Superior Spider-Man #18 Review
Awesome. That is the word that I left off with as I finished this issue.
With Stegman back on art two weeks ago, I was a little disappointed with the results and hoped that things would get better. They did. And the story? That did too. What we have here is a great Spider-Man story in the making.
At this point in the Marvel mythology (which, sadly, seems like all the time), time travel and its temporal side-affects are more than pervading. Instead of the X-Men’s recent abuse of time travel, we see SpiderMan 2099 coming to our time to save his ancestor from death, which would ultimately mean his death, but really wouldn’t because he was alive to go back and save his great grandpa in the first place. Ugh. You begin to understand the headaches you can get into when reading stories related to time travel.
Fortunately, Dan Slott delivers a great and (somewhat) coherent story amidst all of the potential chaos. I am really glad that what we are reading is happening because it is something different than the current Ock-Spidey status quo. Slott even continues to weave in the Goblin story amidst all that is going on here. And believe me when I tell you, there is a lot going on here. Spidey even confronts how hard it is juggling two woman (Ann Marie and Mary Jane) and a school life on top of it. And again, everything is written in a way that is easy to get through. His writing is commendable.
One interesting plot point is the fact that the Horizon Labs scientists are able to go through time to spy on people and events of the past. One even goes as far as to suggest going back in time to figure out why the heck Peter Parker is acting so strange. Welp, could this mean the impending reveal of Dock Ock taking over Peter Parker’s body?
As I mentioned before, the art this issue was great. Stegman’s pencils seem less rushed and chaotic than before while Livesay’s inks are a bit more refined.
I asked for this series to bounce back after last issue’s bump in the road. It did. The series continues on its path of greatness.
Score: 8.8