In the last issue of the ‘Superior Spider-Man Team-Up series we found out what Spidey Ock has been up to by gathering his old Sinister Six partners – he was creating his own superhero team! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for The Superior Six! Granted, this is one that he’s completely controlling with his mind.
The most noticeable thing to take note of from last issue is that for a brief moment he lost all control of his ex-teammates and they were ready to turn on him. You’d think if something like that could happen once that just maybe it would happen again and Spidey should pause before taking out his team out into the field again without some proper bug testing.
This issue we continue with Baron Zemo’s old team having gotten together and are working to take down the Superior Spider-Man to get back the item he stole from them, which they had just stolen from Alchemax. The fight is viewed almost like a chess game through Doc’s mind as he uses his team as pawns trading off their powers against those who are attacking him and doing quite well at holding his own.
That is until he realized they were nothing more than a distraction and the true crime was being committed at his lab as the item he stole was once again back in their hands. Through an interesting pickup of help from another character he is able to stop the villains in their tracks and save the day. Only the issue ends with the rest of the Six no longer under his control and suddenly he has Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, Chameleon, and the Vulture to content with when the next issue opens.
As much as you might hate Doc Ock still being Spider-Man, if that didn’t feel like a piece of the ol’ Parker Luck I don’t know what does.
It’ll be good to see the next issue play out and while we all know Spidey is going to get out of this somehow (he still has to go up against the goblins in the main title), it’s good to see that his so called superior intellect keeps failing him in the face of true adversity. I really love how Yost portrays Doc as Spidey and, oddly enough, I prefer his tales over those of the mainstream ‘Superior Spider-Man’ books. I keep having to remind myself that this is technically a side-story to what’s actually happening for our hero and that any major changes that may or may not take place in the character’s near future will be in the other title.
I’m really curious though to a few things. How much longer is he going to actually be able to keep up saying he really is superior? How much longer until more people start to realize that Spider-Man is really acting like one of his most notorious villains? How much longer until we see Parker’s return? (How exactly are we going to see his return at this point?) So much left to find out and unfortunately most of it won’t be told by Yost.
SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM-UP #6
Writer: Christopher Yost
Artist: Marco Checchetto
