we have a picture with you?”. There’s an awesome four panel dream sequence using near-stick figures when Boomerang’s with his lawyer, Partridge, and imagining decapitating him with a boomerang. Also, the layout of the Owl’s lair is simplistically portrayed in a child-like two-dimensional way to mirror Boomerang’s simplistic plan to storm the place head on. 

Superior Foes Vol 1 has turned me into a Steve Lieber fan and made me do a 180 on my opinion of Nick Spencer’s writing. It’s a funny, inventive and really entertaining comic which I would never have thought could be done with characters like Boomerang and Overdrive – that Spencer’s pulled it off is a helluva feat! If you like comics like Hawkeye and Daredevil, check out Superior Foes of Spider-Man for an awesome read.

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man Volume 1: Getting the Band Back Together

Superior Spider-Man Annual #2 Review (Christos Gage et al.)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man Annual #2 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/5-awesome-comics-must-read-week-21-march.php/2

Superior Spider-Man #27 Review (Dan Slott, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #27 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/6-awesome-comics-must-read-week-13-february.php/3

Superior Spider-Man, Volume 5: Superior Venom Review (Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos)

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Spidey news, Peter Parker’s coming back after being “dead” for a year and a half which ISN’T a spoiler because a) superhero comics and b) duh (and if you’re reading this in the future, this isn’t news at all – in fact, they’ve probably killed him off again and put Pastepot Pete in Spidey’s body – The Pasty Spider-Man!). 

What the news underlines is something I’ve noticed about this series which is the episodic nature of Superior Spider-Man where each book deals with a certain stage in Otto’s time as Spidey before moving on to the next. It might seem overly efficient but I quite like it. This time around it’s Venom’s turn as Flash Thompson/Venom shows up in NYC and Spidey takes him down, separating the symbiote from him, and absorbing it himself, believing he can control it – which of course he can’t. 

I want to say that this is an amazing book like the first three but it’s not. It’s what you’d expect from a Superior Venom book and doesn’t really surprise the reader with any flourishes. Dan Slott’s usual brilliance is somewhat dimmed in this book by Christos Gage, the hack he’s co-written the series with, and Gage brings his slapdash style to the story where you find yourself caring less about the characters and find your attention drifting at times with the story. 

Which isn’t to say it’s all bad as there are still some great moments like when Peter invites Anna Maria to meet May and Jay and May kinda patronises Anna Maria for being a small person - it’s awkward in a slightly funny “she’s from an older generation” way. Parker Industries is up and running which I’m sure will be cool to see grow and develop in future stories and it’s nice to see MJ make an appearance in the story. The Superior Venom fights are ok too, and Flash has some interesting character moments, separated from the super-powered side of his personality. 

But the ending? That’s the big payoff. Peter comes back in a big way, characters die, old characters change, NYC changes, and the Goblin King takes centre stage for the final part of Superior Spider-Man. It’s a great ending that really props the book up. 

Humberto Ramos continues to kill it with the art. His action scenes are dynamic and crazy looking, his layouts are amazing, and I love the emotion he gives all of the characters with their facial expressions and body language. His design for the Superior Venom is awesome too. 

Like the last book, I wasn’t as in love with it as much as I was the first three volumes of the series, but it’s still a really enjoyable, inventive and fun book in a great series. Sad to see it winding down, but all good things etc., eh? Superior Spider-Man continues to be a must-read comic for all Marvel zombies and Spidey aficionados out there.

Superior Spider-Man Vol. 5: The Superior Venom

Superior Spider-Man #26 Review (Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #26 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/4-awesome-comics-must-read-week-29-january.php/3

Superior Spider-Man #25 Review (Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #25 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/6-awesome-comics-must-read-week-15-january.php/5

Superior Spider-Man #24 Review (Dan Slott, Christos Gage)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #24 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/4-awesome-comics-must-read-week-18-december.php/2

The Superior Spider-Man #23 Review (Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Humerto Ramos)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #23 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/5-awesome-comics-must-read-week-4-december.php/4

Superior Spider-Man #22 Review (Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #22 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/5-awesome-comics-must-read-week-27-november.php/3

Superior Spider-Man, Volume 4: Necessary Evil Review (Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman)

After all the nonsense of the Marvel Events Age of Ultron and Infinity, time rifts have started occurring leading to a 90s character being sent back to our present - that’s right, bitheads, Spider-Man 2099 is back! Meanwhile, Otto must deal with his old flame, Angelina Brancale/Stunner as she emerges from her coma to avenge her beloved Otto’s death against Spider-Man!

What the shock, you say, Spider-Man 2099? Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the character, and the whole time-travel thing is really played out this year. The storyline where Superior Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 battle to save the future is ok but I wasn’t really invested in it. There’s a time-bomb thingy going off in 15 minutes, will Spider-Man save the day? Course he will. I suppose Peter David fans were eating it up, seeing his 2099 character making a comeback, and Dan Slott is obviously a huge fan too, but it’s a lot of the usual time-travel dialogue and future swearing (what the shock, son of a glitch, jammit, etc) and that kinda stuff just bores me.

The other storylines though are brilliant. Horizon Labs gets shut down by the government leading to Otto setting up Parker Industries with his new girlfriend Anna Maria, and Otto gets accused by Lamaze of plagiarising his own work when presenting his PhD! Carlie Cooper and Yuri Watanabe/Wraith are tracking down the source of Superior Spider-Man’s funding, leading them to Otto Octavius and getting closer to the truth, while the Goblin King amasses his growing underground group.

I really liked the scene where Otto’s wracking Peter’s memories and we see classic Spider-Man scenes with Otto in them instead of Peter - Ryan Stegman did a fantastic job of presenting them in a pseudo-Ditko style. Also in that scene, it’s subtle and you could easily miss it but Slott seems to be strongly hinting that somewhere in the recesses of Otto’s mind, Peter’s still alive in there! There’s also a brilliant scene with Black Cat - her first encounter with Superior Spider-Man - which plays out very differently to the classic Spidey/Black Cat encounters of the past in a really funny way.

I don’t know a lot about Angelina Brancale/Stunner, an overweight woman with no powers who uses a super-strong holographic avatar, but it was pretty cold to see the way Otto approached this situation - she was his girlfriend before he got Peter’s body after all. Though this is what I like about Superior, the storylines are unexpected and fresh, and this blend of super-villain prowess with heroics is a potent mix.

I feel that the new (to this series) characters in this book - 2099, Stunner - are pretty low-rent making for a less-than-brilliant fourth volume, though I still enjoyed it a lot as there’s a lot to like besides them. Slott’s writing and plotting is still first class, Stegman and Giuseppe Camuncoli’s art both continue to be among the best being published by Marvel, and Superior Spider-Man is still a must-read title, four volumes in. Can’t wait to see the next story arc involving Venom - Superior Venom! It’s gonna be shocking great!

Superior Spider-Man Vol. 4: Neccessary Evil

Superior Spider-Man Annual #1 Review (Christos Gage, Javier Rodriguez)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man Annual #1 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/6-awesome-comics-must-read-week-20-november.php/5

Superior Spider-Man #21 Review (Dan Slott, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Read my review of Superior Spider-Man #21 here: http://whatculture.com/comics/4-awesome-comics-must-read-week-13-november.php/2