The Superior Spider-Man #31 – Review

By: Dan Slott & Christos Gage (Writers), Giuseppe Camuncoli & Will Silney (Pencilers), Antonio Fabela & Edgar Delgado (Colours)

The Story: The end of an era as a hero is reborn, things change for the supporting cast and the Parker luck remains a true constant.

The Review: Dan Slott really knows how to tell a Spider-man story. The conclusion to Goblin Nation and Superior Spider-man as a whole contains a lot imagery that is evocative of classic Spider-man tales, from the opening scene of the Green Goblin holding Anna Marconi out over a great height a la Gwen Stacy to the final panel of Spider-man realizing that he was unable to uphold his vow that ‘no one dies’, this issue really does feel like an archetypical Spider-man story.

Part of the reason for this is because the supporting characters all get a moment to shine in this oversized issue, Spider-man is always at its best when we get to witness the continued evolution of the book’s cast and in this issue almost every character who has had a sizeable presence in Superior Spider-man thus far receives a moment in the sun that illuminates their character, from Phil Urich’s enduring cowardice to Tiberous Stone’s treachery or Ollie’s snarky comments regarding M.J’s ex.

Where the book’s plot shines is in the sleight of hand element of the Green Goblin’s plan, while he’s been building his Goblin Nation throughout the run of the book deft readers will also have observed the rise of another empire in the form of Alchemax. It is a credit to Slott’s plotting that many readers (myself included) didn’t put the pieces together until this final issue.

Superior Spider-Man #29 – Review

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage (Writers), Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell (Artist), Antonio Fabela (Colorist)

The Story: To say that Otto’s current life is getting destroyed would be an understatement.

The Review: Any arc or story needs to accomplish something. Either for the world or the character, something needs to change or have a certain impact on the ongoing process of something. Call it progression, evolution or development, any story needs to have something exciting happen in order to entice readers and ramp up excitement for whatever comes next.

In many ways, this is what both Dan Slott and Christos Gage manage to do in this very issue, yet in a way that is weird and grim, much like the tone of the series in general. Advancing the final storyline of the title, Goblin Nation, along, both writers gives plenty of things for fans to appreciate, yet doesn’t do so in the best of ways most of the time.

What they do right, though, is present the actual threat of the Goblin King as being credible. Showing his skills, resources, minions and the chaos that he is spreading in the city, the very menace he is does get across quite well. The character himself, in many ways, is no slouch himself, as he toys with Otto both physically and mentally, giving him a challenge that makes him desperate in many ways.

Where it’s a little bit more difficult to appreciate the book is in how dark it is, though. While the comeuppance of Otto has been a long time coming, the general sense of hopelessness and the powerless struggle of Otto isn’t always that entertaining. While it does comes as a natural progression to the storyline of this book as well as a fitting development for the character, it becomes a bit too much after a few scenes focusing on Otto losing badly. They say you usually gets what’s coming to you, but there’s a certain sense of dread at seeing Otto and everyone pays up because of an emphasis on the villain winning right now.

Superior Spider-Man #28 – Review

by Dan Slott (Writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell (Artists), Antonio Fabela (Colorist)

The Story: The Goblin Nation gets even worse as Otto needs to prepare himself to counter-attack. The only thing, though, is that he’s not the only one in that regard…

The Review: Tempering our expectations is something that every enthusiast of anything should learn to do. To have any kind of hope toward something can lead to disappointment, which can be earned or not. Still, with many marketing strategy built around the fact that people must be excited and eager to find out what any product does or can succeed at, it’s something that can be particularly hard to achieve.

It is why the very last storyline of this book has quite a lot to live up to. With the controversial series building up to this particular arc, the creative team has a lot to work with, yet also huge challenges to meet if they want to end this whole experimentation on a high note.

With such information being released to the readers, one cannot help but be a tad underwhelmed by this particular issue for various reasons. While it doesn’t do anything of bad quality or things that are questionable at best, it suffers a bit from middle-chapter syndrome. It brings a lot of elements upfront and explains some details that are vital for the continuation of the story, yet sacrifice some of the better aspects in order to do just that.

Superior Spider-Man #27 – Review

by Dan Slott (Writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell (Artists), Antonio Fabela (Colorist)

The Story: The reign of the Goblin King begins as his handle on New-York baffles Spider-Ock.

The Review: It’s hard to forget the fact that this is somehow the finale arc for this title. While the news that Peter Parker will be back in April does permeate this issue, his return is still in a few months, which makes reading Spider-Ock somewhat of a different experience now. With some actually lamenting the fact that Otto might go away and some happy about his eventual disappearance, this last arc has quite a lot to live to.

Thankfully, it seems that Dan Slott understand this very much, using quite a lot of the build up cemented in the series as a whole in order to amplify things up considerably. With quite a lot happening and many of the plot threads converging, the writer brings a lot here to satisfy fans of this particular experiment. However, does he succeed with his opening issue or are there some weaknesses bringing things down?

In many respects, Slott does a lot of things right here, the first of them being the scenes revolving around Otto Octavius. Still being the generally devious and scheming kind, what’s actually quite interesting here is how the story shows Otto being out of his depths. With all the various moments in the series with him being prepared for anything and being a generally utilitarian and efficient super hero, the stark contrast with him being on the receiving end of an elaborate scheme makes for a rather interesting read, especially due to his reactions. How he interacts with the Goblin King, how he tries to clear the mystery of where he is hiding and how he has difficulty juggling with being Spider-Man and the head of Parker industries does make for a nice extrapolation of Otto’s many faults, which makes him rather interesting to read in this issue.