Superior Spider-Man #17 Review

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Future Badass, Meet Present Badass

This review is for Superior Spider-Man #17, which has been long awaited since it brings forth Miguel O’ Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099.

For those of you who don’t know he’s a scientist who was pressured into messing around with human experimentation and decided enough was enough once it ended badly the first time. He intended to quit but his boss, Tyler Stone,  had him drugged with a drug called Rapture that could only be gained by working for the company. Rather than remain an addict, he used the Human Experimentation process to give himself powers and took on a Day of the Dead costume to battle him.

Even when the 2099 line of series ended, this dude was so popular that he ended up in several crossovers and Spider-Men games recently and, when it was falsely dropped that he was going to be the Superior Spider-Man, people got mad at the lie. Hence why he’s here now.

Anyway, it starts with him recognizing the temporal distortions using his enhanced vision and dealing with bi-planes and dinosaurs. At the source of all evil, Alchemax, he discovers that for once it’s not their fault. That’s fairly rare.

Remember all of those events in Marvel screwing with the time stream in the heroic age? Yeah, like sending Galactus to the Ultimate Universe, it has royally screwed with the time stream and is removing Tyler Stone from existence piece-by-piece. Normally that would be a good thing, but he’s Miguel’s father (not that he knows it) and if he’s removed then no more Spider-Man 2099. So, in the interest of self-preservation, and because he has already gone and would create a paradox if he didn’t, Miguel is forced into the present.

In the mean time, we see the fallout of the events of the Run, Goblin, Run arc.

Former Horizon employee Tiberius Stone (note the last name) has blown the whistle on all of their dirty little secrets in order to get revenge, leading to the company being folded into another company that has employed him. He’s relishing the fact that he now has power over them and threatens Peter that he now even owns Spider-Man’s Web Fluid Formula. You don’t threaten the Superior Spider-Man and because his spider-sense was reacting around him, it’s all the justification he needs to beat the man to a pulp.

The Daily Bugle is getting the information from a source, but after the last screw-up they aren’t taking chances with it, since what happened in the last issue. In the Goblin Underground, Phil Urich is reprimanded harshly by the Goblin Kingpin of Crime since his actions could have led to the Goblin Protocol being discovered, but then the goblin gets an idea and lets up on it. At Horizon Labs, the gang apparently has a time machine lying around and decides to go back to the past to get dirt on Tiberius when the machine activates itself and out pops the future Spider-Man.

Otto catches up with Phil, who is still cocky since everything he’s doing at the moment is above the board. Otto, not really caring, decides to end him when Miguel appears and web-lines him since the douche is his Grandfather, meaning if Otto wastes him then no more Miguel O’ Hara.

So, now we have a reason for the two Spider-Men to duke it out. One’s ego and the other’s self-preservation. Considering Otto has so far fought with just about everyone Peter has teamed up with, I really didn’t expect much else but I’m dying to see it through to the end. Miguel has different abilities than most other Spider-Men as he doesn’t  have Spider-Sense but enhanced reflexes, sight, natural webs, and can move so fast he leaves a decoy behind.

It’ll be an interesting match-up to say the least.

The art is beautiful as always and I really cant find anything wrong with the issue barring no Spider-Man beating down the other…yet. For this review I give it 5 out of 5 and worth picking up.