Superior Spider-man #18

Superior Spider-man #18

"Necessary Evil - Part 2: Smack To The Future"

Story: Dan Slott
Art: Ryan Stegman
Colors: Edgar Delgado
Cover: Ryan Stegman


Superior Spider-man vs. Spider-man 2099!!  Is it a battle for the ages or is this fight fixed to be a failure?  Hit the jump to find out!




Summary:  This issue begins right where the previous one left off; with Spider-man 2099 (Miguel O'Hara) confronting the Superior Spider-man!  The two start fighting as O'Hara is surprised to find out Spider-man doesn't remember him, and Otto is freaked out by the fact that this future Spider-man knows who he is (well, who he is supposed to be).  The fight escalates as Miguel announces his intentions to protect Tiberius Stone from Spider-man and eventually Miguel is able to escape with Stone.  Meanwhile, Grady goes back in time and finds proof that Tiberius Stone is responsible for
sabotaging Horizon Labs and framing Max Modell.  O'Hara contacts Lyla, his female hologram/computer system from the future, and learns that Tiberius Stone destroys Horizon Labs that very day.  Meanwhile, Otto steals his work back from Horizon to protect his work and is fired by Max.  An angry Otto tracks O'Hara back to Horizon Labs, just as Grady returns from the past and is discovered by Modell.  Miguel then shows up and attempts to explain how he is going to save them from impending doom when Spider-Ock attacks from behind.

The good:  Like last issue, it's helped out tremendously by the fact that fans get to read a book featuring Spider-man 2099.  This time we actually get some pretty good fight scenes between Spider-man 2099 and the Superior Spider-man.  Slott does a good job of incorporating the conflict between the two Spider-men into the story without distracting from the story.  There are more good character moments with Miguel dealing with his conflicted feelings about saving the Stone family line and with Otto dealing with everything in his life falling appart.  Slott is developing an interesting subplot here, as Otto has lost his job at Horizon, has extreme temper problems, and is suffering from deleting the parts of Peter Parker's past that he has not seen.  It does leave very little wiggle room, as more people are starting to suspect that something is wrong with Peter Parker and Spider-man.  It is unclear how Slott can continue to write this book without someone finally putting the pieces together, but it should be very interesting to see how he moves forward from here.  The climax of the issue is well done and has a pretty good cliffhanger.  With Grady getting proof that Stone framed Modell, the imminent destruction of Horizon Labs, and another showdown between the Spider-men, next issue should promise to be a doozy.  Finally, another huge tip of the cap to Ryan Stegman on the art.  Overall the art might not quite have been good as last issue, but every panel with Spider-man 2099 was superb.

The not so good:  There were just a couple of minor problems with this issue.  While the pacing in this issue was much better, there is another interruption of the story with the Green Goblin subplot that has been popping up for several issues now.  It just feels out of place every time this happens, and really should be either eliminated or used as a prologue as they have done in the past.  The other thing that was off about this issue was the scene where Tiberius Stone throws himself from the building.  He does so to test his theory that Spider-man 2099 is a descendant of his, based on hearing Miguel speaking to Tyler Stone through a communicator.  It was just kind of a weird scene, and it in no way proves anything except that Spider-man 2099 doesn't want Tiberius to be killed, which was already established when he saved him earlier from Spider-Ock.  These two scenes were just slight dampers on what was otherwise a pretty superb issue.

Overall rating: A- (9.2/10)