Superior Spider-Man 6
Slott (w) and Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado (c)
As the Avengers discuss how to handle Spider-Man's recent attitude change and his even more recent murder of Massacre, Spider-Man himself is hired by J. Jonah Jameson to track down and teach a lesson to prankster villains Screwball and Jester. The two are tech-based and have an internet following for their prank videos that feature the pair tormenting normal people. Their biggest target was Jameson and, being the sensible guy he is, he immediately dispatches new friend Spider-Man on them. Peter, hunting around in Doc's memories, is suddenly dragged to a memory of Ock being bullied as a child, giving us Doc's motivation for the rest of the issue. While at a meeting with his new professor (as he tries to get Peter a doctorate) and his new love interest (Anna Maria Marconi), his spidey-bots track the pranksters down and Spidey makes his move. Meanwhile, the Avengers meet to consider revoking Spider-Man's Avenger status. They agree, on Wolverine's demand, to give Spidey a little more time while they watch his actions. Right on cue, Spider-Man is put live on Screwball and Jester's website absolutely destroying the pair while screaming about the cost of bullying. Next issue we'll see the Avengers approach Spidey and possibly kick him out.
This is more the inciting incident that should lead to the climax of our story than it is the climax of our story. Yes there are important things happening plot-wise (Peter is still looking for a way to regain control of his body, Doc is getting more and more brutal, a pair of internet villains have been introduced and also shut down, etc.), but this really was a stepping stone to get us into this new arc as the Avengers approach Spidey and have to start asking questions of this new behavior. The Avengers are no stranger to villains taking over a hero's body (I've mentioned it before, but Red Skull once switched bodies with Cap thanks to the Cosmic Cube and used the whole situation to walk around as Cap, signing autographs but also being kind of a jerk to people. THAT'S a supervillain, am I right?) and they must have something in place where they can recognize this change. If I was an Avenger in the 616, I'd have seen Spider-Man do one thing that was slightly off-kilter and I'd be asking myself who he really was. Skrull? Supervillain? Possessed? All kinds of answers. The Avengers have got to have those questions or else I'm losing some credulity.
Ultimate Spider-Man 21
Bendis (w) and Pichelli (a) and Ponsor (c)
Venom is still on the warpath in Ultimate Spider-Man as he tears a new path through the sewers to the hospital where Jefferson Morales is being treated. Meanwhile, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson have taken it upon themselves to teach Miles about Venom and symbiotes and lots of other things that people who have read Spider-Man or Ultimate Spider-Man before Miles took over already knew about. I sometimes forget that there are readers like that and this issue was maybe more for them. I'm still not sure it takes a full issue of two teenage girls cutting each other off left and right to teach the reader about the newest threat. I'm sure the reader could learn about it as we go. Or maybe could get a couple quick lines about what a symbiote is and be pretty well caught up. Then Maria Hill shows up because this is a Brian Michael Bendis book and she seems to know that Miles is Spider-Man because Gwen and MJ warned him about talking in the street in front of police about vaguely worded Spider-Man kind of things but didn't seem to think it would be suspicious when two people intimately connected with the original Spider-Man show up to this kid's house. And that's it. That's what happens.
I've mentioned before that I'm sick of unnecessarily long ideas taking up full issues of comics and loading the beginning and ending of arcs with action and letting the middle issues stew. This is another in that line of comics. I think some important things happened but I think that, by and large, they were things that could have happened over maybe three to five pages. I'm not sure you need to reintroduce MJ and Gwen to Miles' universe. So what you end up needing, depending on where the series is going, is for Maria Hill to deduce that Miles is Spidey, for Venom to attack Jefferson again, for a short explanation of symbiotes and Venom, and for Miles to struggle a bit with what just happened. Five to ten pages, instead of the twenty this issue took. That means you're loading up half the issue with filler and stuff that doesn't matter. It's a great formula for upsetting the fans who paid for this issue. Or, in the very least, for upsetting me, which seems to be a constant.
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