Superior Spider-Man: The Complete Collection Vol. 1
Along side new comics I’ve been catching up on key events in the big wide world of comics. So if you are like me and don’t like waiting a month to read the new issue, I’ve got some trade reviews coming your way! This week is focusing on Superior Spider-Man Vol 1!
This collection consists of issues:
Amazing Spider-Man 698-700
Spider Dreams
Date Night
Superior Spider-Man 1-16
It’s a pretty thick paperback, and I’m not really the biggest Spider-Fan, but I think it’s well worth the effort! To give a bit of context, this series follows after Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavius, viciously attacks Peter’s mind using an octobot. You see, Octavius is dying in a high security prison trapped in an iron lung, unable to move. His last ditch effort is to use his mental connection with his robots to match brain frequencies with Peter in order to transfer their minds. Spoiler Alert. He succeeds. The Superior Spider-Man is none other than Otto Octavius, now inhabiting the body of the man he left to die in his place.
As always, spoilers and reviews under the cut!
See you space cowboys...
Story & Visuals
As I’ve stated before, I’ve never been a huge fan of Spider-Man, so my knowledge comes mostly from the cartoons as a kid. BUT. I have always thought those cartoon villains were some of the best! Kraven, Morbius, Lizard/Dr Connors... those guys always stuck out to me as great characters because they were multidimensional. They lived by some sort of code, constantly reflecting on their actions and redirecting their goals. At the time, Doc Oct was none of that. He was a joke, someone who’s ego drove him mad and who never failed to be a failure. This book changed my view on him as a character. Do I still think he is a dingus-bat creep-a-zoid with greasy hair and a sleaze face? Absolutely.
Let’s start with visuals. Being a collection, the artists change quite a bit, but it’s not distracting and is consistent enough that when you are absorbed into the book, you hardly notice the shift.I wasn’t so sure how I felt about the art style when I began reading as everything was so dramatic with hard, harsh shadows and the regular use of black as the color margins between panels. But then, I realized how well it fit with the narration. Parker’s mind has been taken over, he is losing control of his life, and Otto Octavius is the drudged up slime pit that is doing it. It makes sense! Otto is an edgelord drama kween!
The writing gives Octavius brief moments of brilliance, these flashpoints where he is happy, where he is doing something good for someone, and then at just the moment where you want to congratulate Otto for his deeds he takes it a step further. As the reader I can’t do anything to rectify the situation and I can just feel this disgusting sinking feeling in my gut because I know what happens next, and it’s not good. At some point Octavius, as Spider-Man, creates an army od Spider-Bots to keep watch over the city and allows him time for personal affairs, such as visiting Aunt May during a physical therapy session. Except it goes big-brother level and soon he has infested the city with a crawling swarm of spy cams... Gross.
My favorite issue in the collection is Joking Hazard, which I believe is issue 6 of Superior Spider-Man. There are a lot of quick, short bits of personal development that fit perfectly into the pacing of the issue, but I’m going to focus on Jester and Screwball. These two are essentially internet pranksters who get their entertainment from humiliating prominent public figures (they hit Jameson with a pie in the face and depants him in the first 3 pages). Octavius, a man of pride, can not handle the humiliation. It breaks him. This is the most aggressive, most fearsome depiction of Spider-Man in the whole book. He loses his humanity, and you can see the instant that it happens. It’s a great lead in to the next half of the collection because you know it’s over. It’s all down hill from here and we are just along for the ride.
Thanks for reading! Let’s wrap this up before we get too tangled in the webssssss, haha get it?
Ratings:
Overall
9.5/10 - As much as I hated watching Peter’s life fall apart, I have to admit that it was an interesting read and a good narrative.
Butts
2/10 - I guess old Otto is a pretty conservative guy and doesn’t often point his butt towards the camera... The cheek shots you do get are WEAK!
Creep Factor
154315431/10 - Bruh.
Chances of Picking Up the Next Volume:
I’m gonna do it. I’m really going to read another Spider-Man book...
#BookReview Kindred by Octavia E. Butler #Tuesdaybookblog #scifi
Dana finds herself inexplicably able to time travel on her twenty-sixth birthday, however, early eighteen hundreds Maryland is not a safe place for an African American woman from nineteen seventy-six to suddenly appear. It soon becomes apparent to Dana that she seems to be summoned to the past whenever a young boy called Rufus is in mortal danger, but time runs differently for Dana in the past…
