Superior Spider-Man Team-Up: Versus

As the Marvel Universe began splintering every which way a lot of familiar names came in for makeovers. The Hulk, for example, turned Red and Grey and took on a host of different personalities on different Earths and different timelines. But I think Spider-Man probably had the most variations, to the point where it’s hard to speak of Spider-Man in the singular at all.

Superior Spider-Man, in case you were wondering, is the name adopted by the webslinger after Doctor Octopus switches bodies with Peter Parker (who then expires in Doc Ock’s body). But Doctor O doesn’t want to be a bad guy anymore, intending instead to become a better superhero and better guy all around than the old Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Hence, “Superior.”

Normally a premise like that would have lost me right away, but Superior Spider-Man is actually an interesting character. Doc Ock is a real snob and it’s fun to listen in on his interior monologues running down everyone he meets. What’s more, the storylines here are pretty good. In the first, Spidey is chasing down a body-hopping version of Carrion, which means taking out all the superheroes Carrion temporarily inhabits. In the second he grudgingly joins forces with his clone, the Scarlet Spider, to do battle with the Jackal and his army of genetically-modified critters. And in the third a creature possesses a young lady studying in the Cloisters, turning her into a being of pure electricity who gives herself the name Fulmina and who has the power to knock civilization all the way back into her beloved Middle Ages. Spider-Man has to juggle fighting her with beating back an alien invasion of NYC.

You’ll note that each of those storylines involves a lot of fighting, and the comics here deliver in that regard. And the way the fighting is represented is great, being both dramatic and easy to follow. The series used different artists for every issue and they all knew how to bring the action.

But the best part is the writing. The dialogue feels real, whether it’s just the usual banter or something more developed. I particularly liked the argument between Spidey and Fulmina. As noted, she wants to take humanity back to medieval times, a world with “days measured by the hours of the sun . . . nights softened by the glow of candlelight.” Spidey accuses her of being a tyrant, and she responds that she’s not a tyrant but someone “freeing humanity from the tyranny of progress to devote themselves to poetry . . . to prayer . . . to song . . .” Spider-Man has to consider this, but returns later with his put-down of the good old days:

So you can roll back the centuries, and restore the world of the Middle Ages? A world without the clamor of industry, the pace of technology, the blare of the media? A world without the lockstep conformity of the modern world . . . the onerous duties of citizenship . . . the burdens of personal freedom . . . a world of poverty and plague, crude, primitive medicine . . . rampant superstition . . . brutal class divisions . . . incessant, internecine warfare . . . You want to return us to this?

As Spidey talks a medieval scene plays out in the background slowly being taken over by the specter of death. It made me think of the medieval poem about the three kings and the three dead. Meanwhile, Fulmina objects that he’s “twisting it all around . . . making it ugly.” And she’s right. But he is too.

I’m not saying there’s anything profound in all this, but I did think Fulmina one of the more compelling and original villains Marvel has come up with in recent years and the rest of the stories here are at the same high level. It’s a good comic.

Graphicalex