The Spider-Man team up books in the past had honestly been a little bit boring before Dr. Octopus took over Spidey’s life. Now it truly feels as if it’s building to a huge crossover into the mainstream title as for some reason Doc Ock has been apparently collecting a lot of his old Sinister Six teammates. The real question I’m wondering though is why has he been doing this? It doesn’t appear that he’s letting them loose in his underwater base that had been kept secret since his Doc Ock days and actually has them all confined there.

The gang’s not all back together though and I have a feeling we won’t see what his plan is until they are. He’s still missing Chameleon and that’s the focus on this issue.

We open with a clearly high ranking KGB member buying off a team of assassins to take care of the Chameleon because he knows too much about their past. They don’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. to know about his past actions working for them so want him taken off of the board, permanently.

During the same time we see Nick Fury looking into a newly discovered AIM team operating out of America that they were tipped off about. Little do they know they were clearly tipped off by Spider-Man who has just taken down the crew and was using them as a way to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to do something with the Chameleon. (I still can’t decide if he’s getting the Sinister Six back together to commit a heist, because they can figure out who he is, to fulfill a promise he made to them, or because he wants them held for their actions and believes he is the only one capable of doing so.)

On the Helicarrier we get a little too much time wasted with the Secret Avengers who are also on board. Spidey though quickly uses his Spiderbots to take over the entire base long enough to knock out the lights and some alarms.

What he doesn’t know is that the Russian Assassins were waiting for just such an opportunity to attack. They do so and Spidey leaves the scene as the Secret Avengers engage them and he makes his way to the Chameleon. We are treated to a great fight scene between the Secret Avengers and these assassins who are making minced meat out of the standard S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Unfortunately the Chameleon had used this time to escape himself. When Doc Ock prepares to go after him he turns a corner and runs heads first into The Hulk.

So much for the best laid plans. While he was easily able to circumvent the security that Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. had put into place his plans have completely backfired and The Superior Spider-Man is once again showing that his ego can quite easily get in the way of being superior. (Really who hasn’t hacked through Iron Man’s security at some point or another by now?)

I really feel that if we had cut out some of the Secret Avengers dialogue that there was no reason to stretch this out into a 2 part issue. With only 2 issues remaining in The Avenging Spider-Man I feel there is a bit too much to wrap up unless this spreads over into the pages of The Superior Spider-Man to conclude this entire Sinister Six reunion story arc.

Writer: Christopher Yost
Artist: Marco Checchetto