This is it. This is finally it. We have reached the beginning of the end of ‘Superior Spider-Man’. With only four more issues left after this, one of the most original and exciting things to happen to the world of Peter Parker in a long while will come to an end as a new volume of ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ premieres in April as part of All-New Marvel NOW. But before we start celebrating the return of the original friendly neighborhood web-slinger, Otto Octavius is still large and in charge and ready to take on the Green Goblin head on.

In the last issue, we saw an all out goblin war as the Hobgoblin went face to face with the Green Goblin for all the marbles in a winner take all brawl to determine who carries on the goblin name as the top dog in costumed crime in the Marvel Universe. Meanwhile, Spidey came to blows with his fellow Avengers and Peter Parker tried to recapture some more memories of who he was. By the time it was all over, Otto and Pete were essentially left alone to fend for themselves, while Norman Osborn’s goblin army grew exponentially.

Now, a month after issue twenty-six, Osborn’s forces have brought the city to its knees. And no matter how much he tries to rely on his technology, Spidey is left in the dark and is forced to find the bug in his system while trying to put a dent in the rise in crime thanks to the Goblin’s goons. However, our hero suddenly has even more to worry about when he finds himself in his enemy’s lair face to face with the head honcho himself.

For a long time now, we’ve been anticipating a meeting between Otto and Norman. And when this inevitable meeting would take place, we all knew that it would be big, but just as Dan Slott has done throughout his entire run with Spider-Man, he’s throwing us curveballs left and right that we just weren’t expecting. In the past, when an adversary was able to pick up on Spider-Man’s secret, he’s been able to deal with it. Just look at what happened to Alistair Smythe. He’s sleeping with the fishes now because Octo-Pete’s true identity needed to be kept under wraps. But now that Norman has his hands on this information thanks to his newest goblin warrior, Monster AKA Peter’s old friend Carlie Cooper, on top of the massive minion militia he has at his disposal, Slott isn’t making things easy on the avenging arachnid.

The writer also created some great moments during the faceoff between two of Spider-Man’s greatest enemies. That scene didn’t go how I imagined it to go, but that’s not a bad thing at all. It was totally better than I imagined it, which goes to show once again why Slott is writing the story and I’m only writing about the story for the time being. I don’t know where he gets all this awesome stuff, but I’m certainly not complaining that I get to read it.

While the battle lines are still being drawn in the sand, the last remaining bits of the real Peter Parker are still wandering around in the psyche of the former Doctor Octopus. In keeping with the twists, Slott throws in yet another one when that whole part of the story takes another interesting turn in this issue. I still don’t really know what to expect from all this. Usually I can form theories about what’s going to happen, but the mystery of how the Superior Spider-Man reverts to the Amazing Spider-Man is still quite the puzzle to me and that’s so exciting to even think about. For someone who is immersed in this sort of thing on a daily basis, it really takes something special to appeal to both the fan and the professional occupying my mindscape.

Finally, aside from all the costumed heroes and villains taking the center stage and preparing for a battle of epic proportions, there are a few other cogs still moving that I almost missed in this issue the first time around. There’s Mayor Jameson’s Slayer Patrol, Captain Watanabe’s continued search for Carlie, Anna Maria and that little box that Pete is carrying around, and Sajani Jaffrey of Parker Industries. All these little things that went by so quickly that they could have been drowned out by the bigger story going on in this issue. There’s just so much going on and I can’t wait to see how it all gets tied together.

Now that there are goblins on Spider-Man’s front porch, it doesn’t look like the action is slowing down any time soon. Our hero will most definitely not be getting any rest before the end of his current series, and the first chapter of this final arc has me hooked to ride the wave all the way to the end.

Final Score:

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SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #27
Written by Dan Slott
Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell, & Antonio Fabela