The Good: This was another solid issue to start out the Superior Spider-man story, while not as good as the first issue, there was still plenty to like. I’ll start out by throwing more compliments at Ryan Stegman, because, well, I think he’s absolutely perfect for this book and delivers another great issue. Even the creepy scene with Otto delving into Peter’s memories of “time spent” with Mary Jane looks great, despite the weird feeling it gave me (I’ll discuss more in a bit). I also especially liked the dating scenes in this issue, Stegman helped to capture the story and I really like the way he draws Otto-Peter and still think he draws one of the best Mary Janes ever. As for Mr. Slott, he delivers an overall solid story here. I really like the little things he injects into the story, like Jameson liking this Spider-man and having part of it be because Otto rescued something from a university wing named after Jonah’s late wife. I’m also really liking how we still technically have Peter Parker throughout this issue, even if it is in weird spirit/conscious form. Hopefully this whole thing will be explained at some point, though I’m guessing that won’t be until the end of Otto’s turn as Spider-man. The dating scenes ending with Otto-Peter getting shot down in the end were well done, as well as seeing characters begin to pick up on the fact that Peter is acting different. Mary Jane in particular is finally starting to take notice of this, especially little things like Otto-Peter creating the Spider-bots to monitor the city for him, and Carlie recalls her encounter with Peter in Otto’s body from Amazing Spider-man #700. I’m looking forward to seeing how all of this develops. I also enjoyed how this particular issue mostly dealt with Otto-Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship but still managed to set up the upcoming story featuring the Vulture. Overall this was a very solid story. The Not So Good: There were a few minor complaints I had with this issue. The first was the “crazy town banana pants” lines in this issue. It’s a really dumb thing to say, and I’m not sure why Slott decided that this should be something that he wants Peter to have said enough times that both MJ and Carlie know it as a common Peter-Parker-term. Just a weird thing to put in this issue that rubbed me the wrong way. The thing I disliked the most about this issue is the creepy scene in which Otto delves into Peter’s intimate memories with Mary Jane. Personally I think it’s a little vague as to what exactly happens, but the way I read it is that Otto is almost reliving the moments as he remembers them, as delving into Peter’s memories seems to have a profound effect on Otto. A couple of examples of this include Otto deciding to take on the hero mantle after Peter flashed his memories to him at the end of Amazing Spider-man #700 and Peter’s memories of his relationship with MJ in this issue making Otto not want to pursue a relationship with her anymore. I’ve read a few reviews online that suggest that this scene clearly depicts Otto “pleasuring himself” as he thinks about MJ and Pete together, but I’m not so sure this is the case but the vagueness and creepiness of this scene opens it up to such thoughts and is a reason I think this scene would have been better left on the cutting room floor. My final criticism is a minor one, but it could soon develop into a major one. I honestly think Mary Jane should be making a bigger deal about how differently Peter is acting. Maybe that is coming, and if it is, then all will be good. This issue, however, seems to be hinting that it will be Carlie and not MJ who is going to piece it all together. Granted, MJ doesn’t know about Peter telling Carlie he was trapped in Otto’s body so she wouldn’t know exactly what is going on, but she should be able to tell something major is going on. And honestly, it shouldn’t take too much for Carlie to realize what is going on at this point, so I’m interested to see how this plays out in upcoming issues. It has the potential to be great or the potential to be handled poorly. I know this paragraph seems like a lot of criticism for this issue but in all honesty these things were just minor complaints in what was otherwise a very enjoyable issue. http://chrisblogsaboutstuff.blogspot.com/