Superior Spider-Man 25

Superior Spider-Man 25
Slott and Gage (w) and Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado, Fabela, and Gandini (c)

With the Venom symbiote, Spider-Man is stronger and faster than ever, giving him the upper hand in even his battle with the Avengers, called to the scene by Mary Jane. The only person that the Avengers can hope might help is Flash Thompson, who Iron Man goes to check in on at Parker Industries. Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper has been transformed into one of the Goblins with the Goblin serum though there's hope yet that not all is as it seems. She has yet to give away Spider-Man's true identity, claiming that she'll only give it when she's sure who her Goblin boss is. He claims to be Norman Osborn but won't lift his mask to confirm it until she's proven she's true to the Goblins and not to the NYPD so he sends her, under her new codename Monster, and Menace to go rough up some more of the Hobgoblin's men. Monster plays the part well (either because she really is full Goblin now or she's trying to get into the Goblin King's good books) and the result pleases Goblin King, who then declares an official war on Hobgoblin. Back in the city, Tony Stark shows up to the Spider-Man fight and sends Flash at Spidey with the Iron Man armor on. The surprise attack works as it's supposed to, granting Flash the opportunity to get the symbiote to come back to him but the symbiote refuses, realizing that it has more freedom with Spider-Man than it did with Flash, who tried to control it with drugs. With Spider-Man, it's been given free range and has very quietly pretty much taken control. Doc Ock realizes a moment too late that he really doesn't have much control any more and tries to force the symbiote out. By himself, he's too weak to do it but he gets help from none other than Peter Parker, not fully erased from his own mind after all. With the symbiote removed and Flash back in control of it, Peter goes back into hiding while he plots and plans and Otto announces that he's all better, that the symbiote that's been changing his behavior for months now has been eradicated and he's back to his normal self. MJ buys Otto's line when he appears to her that night but the Avengers absolutely do not and Stark, when he learns about the tests the Avengers ran on him back when he was in space, finds that someone has deleted all of the tests and the footage from that day from all security cameras but one. Cap calls for the Avengers to bring Spider-Man in.

Oh what a day, everyone, as it does indeed seem as if Peter Parker is truly coming back. Sadly, as I AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (oh my god, look at that beautiful Marcos Martin variant at right). I'm not surprised, per se (though I'm both surprised and unsurprised by the 5.99 price tag on that first issue which, admittedly, is 64 pages, but still), but I can't say I'm also not happy. Do I like SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN and the changes it's brought? Sure. I think it's stagnated just a tiny bit in the last couple of arcs (though I think, looking at the broad strokes of it, it was still rather interesting and very well done) but I think the idea has always been there and I am very impressed that Dan Slott kept Peter Parker dead for nearly a year and a half, come April. In this world where we're so used to heroes dying and being resurrected, there's now no bigger example. It was never a question of "if," it was a question of "when" and "how." Slott's left the pieces in place and done a pretty great job of it and now I think everyone will be better for it. More impressively, perhaps, the Goblin War storyline will push forward in the midst of all of this, meaning that Slott will carry two major stories out at the same time and both will likely be instrumental to the book and pretty epic in scale, all while he writes more established characters than ever, between Otto and Peter, the Spider-Man supporting cast, the Avengers, the Goblins, and (admittedly not in this book but Slott's still busy writing it, you guys) Silver Surfer. Should be a really fun time going forward, though I don't look forward to writing "Goblin" more times than I had to today, even. That word is WEIRD.
mentioned in the pre-game this week, the news was rather spoiled by the April solicits, which revealed a new title coming, or rather an old title returning, as we'll see the launch of