Man, this issue is awful. I had pretty high hopes for it, to be honest. I expected, at some point, Marvel would add some fuel to "Norman" and Otto's conflict in the present by revealing some sort of past rivalry, and "Superior Spider-Man Team-Up" gave them such a great opportunity to do that. Moreover, sending Otto to Europe during Norman's self-imposed exile made sense, since the secrecy surrounding that time period obviously gives it that "lost tales" kind of feel (and explains why Peter -- and we, the reader -- wouldn't have been privy to these events). However, Shinick takes it weird places.
First, I feel like Shinick missed the chance for a pretty great ret-con. Norman revealed himself to be alive at the end of the Clone Saga, something that he (allegedly) orchestrated. I had hoped that Shinick was going to reveal that Otto helped Norman control those events, an assault on Peter that would remind us that Otto really was a villain and not simply the misunderstood misfit that Slott seems to want us to believe that he was. In other words, given Peter developing an appreciation for Otto and his sacrifice at the end of "Superior Spider-Man" #30, it would've been nice to see just how deeply villainous Otto could be by showing him playing a role in the Clone Saga. But, instead, we get the Octo-Goblin. I mean, WTF?
Moreover, I'm still not 100% sure why Norman and Otto were waiting to reveal their partnership. I get that Norman waited until the end of the Clone Sage -- when he had inflicted the maximum damage on Peter -- to reveal himself. But, if we're not talking about the Clone Saga time period, then why wait?
Also, I get Otto lamenting Norman's crazy, but Shinick seems to forget that Otto himself is also crazy. One of the side effects of the accident that gave him his powers was to turn him to a life of crime. He may not be as stark raving mad as the Goblin, but, as Shinick himself shows when Otto automatically attacks the Goblin when he reached for a button on his phone, he's at the very least tightly wound. All his protestations to the contrary don't really make a lot of sense, since even Otto is aware, on some level, that he's a few cards short of a deck.
But, more than anything else, it's the "Women in Refrigerators" moment that made me just want to throw the book across the room. Norman and Otto have some sort of odd bro-talk about their ex loves, and Norman decides to prove his point, that the soul matters more than science, by tracking down Otto's ex-fiancée to inflict the same pain on Otto than Norman felt when his wife died. But, he doesn't only have her car run off the road; he then injects her with a deadly virus. I mean, I get that we're supposed to buy him as a crazy lunatic, but, Jesus, Shinick doesn't get points for subtlety on this one.
A Note on Miguel: Miguel appears briefly here, as a hostage of the Spider-Slayers (with Spidey) as seen in "Superior Spider-Man" #30.
* (one of five stars)
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