Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Superior Spider-Man #1
Marvel Comics
Slott, Stegman & Delgado
Perhaps the most controversial of the Marvel NOW! books hits this week with the re-launch of the main Spider-Man title. Or at least, what appears to be the main Spider-Man title. The book is a very generic Spider-Man story and excels in only the area of setting the groundwork for the new Spider-Man's character. It's a decent enough read but there isn't enough story in here to hook me long term. It's simply an average comic book.
Hopefully by now you've heard the news that Doc Ock switched his consciousness into Parker's body and, in the process, obtained all of Parker's memories while retaining his own. Even if this is a spoiler, this comic book lets that all be known by the fifth page. The comic book is very good at applying this character redefinition.
Slott has a strong grasp of Ock's dialogue and vernacular, which helps the book move along very nicely. Sure, it's funny in places but it also has a creepy factor that allows for a bit discomfort for the reader. You might think this is easy to do because really all it requires is redirecting the dialogue boxes. However, Slott places the odd dialogue in clever spots, which gives a jolt every once in a while. The gap here is that none of the supporting characters pick up on this shift, which is a little frustrating. After all, how many times had Peter Parker call MJ "woman" before?
The aspect of the book that fails to make the book special is the plot. If all the book does is provide a mechanism to show how Ock is dealing with his new life then it isn't that interesting. I understand Slott is building his character but the bit where Ock throws out odd or funny lines isn't going to be amusing for very long. Slott needs to send his character into a problem while building the character not build the character at the expense of executing an interesting situation. This is a first issue, but you need a bang to bring you back and this one simply didn't have it. In fact, I felt the cliffhanger was ill-timed and gutted the book's character building slightly.
Stegman does a good job on art. I found some of the faces to be very animated and to line up with the dialogue very well. I was a little turned off by the actions sequences, but that also may be because I simply didn't know the characters and knew they served very little purpose in the book. A solid art effort.
Superior Spider-Man is a good read. It doesn't feel like a "What If" title which is a plus. I found myself smiling at times but I also found myself bored at times. The book needs more traction next issue if I am going to stick with the title. This is an average to decent book.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
