Thursday, January 23, 2014

Comics Recap #3: Superior Spider-Man

In the 90s a big trend was to replace a superhero with another character.  Remember when Superman "died" and was replaced by four characters?  Or when Bruce Wayne was broken by Bane and was replaced by Jean-Paul Valley?  Or when Hal Jordan went insane and destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and was replaced by Kyle Rayner?  And Marvel has plenty examples of its own too.

One of the latest examples was when in Spider-Man issue #700, Dr. Octopus switched brains with Peter Parker just before his old body was killed.  While this could have been just a couple-issue arc, Marvel has carried it on into the "Superior Spider-Man" series.  Since they were on sale before the new year, I bought the first 5 issues.  Later I bought issue #6AU which is the Age of Ultron edition, in which Superior Spidey learns a little humility and to be a team player.

Despite that it was a cheap, shopworn stunt, I found I did actually find this Spider-Man superior.  The reason why is simple:  this Spidey is smarter than the old one.  Peter Parker had a tendency (especially in the Raimi movies) to sit around going, "It's so hard being a superhero and dealing with MJ and Aunt May and a job.  Oh, woe is me!"  By contrast, the Superior Spider-Man analyzes the problem and then finds a solution to it.

That's what these first five issues largely deal with.  Starting off, a new gang claiming to be the Sinister Six tries to rob a bank.  In swoops Superior Spidey, but when he finds it tough, he retreats and then formulates a new plan.  His efforts to win back Mary Jane don't go as well.  Meanwhile he uses his job at a lab to create new gadgets to help him fight crime, especially little spider-bots that allow him to spy on all of New York.  This is obviously supposed to make us think of drones, the NSA, the Patriot Act, and so forth.  Is it better to be free or safe?  The thing is, Superior Spidey doesn't give New Yorkers a choice about it.

Which is part of the charm.  Maybe he doesn't stick to the superhero playbook, but he's pretty damned effective.  The climax of this first volume involves an old foe who's escaped from prison and gone on a rampage.  This leads Superior Spidey to make that ultimate decision:  take the guy back to jail to probably escape again or just kill him now and be done with it?  You can probably guess the answer.  And really I can understand the logic behind it.  How many times has Batman let the Joker get away to go on another rampage?  When do you say enough is enough?

No matter which side you come down on with those issues, to me what they've done is make a replacement character who's in many ways better than the original.  It made me think if they'd done this with one of those Superman characters or with Jean-Paul Valley in the early 90s maybe people wouldn't have been so ready to welcome Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne back.  Because let's face it, a lot of times with these replacements they rig the deck.  Because I'm so familiar with that story, Jean-Paul Valley was definitely rigged to be unlikable:  French, paranoid, and part of religious cult--that's not how you're going to win over readers!  If they'd allowed him to be more likable then maybe people would have realized that a Batsuit with flamethrowers has it all over tights.

Anyway, in the end I'm sure Peter Parker will get his mind back somehow.  Maybe via another deal with the Devil or something.  In the meantime, though, it'll be interesting to see where they take this character.  If they let people vote to decide like 25 years ago with Jason Todd's "death" then I think you know which one I'd choose.

9 comments:

  1. And of course for the record they've recently announced the end of this arc, although we still have yet to see how exactly it ends. Find out in April!

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    1. DC is ending a bunch of titles in April too, including Nightwing, which I'm sure you're bummed about. So does that mean the comic book industry uses a May 1-April 30 fiscal year?

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    2. Just a coincidence. DC's year has been taking shape in September since 2011, though. The new weekly series Futures End will be starting in May, though, along with probably a few other new titles.

      Whatever comes next for Nightwing I hope will be good for the character. We'll see.

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    3. Two of the new ones are Batman Eternal (replacing Superman Unchained) and Justice League United (aka Justice League Canada, which replaces Justice League of America because if America flopped then clearly Canada will fare better...). I keep wondering about this commitment to 52 titles. It seems like at some point they'll need to scale back.

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    4. Those are both launching in April. As far as May goes, I'm sure there will be more.

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    5. If you were the wagering type how do you think Superior Spider-Man will end?

      A. Parker returns via divine intervention (Heaven or Hell or Asgard)
      B. Parker returns thanks to "normal" magic
      C. Parker returns via time travel
      D. Parker returns via parallel universe
      E. Parker doesn't return and Doc Ock keeps on truckin'
      F. They both die
      G. They both die and then later only Parker is resurrected

      I wonder if Vegas would take action on that? All except E and F seem highly plausible to me. E would really shock the hell out of me. F would probably only lead to G down the line.

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    6. Supposedly it won't be easy, however it happens. But that's Dan Slott doing what he does to keep it interesting (for himself?).

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  2. I've heard a lot about Superior Spider-Man, but never read an issue. You make it sound a lot more sensible than it does in summary. I'm sure they'll bring Peter Parker back. He may be superior, but he ain't Spider-Man.

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  3. As mentioned before, I only read what comes to me cheaply, and this ain't it. But I'm as curious as to the impermanence of his death as I am anything. Using PT's list... I'd chose A.

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