Superior Spider-Man vol. 6: Goblin Nation
When it was revealed over a year and a half ago that Otto “Doctor Octopus” Octavius would be taking over Peter Parker’s body and his role as Spider-Man, there was… considerable fan outrage. There were also those who pointed out that, because it was such an extreme change, it was likely to be reversed after a certain point. Most likely by the time that “Amazing Spider-Man 2” hit theaters in May 2014. That turned out to be the case and here we are with the final volume of Dan Slott’s (and at this point, Christos Gage’s) story as all hell breaks loose across New York City as the Green Goblin’s master plan unfolds. I’ve said before that “Superior Spider-Man” is ultimately a modern take on the traditional superhero trope of the hero and villain switching bodies. For all that Slott and Gage have gussied it up over the course of this series, that remains true as we get the payoff for this run here. That doesn’t stop this final volume from being a compelling, page-turning read that ultimately delivers a satisfying wrap-up to this saga.
Things kick off “31 Days Later” after the events of the previous volume with New York in chaos and Spider-Man at a loss as to why no crime is being reported through his network of city-wide spider-bots. Solving that problem is only the tip of the iceberg as the Green Goblin has not only planned for every contingency, he also knows who’s really inside Spider-Man’s head. After an attempt to get Otto onboard with his plans goes badly, it’s now war between the superhero and his ostensible arch-villain. The only problem is that our protagonist’s arrogance, selfishness, and questionable methods are now all coming back to bite him as the Goblin uses his intimate knowledge of Spider-Man’s operations and personal life to dismantle them with extreme prejudice. Meanwhile, what’s left of Peter Parker’s mind and personality undertakes a dangerous gambit by hiding in Otto’s memories so he can come up with a plan to finally get his body back.
We hit the ground running from the very first page of the collection and — save for an interlude from “Superior Spider-Man Annual 2” — the momentum never lets up until the final Giuseppe Camuncoli-illustrated page. Even though things seem pretty bad at first, Slott and Gage show us that things can only get worse as the Goblin demonstrates that he has his opponent dead to rights. Oh, Otto does get a few clever moments, one of them involving a nice use of a hologram, but the narrative for this story is all about showing how his methods were ultimately not the right ones for a superhero, and definitely not for Spider-Man. It’s something that we all knew was coming, but to the writers’ credit we see it steadily built up over the course of the story. Otto thinks this can all be taken care of early on, but the bad stuff keeps steadily piling on and he continues to fight through the steadily mounting evidence that his approach was the wrong one after all.
The thing is that even though Otto’s methods did result in a safer, less-crime-ridden New York for a while, it resulted in the man isolating himself from just about everyone important to him. He quit the Avengers, created an army of mercenaries answerable only to him, alienated Mary Jane and his Aunt May to a certain extent, and screwed over just about everyone at Horizon labs after he wound up getting the lab disintegrated. There’s also the little fact that the security Otto brought to the city was built on fear from the watchful eyes of his omnipresent spider-bots and his own brutal methods. Now, I liked how over the course of this run that Slott showed that these methods actually did result in good things early on and that allowed us to buy into the idea that this whole “Superior Spider-Man” thing may not be so bad after all. Even Peter’s ghost admitted that Otto had some clever ideas in the early days.
Yet, Spider-Man has always been more than just one man waging a solo war on crime to make up for the one mistake he made years ago. It’s about how his selflessness, compassion and belief in the better side of humanity create connections that allow him to do things greater than his superpowers alone would. Without giving too much away, the final issue of this story involves the repairing of relationships and utilizing them to turn the tide of the Goblin’s war. For all of his good intentions, Otto’s biggest failing is that he ultimately couldn’t put the needs of others ahead of himself. It’s why one of the book’s key moments shows that he ultimately needs a push to do the right thing even if it means giving up the advantage against the bad guy. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the finale of this story ultimately serves as a good validation of Peter’s methods and why he’s the best Spider-Man there is.
This also leads into the main problem with this volume, which would be the fact that any seasoned reader of superhero comics will know how things are going to play out before they open it up. There are some surprises, such as how Peter’s ghost gets his memories back and who’s actually under the Goblin’s mask, and the blistering pace of the narrative set by Slott and Gage means that this familiarity isn’t lingered over. Yet at the end of the day, this is ultimately a super-sized take on one of the oldest superhero stories in the book. Slott and Gage deserve credit for taking it as far as they did and knowing just how long it needed to be. They had the space to really dig into the premise and mine it for all it was worth, and then called it quits before it started to drag (and invoke memories of the infamous “Clone Saga” from the 90’s). However, the storyline still played out in a fairly straightforward manner and the writers never really got past the fact that anyone should’ve been able to tell that something was up with Peter from the way he spoke. For all of their cleverness in dealing with the other parts of this storyline, this was something Slott and Gage just left for the reader to summon their own suspension of disbelief to get past. “Superior Spider-Man” was a good, entertaining superhero story from beginning to end, but it had its issues and ultimately didn’t bring anything new to the table — save for the latest round of complications to Peter Parker’s life that will be addressed in the new “Amazing” series.
It did have solid art from the start of its run. Specifically, great art from Camuncoli and Humberto Ramos with okay work from Ryan Stegman. Camuncoli’s efforts here were a bit of a revelation for me as after seeing his work on “Hellblazer” over the years, he showed off increased depth and detail to his style, and that he could pull off some great-looking superhero comics too. That remains true with his work in this concluding volume as his skills at depicting superhero action are put to the test with all of the carnage going on in the city. Camuncoli does have the eye for that kind of carnage, and he does his best to energize each panel with an urgency to match the speed of Slott and Gage’s narrative. It’s also worth mentioning that the man’s character work is very solid as well, as he’s able to make even small moments like the Goblin’s “It’s you,” moment of recognition resonate with their added implications.
That’s not all there is in this volume as, Gage tackles the complicated relationship between Ben Urich and his “Goblin Knight” son Phil in the second “Superior Spider-Man Annual” here. Thought it breaks up the momentum between the volume’s first and second halves, it’s still a worthy story. Ben’s conflicted feelings over his son lead him to do some risky things here, yet the realization he comes to wasn’t the one that I was expecting. That helps to make the story memorable, as does the art from Javier Rodriguez whose storytelling abilities — from panel layout, to characterization — are really impressive to observe on the page. There’s also a backup story in the “Annual” about Wraith, Carli Cooper and the cure for the Goblin’s special formula. It’s basically an extended plot point, but Gage and artist Philippe Briones make it go down smoothly. Finally, Gage and Will Sliney give us “Actions Have Consequences” which serves as an epilogue to the events of this volume that also helps to set up Spider-Man’s status quo going forward. You can feel the wheels of the plot grinding in that regard throughout the story, though the Spidey/J. Jonah Jameson encounter actually plays out pretty well.
As a “Spider-Man” story, this whole run of “Superior Spider-Man” has certainly been a good one. One of the all-time greats? I wouldn’t say so, but it is a high point of Slott’s run and one of the best versions of the hero/villain mind-swap superhero trope. Even if it doesn’t bring anything truly new to the table, Slott deserves to be commended for his ambition with this whole storyline (as does Gage, ultimately, for his contributions) and even though he’s currently winding down his run with the character, he does have that “Silver Surfer” series with Mike Allred that just launched. I’ll have to check that out at some point, if only to see him try something as crazy with that character as he did with Spidey.