A new era has begun for the Superior Spider-Man. After taking down Alistair Smythe and taking over the Raft to turn it into his own private base of operations, Spidey has built an army and marched on Shadowland, the stronghold of the Kingpin in Hell’s Kitchen. With Wilson Fisk and his empire seemingly dead, Otto can now focus on trying to get his personal life back on track while still being the hero that his city deserves.

However, the Hobgoblin managed to escape the wreckage of Shadowland and survived to cause mischief another day. Curious as to how this menace has gotten past his Spider-bots, our hero sends his minions out in full force to apprehend the former Kingpin henchman. But Spider-Man isn’t the only one looking to see Phil Urich fail as the iconic Goblin.

There’s many, many years of Spider-Man history to take into consideration when reading a Spider-Man book, so sometimes reveals don’t stick right away. In the first issue of the new arc titled “The Tinkerer’s Apprentence”, Tiberius Stone reemerges as a new associate of the long-time villain The Tinkerer. The former Hand agent and CEO of Viastone who had a hand in creating Spider-Man’s temporary sidekick Alpha has a score to settle with the current Hobgoblin, and just about everybody for that matter, so it was good to see Dan Slott summarize all that exposition nicely without spending too much time on it that it bogged down the story as a whole. Now that we’ve been reintroduced to Stone, it’ll be interesting what other tricks he has up his sleeve.

The biggest thing that I loved about this issue is the parallel between Phil Urich and Peter Parker. Back in the day, Pete used to set up his camera to get exclusive pictures of Spider-Man for the Daily Bugle. Now, Phil uses his Goblin cams to get footage of his criminal escapades as the Hobgoblin to sell to the Bugle. I like seeing that even though Parker is gone for the time being, there are still shades of his personality sticking around the Marvel Universe. Also, seeing this sort of thing come full circle is pretty fun for fans to see.

This issue set up a lot of upcoming events and characters, so it’s a safe bet to assume that Spider-Man’s life is about to get much more hectic very soon. With Ty Stone, Phil Urich, the Green Goblin, Wraith, Aunt May, and Mary Jane Watson all on the heels of the various aliases of Peter Parker, things are sure to come to a head shortly, and I for one don’t want to miss it. You shouldn’t either, so go out and catch up already if you haven’t been reading.
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SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #15
Written by Dan Slott
Art by Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, & Edgar Delgado