Superior Spider-Man 10, Scarlet Spider 17

Superior Spider-Man 10
Slott (w) and Stegman and C. Smith (a) and Delgado (c)

After the events of last issue, Peter Parker seems officially to be gone from the Marvel Universe. There's no longer a trace of Peter inside his old body or inside his old brain so any Peters that might be lurking out there are unbeknownst to us as yet. Doc Ock knows it too and revels in it, knowing that now he can fully be the Spider-Man he wants to be. As I've mentioned on this blog, that's a more brutal Spider-Man but quite possibly a more effective one. His goal is, as he states, not to treat the symptoms, which he criticizes Parker for doing, but to eliminate the disease. He wants to snuff crime out from the source. His spider-bots, monitoring the city for crime, have allowed him to get a jump on that including, in this issue, taking down three major supervillain gang leaders in the Owl, the White Dragon, and Tombstone. Satisfied with that work, he doesn't stop their scurrying henchmen, who all end up recruited by one of the many Goblins out there right now, this one dubbing him/herself as the Goblin King, who had also recruited Vulture's child henchmen. Add to that the fact that the Goblin King has figured out a flaw in the spider-bot programming that allowed him or her to go unseen and there's something of a massive problem on the horizon for Superior Spider-Man. On top of his issues with the criminals of the town, Doc Ock, despite throwing the Avengers off his trail, has attracted the suspicions of both Carlie Cooper and Mary Jane Watson with his recent behavior, which also includes going back to school to earn his doctorate and dating his tutor for the class he needs. All sorts of things happening with this new Spidey.

I've already expressed sadness over the loss of Peter Parker but I've also expressed interest in how well this series is shaping up. On top of the fact that it's a good comic helmed by a guy who absolutely seems to know what he's doing with his book, Doc Ock has proved to be a rather fascinating character in the shoes of Peter Parker. Like I said, it can definitely be argued that he's a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker was (though we'd probably need more time to fully evaluate that statement) and his obsession with planning out his moves makes for both a very different character than Peter and a very entertaining one. If a planner sort of person is written well, he or she makes for one of the better characters to see in any medium. It's like Nick Fury; when he's written well and you can see the wheels within wheels part of him at work, you don't ever want to put down the series. Black Panther can often run the same way, on top of being one of the coolest and most mysterious heroes out there. I don't know if Ock can reach those sorts of levels (his personality as a whole is nowhere near the personality of the aforementioned two) but he can certain make for a good series.

Scarlet Spider 17
Yost (w) and Barberi and Wong (a) and Lokus (c)

After fending off an attack from the Assassin's Guild once several arcs ago, Kaine agreed to a deal with them: in exchange for leaving his friends alone, Kaine would kill someone for them at some point. That time has come and the Guild wants Wolverine dead. Kaine brings Aracely with him to Westchester and sends a costumed Aracely in posing as a young mutant. It's maybe not the best plan, considering how many telepaths are on call at the Jean Grey School, but it gives Kaine time to invisible his way in there. The pair are promptly discovered and the X-Men engage them, only to have Aracely accidentally incapacitate half the team with her weird powers and for Kaine to take out Bobby and Beast. When Wolverine finally joins the action, he and Kaine start slugging it out too, ending when Prey makes an appearance (maybe we should call him Predator. I don't know. Whatever's inside Kaine that constantly names everything else Prey) and stops Wolverine's heart. The issue ends as Kaine asks the other X-Men who's next.

This is Wolverine we're talking about so ripping his heart in half isn't really a fatal blow to the healing mutant. Well, it is. But he can probably come back from it. Perhaps that's the way this little arc is headed, with the Guild's terms met (kill Wolverine; he's officially done that now, the deal didn't specify that they had to stay dead). Still, it raises more interesting character questions about both Kaine, who continues to be more brutal than Peter Parker and more willing to kill cherished mutant heroes, and Aracely, whose powers are still somewhat undefined and whose background is doubly so. The writing continues to be largely good and pretty fun and Yost's grasp of the characters at the Jean Grey School is not unimpressive. Looking forward to the further interplay between Kaine and the X-Men, especially on the heels of killing Wolverine without too, too much difficulty. This solid spinoff continues to be solid and seems to be a pretty well-established book in Marvel's stables right now. Weird that at number 17, you can have more issues under the belt than most titles out there. Such is the downfall of rebranding.