Superior Spider-man #4

Superior Spider-man #4

"The Aggressive Approach"

Story by Dan Slott
Art: Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell
Colors: Edgar Delgado
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Cover: Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell, Edgar Delgado, Mike Deodato, & Rain Beredo

After three great issues, will Massacre...well...massacre the high marks for Superior Spider-man?  Hit the jump to find out!

Summary: Doctor Octopus seems to be having a harder time keeping in character as Peter Parker and his colleagues at Horizon Labs begin to notice. Massacre, the killer without emotions who Spider-man saved from being murdered by the police, breaks out of prison killing several people, including Spiderman’s friend Dr. Ashley Kafka. As Spider-man goes after Massacre a very old foe shows up on the last page.

The good: Well I’ll go ahead and start with my favorite part of this issue which is actually the last panel and got me so excited I actually squealed a little bit. What could possibly excite me so much you ask? How about the apparent return of Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin! I’ve always really liked the Green Goblin as a villain, especially with Norman Osborn under the mask. As much as I enjoyed Norman’s rise to power in the Marvel Universe and his conflict with the Avengers, I’ve been hoping for ages to see him return to being the Green Goblin and being Spider-man’s foe again. When we saw that Norman had apparently come out of his coma and escaped the hospital a little while back I began to hope that we might finally see this come to be. Now with this last panel it almost seems a certainty (I’ll be so angry if it’s not really him). As for the rest of the book, this seemed like more of a set up issue. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as these type of issues are often times needed, but it doesn’t leave a whole lot else to get real excited about. I did like that other people are beginning to catch on that something weird is up with Peter. I also really liked that part of this suspicion from his colleagues stems from Otto-Peter wanting to start human trials on a device to help his Aunt May with her injury. This sets up some interesting plot lines going forward both with people figuring out that Otto is in Peter’s body and a potential conflict with Aunt May and Otto-Peter.

The not so good: There was not really anything bad in this issue, but as a whole, it just wasn’t as good as the first three issues. Massacre was an interesting villain in his first appearance because he was integral to the “no one dies” story that was going on at the time. I’m not sure if he works as well in this story but I also am not 100% certain on where this story is going. Kafka’s death was also a bit odd for me. She hasn’t been in the books for a while and as far as I know she isn’t that popular, so her death didn’t mean a whole lot for me. I also missed the heck out of Ryan Stegman in this issue. His absence was very easily noticed by me as the art was not nearly as good as it was in the first three issues.

Overall rating: B- (8.1/10)