(writers) Dan Slott and Christos Gage
(penciler) Giuseppe Camuncoli
(inkers) John Dell, Terry Fallot
(colorist) Antonio Fabela
Again...SPOILERS. You've been warned.
This issue, the penultimate issue of the Superior Spider-Man series, features the full restoration of Peter Parker as the master of his own body, ending Otto Octavius's thirty issue tenure as Spider-Man. Peter's consciousness reemerged, after having been apparently deleted by Otto back in issue #9, back in issue #25 to defeat the Venom symbiote, but he kept a low profile, biding his time and waiting for the right opportunity. In this issue, with the Green Goblin and his crew having turned New York City upside down and with Spider-Ock basically helpless to stop them, Peter finally makes his presence known once more to Spider-Ock, who makes an unexpectedly noble decision.
The next issue wraps up the series and the "Goblin War" saga, but to my mind THIS is the issue that really counts, THIS is the issue that fans will be talking about years after its publication, because it is here that Peter makes his grand return, and in such a striking fashion. He doesn't wrest his life back from Otto Octavius; Otto willingly and with all humility cedes it to him. This isn't even a case of Otto abandoning his duties as Spider-Man when the odds prove too great; he doesn't abdicate the responsibilities he has assumed as Spider-Man in the face of the ongoing threat and leave Peter to clean up the mess.
No, the scene in which Otto returns Peter's body to him is some of the most powerful writing I have seen in the pages of a Spider-Man comic book. For me, it's right up there with Peter's conversation with Aunt May back in 2002 in which she, finally having uncovered his secret identity, took him to task for lying to her for years. Otto takes his leave of Spider-Man's body because he realizes, and admits that Peter Parker is and always will be the better hero, and that it is Peter Parker that New York needs right now. This is the moment of redemption for Otto Octavius that Dan Slott promised for the character when this series was launched. Otto finally has the courage to do the right thing and embrace the death that was waiting for him when he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury years ago.
Granted, comics being comics, Otto will probably be back eventually, and things being the way they are I'm sure some writer will come up with an excuse to have him act like a villain again, but after this series in general and this issue in particular I cannot imagine any writer or editor wanting to restore the Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus dynamic to the way it used to be. The way I see it, whenever Doc Ock should pop up again down the line, things between him and Spidey will never be the same again.
I have never been the biggest fan of artist Giuseppe Camuncoli, whom the people at Marvel fondly call "Cammo," but to my mind he's done himself proud here, even though his dodgy anatomy issues, as well as the other quirks that keep me from really getting into his art, pop up time and again. The important thing is that in this issue, he gets his art right in the scenes where it really counts.
Given that the first three issues of the relaunched Amazing Spider-Man series have already been solicited, it is officially a given that Peter will take down the Goblin Army somehow, and it was always something of a given anyway, so this is the issue that really and truly matters.
If I may be so bold as to make a prediction, however, it is this: given that Spider-Ock has effectively turned Spider-Man into public enemy #1, even among his fellow superheroes, he is going to have a hell of a time convincing people he's on the side of the angels, and therefore anyone who might help convince people of that will be dispatched. I will hazard a guess that the one other character aside from Peter who knows about the mind swap, namely Carlie Cooper, will die.
I guess we'll find out in two weeks' time...
4/5
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