The Superior Spider-Man #4:
After three issues of Otto getting along with the impression that ‘being Spider-Man is AWESOME’, things start getting a little rough for him here. Not only has dressing like Dr. Horrible and acting like a cocky jerkass surprisingly NOT ingrained him with his boss and co-workers or earned him their respect, but after searching all of his new body’s memories he’s shocked, SHOCKED to discover that Peter Parker is somehow NOT a doctor yet! This leads to table-tossing temper-tantrum hilarity, which Ghost-Peter even gets a good giggle out of (even signaling to the audience right before Otto realizes that ‘This should be good.’ At least he’s getting as much enjoyment out of this as we are.). So Otto decides to go back to school, with Peter commenting on the improbable scheduling he’ll have to do to keep up on it with all the OTHER things going on in his life, marking the first time I’ve seen anyway that a Spider-Man story acknowledges that there’s just no way the guy should be able to cram this many story-relevant activities into a day. Even if Ock’s streamlined it by patrolling the city with Spider-Bots and (reasonably) letting the Fire Department handle fires instead of swinging to every one to see if he has to help (Peter gets weirdly hung up on the whole fire thing throughout the issue). He’s even patched a special Spider-contact ‘red phone’ type thing to his Bluetooth headset that he wears as Peter Parker, which seems like a liable secret identity risk, but this comic didn’t get this far by making sense! This lets the police contact him to let him know about the super-villain-based plot starting this issue, with a bad guy named ‘Massacre’ whose superpower is…being a sociopath. No, seriously, he’s described as having a ‘superhuman lack of empathy’, and they play up just how IMPOSSIBLE TO ASSIGN VALUE TO HUMAN LIFE he is and how that brain damage apparently makes him more dangerous than, say, one of the hardcore-planning super-intellect villains out there, or guys with actual super-powers. It all sets up for a showdown between Spider-Jerk and Massa-Jerk that’ll probably look to firmly establish whether Otto will go far enough to directly kill a villain or not, even though you kinda have to sympathize with Otto’s intent when he’s pragmatically looking to permanently stop a villain that he had promised to prevent from killing before, while Ghost-Peter just parrots his old ‘No one dies’ sentiment while multiple dead bodies killed by the guy he not-killed a while back litter the floor. Especially compared to earlier in the issue where Otto’s more ruthless tactics are shown to have turned Spider-Man into a legitimate crime deterrent, with his regular patrols and Spider-Bots acting as a visible ‘police’ presence that keeps low-level criminal elements from acting out. It’s clear that Slott is trying to present evidence that Otto’s approach to Spider-Man might really be ‘Superior’ in some aspects, even if he’s likely setting it up to all come crashing down in the late game. This first thing contributing to that being the apparent return of the Green Goblin at the end of this issue, so we’ll see where that goes.
(I have no idea what the Green Goblin’s status is supposed to be in the current Marvel universe. Is it still Osborn?)
Honestly, the novelty is starting to wear off of Superior Spider-Man, as Otto’s goofy super-villain ways have subsided into simple jerkassery, and even then he’s clearly softening up a bit. Fortunately, Slott actually seems to have some idea of what he wants to do with this story, and there’s enough driving that that I’m still interested in seeing where he’s going with this whole thing. The fact that this story most likely has an ‘end’ in sight in a year or two is a motivating factor as well, so I’ll stick with it for the time being. As long as things keep moving forward, using the idea of a Super-Villain in a Super-Hero’s body, and we don’t get stuck with just stagnant Spider-Stories, I’ll stick with this thing. But it’s going to reach the end of being able to coast on goofy hilarity value soon, unless it opts to get a lot more ridiculous.
GI Joe #1:
And into the fray I go. At first, I was concerned, as the first few pages have Joe Colton opining everything about military stories that had me avoiding this series for so long, until I got past those pages, and realized what Van Lente was *really* doing. It’s a borderline-deconstructive-parody of GI Joe as the world knows it, which is perfect for me, and Van Lente knows exactly what he’s doing here, making keen points about code names, embedded reporters, and the compromises a team has to make when it’s trying to subsist on public spectacle like this. Apparently Cobra’s exposure of GI Joe in the preceding story arc is what kicked off this renumbering and new direction, and ironically instead of destroying the group, they’ve actually turned it into the team everyone (should) know and love. Showing the group’s dour professionalism clashing with their public ‘image’ is something Van Lente’s writing style lends itself well to, and it’s nice to see him flex his muscles in a less, uh, ‘sanitized’ environment that Marvel Adventures (the ‘Badass’ exchange between Duke and Shipwreck was a great opining on the subject of codenames, even if it does come across as partially lifted from Reservoir Dogs). It’s GI Joe as the team that can’t quite be taken seriously, ending up in situations where that severely handicaps or endangers them, and that’s a neat enough idea, not to mention coincidentally plays off my own earlier outside impression of the franchise nicely. I’ll stick around for this one, at least because Van Lente expectedly pens it as a very enjoyable read.
Costa’s apparently got a new ‘Cobra’ themed series coming out alongside this one, so I might give that a look-see too.
Also, I’m not gonna review the whole thing, but I’ll just say I was pleasantly surprised by how good the MLP Twilight Sparkle one-shot turned out, especially in finally answering a question I’ve had for some time, “Where are all of Celestia’s friends?”
Dom wrote:MLP Micro Series (Twilight Sparkle) #1:
When I paid for this, I asked for it to be put in a plain, brown wrapper. The guy at the comic shop pointed out that such requests have not always been made humourously.
Considering the MLP comics are reportedly the best-selling in years, outselling even stuff like the #700 of Amazing Spider-Man by a landslide, I don't see what the issue would be.
