Superior Spider-Man #7 Review

It took a few months, but it seems Spider-Man's circle of friends and allies are starting to realize that something's not quite right in his head. Whereas murdering a villain was merely cause for concern, savagely beating Screwball and Jester in Superior Spider-Man #6 has finally convinced the Avengers that Spidey needs an intervention. But that plot point is less a focus in issue #7 than the reemergence of Cardiac. Less a villain than a Robin Hood of the medical world, Cardiac is the latest character to face Otto Ocatvius' increasingly dubious sense of justice.

I like the broad strokes of where Dan Slott is taking the series right now. Despite the fact that Otto has proved himself a more efficient Spider-Man than Peter Parker ever was, we're rapidly seeing the dark side of his approach to crime-fighting. He's responding to the barest threats with near lethal force in cases where Peter would have relied on his wits, intelligence, and empathy for a more peaceable and honorable solution. The series has finally reached the point where Peter's ghostly presence actually serves a useful purpose. Peter is able to point out Otto's many ridiculous qualities while also lamenting the lasting damage being done to his name and reputation.

But in many ways the book suffers from a lack of subtlety and nuance. Peter's presence is still too overt and constant, distracting from Otto's voice more than ever. In a more general sense, Slott's writing is too heavy on exposition in this chapter. Nowhere is that problem more evident than in the opening pages with Cardiac's influx of thought balloons. I respect any writer that attempts to resurrect the use of thought balloons, but all this issue really does is illustrate how clunky and archaic they are as a storytelling device. Issue #7 is plotted well, but the dialogue and narration could have greatly benefited from some pruning and streamlining.

Humberto Ramos returns to the series for this latest arc. Though I'm not a huge fan of his exaggerated figures, Ramos is doing a great job of capturing the energy of Spider-Man's fights and the quickly darkening tone of the script.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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