Superior Spider-Man 20 Review
Also known as the issue where Otto fucked up several more times than the last time!
Yeah, this issue is more of Otto screwing himself over and Peter as well once he gets his body back.
The story starts with a flashback to the moment where Peter and Otto had swapped bodies and Peter died. His death woke up a few coma patients, one of whom I believe was Madam Web and predicted the death of all Spiders and the other being a woman who seems to like Otto. It then skips to Otto making his way to dinner with Anna Marie, which his relationship with her so far has been his only redeeming quality lately and makes me fear her impending death all the more because when Spider-Man is happy bad things happen, regardless of who is wearing the suit.
He runs across Black Cat and makes short work of her, earning her ire, before getting back to his dinner date and explaining his plans for the future in his own company. We then go to the next day where Aunt May is putting up a ton of collateral for this, Carlie plans to take her paper trail to the Avengers, and MJ is making plans to see the firefighter who saved her. Then we come up to the meeting where one of them recognizes the work he’s proposing as Otto Octavius’ and plans to ruin him and have him seen as the laughingstock of the scientific community.
Note that this is the same man Otto has been antagonizing all this time in the college. Naturally Otto plans to have him murdered for it. At the same time the woman who loved Otto has decided to avenge his death by killing the Superior Spider-Man. Irony, thy name is Otto.
The issue gets a 2 out of 5 (filler to me more than anything) and this series isn’t going to make it past 30-35 issues after everything that’s happened. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Otto going in as before, but I just don’t see it happening unless the Avengers have been hit with the stupid stick once Carlie presents evidence. What I’m more concerned about is the fallout from it is going to leave broken hearts, broken wallets, and leave Peter Parker a broken man when he returns.
Battle of the Atom Part 10 Review
Well, this has been a waste of two months.
Yeah, I can honestly say I’m glad this is over and I will sum it up in a single review, so keep reading for my review of Battle of the Atom Part 10 and closing thoughts.
It starts with a shower of missiles from above as Xorna and Xavier have somehow telekinetically overridden SHIELD’s safeguards to get them to unleash their payloads upon the gathering. This is the first problem. Telekinesis does not work that way. I could understand them mind-controlling some chumps into firing everything or if one of them had Technopathy, but this was just stupid.
While the X-Men try to stop the rain and Present Beast makes the vow never to Time Travel again, which will be broken in a year or two tops, they also seemed to have forgotten that Magik’s mutant ability is Teleportation and just because she passed on her Soulsword doesn’t mean Colossus can do it too. Either way the missiles don’t explode, leaving Maria Hill to wonder just what the hell they shot and discovering that its…
Sentinels.
Now, this comes as no surprise as SHIELD has been dicey in general. But for the Commander to not know that every Helicarrier has these damn things on it or know they were producing it in this number is fucking ridiculous and screams corruption and incompetents. On top of that, these Sentinels have had magic applied to them so that the future Sorcerer Supreme couldn’t strip away or something. Since when does SHIELD even have a sorcerer department?
The only good thing about it is they killed Future Beast, after which the fighting just adds in a third party. Not only do Cyclops’ and Wolverine’s teams squabble like children, but Future Jubilee bites despite being an immortal regenerating vampire and Future Colossus gets his brain mind-crushed by Xavier. This pisses off Magik into her evil-alter ego, who now has a legitimate reason to kill the psychic douche and everyone is bitching and whining about it rather than letting her finish him off before he causes more trouble.
Xorna Jean blames Wolverine and Cyclops for this entire fiasco because of the event that led to their Schism. Wolverine continues to annoy me throughout the entire fight that has her kicking their asses with psychic fire that I’m assuming she has spontaneous developed, until the O5 X-Men show up and get their asses kicked too. It only ends when she can’t control her powers and explodes, giving everyone enough time to flee as SHIELD finally gets their shit together.
Then comes the Epilogues where Present Iceman has made himself a douche before Wolverine takes over for him. While both sides agree that SHIELD can’t be trusted, which is a damn given at any point and time, Wolverine tries to take the high-ground again in a speech that, by all means, establishes that he’s a douche every day he wakes up. At this point, when they should be mending bridges, his ass has just bombed them all over again and none of the sensible X-Men on his side countered this.
Then we skip to Kymera mentioning she was tasked with tracking the Brotherhood, Adult Shogo and Present Jubilee having a moment, and Magik bidding her dead brother, Future Colossus, a final good-bye. That night Kitty decides to jump ship to Cyclops’ school and takes the O5 with her.
Now, while I expected and am pleased by this, her reasons are fairly shallow and not expressed deeply beyond a sense of betrayal. Her breakup with Bobby, which last I checked shouldn’t have even been a relationship after that date night, came off as vague in that you get the feeling a writer just wanted it to stop and made her look better by derailing Iceman for a few pages. She had plenty of ammo for quitting, I might add, but she chooses the weakest of reasons and, for some reason, Rachel didn’t join her despite all their moments this event.
I’m going to sum up both this issue and event in two words: EPIC FAIL.
The event dragged on for twice as long as it should have. Most issues repeated things that have been said and established that the feud between schools refuses to die, with Wolverine acting like he’s in the damn right and Cyclops is a murdering psychopath. What happened to the Wolverine in AvsX Consequences who understood him at the end, even if he hated him? And don’t get me started on the shit with Storm and Iceman, its like the story writers want Wolverine and his X-Men to seem like the bad guys.
And what the hell happened to Molly?
The only good thing is that Kitty has joined Cyclops’ team with the O5 and we have some actual antagonists in the form of the evil Xavier outside X-Men Legacy. Whoever penned this ought to be a damn shame for wasting the X-Men anniversary and two months of every poor soul who read it’s time.
This issue and event get 2 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 