Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Although retitled, Yost essentially continues the story that he was telling in “Avenging Spider-Man,” of Otto increasingly isolating himself from the superhero community (a rather wry take on “team-up,” to be honest).  Here, Otto somewhat mends fences with the Avengers, despite pretty much admitting to Cap that he didn’t care whether or not he killed Hyperion in trying to eliminate the Carrion Virus from his body.  Interestingly, I noticed that Otto has really stopped trying to "sound" like Spider-Man.  In the early issues of this series (most notably, "Superior Spider-Man" #6 AU), Otto put some effort into sounding like Peter did when he was Spider-Man, chatty and quippy.  He's abandoned that entirely now, probably the reason that people like the Kingpin (in "Superior Spider-Man" #14) are putting two and two together and realizing that they're dealing with a different Spider-Man.  It's just one more reflection of how Otto is having a harder and harder time of seeing his starting point, particularly now that he's no longer carrying around Peter's memories.  It seems to support the idea that this series is going to show us Otto continuing to be estranged from his former allies as he "teams-up" with them.

We also get a better sense of Spidey’s plans for the Sinister Six, with him seemingly deciding that he wants to form a “superior” team with them (and not the Avengers).  The problem, of course, is that the Sinister Six are unlikely to agree to form an alliance with Spidey, particularly after he’s kept them captive.  It raises the question if Otto is going to reveal his identity to them, like he did to the Spider-Slayer (before killing him).  My theory has lately been that Otto’s over-confidence will be the end of him and revealing his identity to the Sinister Six (and believing that he could control all the repercussions of that) seems to fit the bill for a potentially fatal, arrogance-induced step.  (No longer trying to sound like Spidey falls into this category as well.)  But, Yost doesn’t tip his hand on where he's going with this plot, so we’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I’m hoping that we get a better artist on this title than Lopez, who seems to have some trouble drawing faces.  After Ramos’ stunning work this month on “Superior Spider-Man” #14, the lower quality work was definitely notable here, surprising for a #1 launch.  (Sure, it’s essentially a re-launch, but that’s never stopped Marvel from hyping an event in the past.)

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