Superior Spider-Man 17, Venom 40, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3

Superior Spider-Man 17
Slott (w) and Stegman and Livesay (a) and Delgado (c)

The rips in the time stream opened up by Bendis in Age of Ultron and dutifully ignored by Bendis in Battle of the Atom (yes, I'm still mad) are now impacting the Spider-Man world as Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099, is starting to see the effects of the rips. He's sure that it's caused by Alchemax, the evil science corporation of the future, and goes to investigate. While the time rips are particularly problematic for Alchemax, they haven't been caused by them and they convince O'Hara to go back to the Heroic Age, where they've realized the rips are originating from. He reluctantly agrees and enters the timestream with a device Alchemax has. Meanwhile, Max Modell is being taken into custody for all sorts of offenses (which boil down to the events of the last few years for Spider-Man) and his arrest is also triggering a hostile takeover of Horizon Labs by Allan Chemical (led by Liz Allan, ex-wife of Harry Osborn and mother of his son Norman) and Tiberius Stone, current enemy of Spider-Man and Modell and eventual father of Alchemax's Tyler Stone (and grandfather of Miguel O'Hara. What a twisted world this all is). Spider-Man is furious with the takeover and stops their cars as they leave. Back at Horizon, Grady decides they should use his new and improved time door to go back and prove Stone was behind most of the problems Modell was involved in. Before they can do it, though, Spider-Man 2099 comes out of the door (that was the time machine Alchemax had!) and Alchemax is revealed to be, probably, some sort of mash-up name involving Allan Chemical. 2099 runs out to find the source of the time rips and comes across Spider-Man preparing to attack Tiberius Stone.

I like the mythos of Spider-Man 2099 and I think it's an interesting story to deal with, particularly as it puts a Spider-Man in a place one hasn't totally been before. There's some amount of Spider-Man vs. evil corporations in the present but he's mostly against specific men and women. 2099 is up against an evil corporation that mostly runs the world and it's an interesting idea. That said, I would say this is the weakest issue of Superior Spider-Man yet. It really drags as we have just altogether too much exposition that needs to come out. I don't know how you tell this story without as much exposition as you have other than trusting your audience to piece things together, but there are a lot of old-comics moments where a character flat out erases subtext and makes everything just text. Not a lot of "show not tell." In addition, I really really can't stand fake swear words. I've mentioned this before at some time or another on this blog but I just can't deal with them. I think they're distracting and stupid. The rest of the English language survived intact to the future but the swears changed? And in this case, they changed to words that already exist as words that don't mean anything negative? Words like jam, shock, and bitheads (that one may be a legitimate title but I don't know and it fits in the way they created the other swears) suddenly are swears and are used seemingly non-stop. I know it sounds petty but it's really not. If you make up swears and they don't work, you're pulling the audience out of the moment they were in and forcing them to ask a lot of questions that aren't worth asking and that they never would have asked otherwise. And it just sounds so stupid. Decent plot behind this issue so I'm hoping the next one will be a little less encumbered by exposition. Otherwise, fairly weak issue.

Venom 40
Bunn (w) and Coelho (a) and Loughridge (c)

The questions about Andi and the symbiote, collectively named Mania, persist and Venom wants to get to the bottom of it. The two have a bit of a chat wherein she's more aggressive than Flash would like, vowing to kill Ogre and his people for what they did to her dad. He admits that he doesn't know her so well that he should know how aggressive she normally is but he does know how the symbiote sounds and it sounds more like symbiote than human. He has to go out of town for a bit as Katy Kiernan calls him to Austin for something he needs to see but promises Mania that they'll both go after Ogre together when he returns. She isn't bothering to wait, though, as she starts tearing the city apart searching for Ogre. Her methods and attitude are brutal and she manages to get face-to-face with Ogre, killing or disabling some of his lieutenants before he slinks away. Meanwhile, Venom arrives in Austin to find Katy at a morgue. Katy shows him her find: Daimon Hellstrom, dead, with the pentagram on his chest skinned off. Venom argues that Daimon is still locked away in Virginia, where Flash left him the last time they met, and Katy informs him that this isn't the only "Daimon" who's been killed and skinned lately. Venom visits Virginia and talks with Hellstrom, who informs him that the pentagram is essentially a ticket to be chosen as a new hell lord, which would make Venom a target as much as it would make Hellstrom a target if Venom still had his demon. However, Hellstrom points out, he doesn't. Wherever it is, it's not on Flash. Of course, we see that it's on Mania who suddenly finds herself not only targeted by Lord Ogre, but also by Crossbones and a slew of other henchmen who want control of hell.

Really interesting story and it's well presented. There's a lot going on here but it never feels like it drags or like there's too much explanation. Both stories that are running are intriguing ones and it's interesting how Bunn is choosing to now combine the storylines, with the hunt for Lord Ogre by the new and mysterious symbiote complicated by Crossbones' quest for pentagrams to become a new hell lord. There's plenty happening here but it never feels overwhelming nor over-explained. It's a solid issue through and through. The art change is a little jarring at first but it works, particularly with people in costume or symbiote (I didn't love Coelho's faces, which look a little emptier and more static, but his action and his bodies are impressive). Still sad that we're losing this book as it's been consistently good and it's certainly the book that's made me most confident in Cullen Bunn. Excited to see where this all goes as we press forward. Also, every issue continues to feature an astounding cover by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire. Worth it every time for that alone.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3
Spencer (w) and S. Lieber (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Boomerang's been assigned former villainous teammate the Beetle, now Mach VII, as a parole officer upon his release from jail. This doesn't thrill Boomerang, who explains at length to the audience the way that villains feel about other villains who have given up the life or switched sides (they're fine with guys who give up the life, less fine with guys who turn evidence on old friends, and really not fine with guys who go hero). We also get an in-depth look at what may have happened with the head of Silvio Silvermane. Silvermane had been a powerful mob boss running powerful mob in the city before his body started to give out on him. One of his last ditch efforts to keep things running was to wear a metal suit that kept him alive. In a fight with the Owl, the head got knocked off and was found by Owl, who kept it (still alive, thanks to the cybernetics in the headpiece) in order to torture the old mob boss. The head is worth a ton as it means the Silvermane line is still running if someone can turn up with it and it's Boomerang and his team's mission to try to find it, which is aided by the fact that Boomerang was once a trusted lieutenant of Owl. Unfortunately for Boomerang, his team has decided that the sudden introduction of a superhero in Mach VII to Boomerang's life has made him too vulnerable and they cut him loose. He's understandably very angry about this and fights back against the team, getting no where. After he leaves the team HQ, he calls Mach VII to attend some supervillain AA group where he shows signs of remorse, at least enough that he then tells Mach VII what his team is up to and asks him to send some of his superpowered pals to stop them. The issue ends with the original Heroes for Hire, Luke Cage and Danny Rand (weirdly, in a suit with his typical Iron Fist mask on), busting down the wall of the HQ.

Can't say I'm not really excited to get some Iron Fist/Heroes for Hire action out of the next issue (not a huge Luke Cage fan, though I warm on him the longer he's not Bendis' obsession). The story in this book continues to be of mild interest and the dynamics of supervillains, particularly C-list supervillains, continues to be pretty fun and a relatively fresh take. There's still a bit too much narrative for my liking; there are a couple theories expounded on where Silvermane's head could be and it takes a couple of pages of long narration to get through and I think it drags the book unnecessarily, especially considering Boomerang is so sold on one of the theories, having been Owl's lieutenant for so long. If you want to make a joke on the other theories (one is that a young boy found the head and eventually they became unlikely friends in what may be a nod to Iron Man 3 or, potentially, so many other things), you're free to do that, just, I'd recommend, make it a lot tighter. Still, the highlights of the series continue to come as the supervillains talk with one another or interact with the world. Boomerang's narration is nice in that it stays in character and gives us a good sense of who he is, but I'm not sure it's needed at this length. Otherwise, standard pretty good stuff. This series feels a little like one that Marvel would have, maybe as recent as a few years ago, ran as a shorter series in the back of some book or another, a five page bonus story that ran for a few issues on the tail of another book. It's interesting to see they've taken a risk with it as a full series. If it pays off, it could have a significant impact on the sorts of books we see coming from Marvel. That's if it pays off, though.