Superior Spider-Man #21

By Dan Slott & Giuseppe Camuncoli

It’s the nineties again. Not only do we have books with 30 billion variants, but now Spider-Man is back to fighting Stunner. Even Cardiac showed up several issues ago. Actually, Dan Slott manages to craft an interesting dynamic between Stunner and Spidey-Ock that is probably better than anything done with her in the dark age of comics.

While trying to keep his hopes of getting a doctorate alive, Stunner has returned in a manner that could only work in a superhero comic. She is out looking for revenge since her and Otto Octavius were former lovers and Octavius is now believed to be dead. Of course, this is an awesome dynamic that Slott plays out to great effect. This is an issue of Superior that reminds you that while this whole Spidey-Ock thing is beyond silly, there is a ton of stories to pull from it.

This issue also checks in on Carlie Cooper, who now knows that Octavius is behind the wheel of Peter’s body. Slott is teasing us with possible scenarios for how this will shake the status quo without showing his hand too soon. Will she tell the Avengers? Will she expose him to the public? There are so many avenues to go down. This is going to get really fascinating.

Camuncoli has been in top form. The characters’ facial expressions look sharp and help the story out a great deal since the reader can both read and view the emotion. Giuseppe was never one of my favorites, but he’s really grown on me over the past several months. It’s always nice to see an artist surprise you like that.

Superior Spider-Man #21 is another solid outing for Slott. With so many possible futures for Spidey-Ock, this is going to be a must read title going forward. Also, next issue is Venom. ‘Nuff said.