By Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Ryan Stegman, Victor Olazaba & Cam Smith (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-538-3
Over the years the Wondrous Wallcrawler has undergone many evolutions, refits and even backsliding revisions, but his latest evolution – springing out of the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #700 – is certainly the most radical character change of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.
In that issue the personality of Peter Parker died and Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body, becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man.
Parker’s mind had been transferred into the rapidly failing body of the super-villain where, despite every desperate effort, in the end he perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame. Now Octopus is permanently installed in the Amazing Arachnid’s body and living Peter’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements…
The situation is not completely intolerable. At the moment of the villain’s greatest triumph Parker forced Octavius to relive and experience every moment of tragedy and sacrifice that made Spider-Man the champion he was.
From that emotional turmoil came understanding and the villain reformed, swearing to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his enemy; honestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission and equally guided by the binding principle that “with great power comes great responsibilityâ€â€¦
However the megalomaniac within proved hard to suppress and the new web-spinner incessantly worked to prove himself a better man: augmenting the hero’s gadgets and methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, adding advanced weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises.
Otto went back to college because he was appalled Parker had no doctorate and even tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.
The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man has become New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has embraced the Web-spinner, all but appropriating the wallcrawler as a deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible phantom of Peter Parker lurking within the deepest recesses of the overwritten mind of Spider-Man…
The helpless ghost is an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius but increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, some of Parker’s oldest friends are beginning to suspect something hinky is happening.
Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew of Peter’s incredible secret life and is increasingly reminded of the last time Spider-Man fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He also claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…
Everybody accepts Spider-Man has changed. Not only is he more efficient these days, but he’s far more brutal too. Giving bad-guys like Boomerang and the Vulture the thorough thrashings they so richly deserve plays really well with the public and, after a deadly hostage siege, the hero’s status with city cops peaked after the Amazing Arachnid executed the sociopathic perpetrator Massacre…
Written by Dan Slott, A Troubled Mind collects issues #6-10 of The Superior Spider-Man (released March-July 2013) and continues following the author’s introductory summation ‘Superior Minds’.
Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba illustrated ‘Joking Hazard’ which sees prankster villains Jester and Screwball win vast popular acclaim for their “harmless†public humiliations of the rich and powerful – such as Mayor Jameson.
Even though the pair are actually using their internet site to phish financial details from the millions of viewers who access their posts, the world loves them – but not the new Spider-Man, who horrifically overreacts to being made to look a fool…
Meanwhile, as Parker and new romantic interest Anna Maria Marconi negotiate the obstacles to Peter obtaining his doctorate – a mission not helped by the candidate’s innate smug arrogance – the Avengers are becoming extremely concerned about their young comrade’s erratic behaviour, whilst in the shadows a new Hobgoblin carefully lays plans to conquer the city…
The multi-part ‘Troubled Mind’ then commences with ‘Right Hand Man’ as Robin Hood villain Cardiac returns, still stealing technology to treat patients who can’t afford medical care. With a little girl in desperate need of advanced brain scanning, the rogue raids an impound facility and liberates a device devised by the dead madman Otto Octavius. He cannot understand why former frenemy Spider-Man seems to take the theft so personally…
The ghost of Peter Parker later feels a swell of hope when the Avengers forcibly arrest his stolen body and subject it to a battery of tests. Sadly, the Avengers in ‘Proof Positive’ don’t include geniuses like Tony Stark or Henry Pym, and cannot properly interpret the data their machines provide.
Doc Ock can, however, and now realises why occasionally he feels inexplicable resistance when his angry, violent natures boils over…
With Octavius exultant and Parker’s ghost crushed, the wallcrawler tracks down Cardiac’s illegal free hospital to retrieve “his†scanner, only to feel his righteous indignation crumbling at the sight of the dying little girl the maverick surgeon is trying to help…
Consumed by guilt, the Superior Spider-Man uses the purloined scanner to perform brain surgery on the child but, after saving her, retains the scanner to perform a similar service upon himself…
‘Gray Matters’ discloses how the Avengers’ tests revealed a phantom echo of Peter’s brain patterns beneath his own freshly encoded, dominant patterns and how, with the aid of his scanner, Otto hunts down and forever erases the aggravating voice within his skull…
Now wiped forever free of that annoying shadow of conscience, the finally triumphant mad doctor can celebrate his ‘Independence Day’ (art by Ryan Stegman & Cam Smith) completely devoid of limiting considerations such as pity or humanity. Of course, the same applies to the new iterations of supervillains such as White Dragon, The Owl and Tombstone, organised by Hobgoblin as the vanguard of an unstoppable army of evil to take New York City…
More importantly, with Phantom Parker no longer incessantly, fruitlessly screaming in his head, the hero’s nearest and dearest are coming to the inescapable conclusion that there is something just plain wrong with “Peterâ€â€¦
To Be Continued…
Capped off with a selection of Ramos’s design sketches in ‘Superior Insight’ augmenting a gallery of his covers, this astounding reinvention carries as standard that wonder-of-21st-century invention AR icon sections. These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages offer access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it has become something of a norm, but this incarnation – for however long it lasts – is one that no fan or newbie can afford to miss: shocking, clever and impossibly addictive.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.