The Beginning Of The End: The Superior Spider-Man #25 Review

Editor’s Note: Ah, but my dear Spider-Woman… I so want to spoil you. And I can no longer think of a reason not to.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’ve been pretty vocal recently that, while I’m generally enjoying Dan Slott’s tale of Doc Ock as Spider-Man in The Superior Spider-Man, it’s felt like it’s been dragging along for a while to me. With the foregone conclusion that Peter Parker would eventually be returning as Spider-Man – a foregone conclusion that has been bourne out by recent news (spoilers at that link, by the way) – I had passed the point where I was fully engaged in seeing how Doc Ock would operate as Spider-Man and had reached the point where I wanted to see how things turned out to put Peter back into the suit. Picture it like sex: foreplay is fun and all, but as a wise man once said, eventually you gotta go into the trenches and bump uglies. So to speak.

Well, we are now on the 25th issue of The Superior Spider-Man – an impressive feat, considering the first issue was only a year ago – and now we’ve got some solid rising action moving toward a denouement of this whole Otto situation. Writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage take a solid step in this issue toward yanking the rug out from under Otto, showing cracks in his public image, suspicion from Spider-Man’s allies, and some real opposition from someone who can actually get to the bottom of this whole Ock / Spider-Man situation.

After months of foreplay, characters are finally starting to bump Editor’s Note: Rob, this metaphor is a dicey pile of shit. Move along. -Amanda

Ahem. Anyway.

The Venom symbiote is like crystal meth: it’s a hell of a drug that will utterly ruin anyone unprepared for it. Which is most people. Including Otto Octavius, who is one bad Venom bump away from disassembling his television with two cybernetic arms while digging for imaginary bugs beneath the skin of his armpits with the other two. The Venom symbiote has Otto amped up enough to take on The Avengers (who think that it’s Peter Parker under all that muck – or at least they kinda think it is), and to order his minions on Spider-Island to put all his Spider-Bots and troops into action. Hobgoblin and Green Goblin are taking advantage of the confusion take some shots at each other… including Green Gobby’s new minion Monster, who is Carlie Cooper after a dose of Goblin Serum (which is also a hell of a drug), and ready to do some damage in exchange for confirmation that the man behind the green mask is Norman Osborn. Meanwhile, Captain America has sent someone to make sure that Corporal Flash Thompson is still okay, and everyone involved would prefer that Flash has custody of Venom. But while custody negotiations drag on (including one long-missing third-party negotiator), Mssr.s Goblin have agreed to disagree, concluding a conversation that was always doomed to end in a gunshot. Or a pumpkin bomb.

So one thing this issue’s got is action. Pretty much up until the last couple of pages, this book is chock-a-bloc with tights and fights, from Otto taking on The Avengers (and the big guns, like Thor and Captain America… although with Otto’s relationship with The Mighty Avengers, I would have liked to have seen a couple of those guys getting into the mix) to the Goblins’ soldiers and minions going at it. So not only is there enough spectacle to keep you engaged, but it is not empty spectacle.

There are bits of business with both Otto and Carlie in the midst of all this carnage that speaks a lot about each character. That line I reference in my stupid Editor’s Note / Spoiler Warning at the top of the page, where Otto declares he wants to hurt Spider-Woman, speaks volumes about the character and how he’s been motivated and functioning for the past year. It’s a single line, But the idea of a guy who has been acting heroically while constantly convincing himself that he shouldn’t just cut loose and start kicking ass on a whim, is actually kind of chilling.

And Carlie’s turn toward the Dark Side while under the influence of Goblin Venom is… interesting. Sure, she’s physically changed, and she seems willing to hammer at at least one guy without obvious remorse, but at the same time she’s trying mightily to confirm that this Green Goblin is actually Norman Osborn, and she guy she wiped out was a bag guy working for Hobgoblin, and she didn’t use lethal force. So I’m intrigued about what’s going on with her – are we gonna find out that she’s still in cop investigation mode because Goblin Venom only makes you apeshit crazy if you’re already somewhere on the crap end of the nutso spectrum? Or has she actually been driven evil by the poison and is working some kind of evil angle? It’s interesting stuff.

But the most heartening things in the issue are the start of the obvious unraveling of Otto’s reign as Spider-Man. Slott and Gage give us scenes of the general populace beginning to push back against Otto’s surveillance state enforcement of order, Otto’s Arachnauts beginning to acknowledge that they might be working for a dangerous nutjob, and The Avengers finally understanding that there is something very wrong with Spider-Man… something that requires his arrest. And now I’ll give a big spoiler alert…

Goddamn, it was good to see Peter Parker again, and not just as an impotent concept in Otto’s mind, but one that’s actually able to assert his will on his environment. Seeing Peter’s consciousness not only existing, but able to use his will to overcome something that Otto cannot. And the overall effect of seeing the people around Otto rebelling and Peter able to triumph in a way Otto couldn’t did something that this series has needed to do for a while: give the story a sense that it is moving toward a conclusion. And a potentially pretty satisfying one at that, where Otto – who, lest we forget after a year of him in Spider-Man’s costume, is arguably Spidey’s arch-nemesis, and one who tried to blackmail the entire planet with a homemade climate catastrophe about two years ago – takes it in the shitter from all fronts. We saw Mayor Jameson getting ready to push back against Otto a couple of issue back, and now the general public, The Avengers, and his own Goddamned brain are starting to turn against him, and it teases a spectacular fall for a really bad guy that I figure is about three or four months overdue.

I’ve gone on record that Humberto Ramos isn’t my favorite artist in the world; his stuff is very manga-reminiscent to me, with big eyes and cartoony, stylized figures, and that’s not a style that’s to my personal preference. But there’s no denying the guy can do a good, dynamic action sequence. He moves the camera to keep things interesting, and his panel layout is easy to follow, with the odd big panel thrown in (with a lot of cool stuff going on in it) to slow the reader down from time to time. That said, there is one panel where Monster hits Steeplejack and, despite Steeplejack’s full face mask, Ramos makes it clear that he may have just crapped in his silly green pants, but call that the manga style rearing its head. All in all, it’s effective art, if not to my personal taste.

The Superior Spider-Man #25 does everything that I’ve wanted in this storyline for a few months now. It shows us that there is a path to the conclusion. Otto’s game is starting to fall apart on every level, the walls are closing in, and most importantly, Peter Parker is back, and showing that he’s stronger than we’ve thought since he died (ah, comics!). At this point, I figure I’ve seen what Otto Octavius has to offer as Spider-Man; now I want to see him fall. And I feel like we’re finally beginning to see that happen. If you’ve checked out of The Superior Spider-Man because you’re sick of Otto in the suit, this is a good place to jump back in. This is a good one.