This started out differently but I’m trying something else. To be mememetic for a moment: I can’t. I just can’t.
Recently I got the idea in my head to read Superior Spider-Man to see what it was all about. Was it bad as I had heard? So… I picked up the first trade paperback. Before reading it I also picked up the last trade paperback for Amazing Spider-Man, just to see how they closed out that chapter of the Spider-Man mythos before going into the “bold, exciting new direction” with the character. I read them.
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I formed some thoughts, started to write out a “review” similar to the style I used for my look at Age of Ultron. Got a few paragraphs into it & then left alone for a few days. This was only after writing for a half hour or so. I went on to other things but kept it in my thoughts. This is why I’m doing this instead of that. My thought eventually end up with this: Why am I doing this? What does it matter? and Who cares?
As I have stated in the past: I don’t much care for Spider-Man. I find him boring for the most part. I went & counted how many comics I actually own that star the webcrawler & I barely got past over a 100 issues. For a character that has been around for over 50 years that’s basically nothing. Looking over the issues, most of those issues were either because of guest stars in appearing that month or who he’s facing off against. I have a few milestone/anniversary issues because I’m a sucker for those things, especially if I can find them cheap. I could easily get to 150, maybe a bit past that if I included all my Spider-Man adjacent books BUT a number of those don’t star Spider-Man himself.
Also, there isn’t all that much to say about the issues I read. Yeah, there are a bunch of things to nit pick about & was going to do in the original form of this post. There were a few paragraphs devoted to just the text on that back of trade paperback of Amazing Spider-Man trade. I came with a few jokes that I could have made. I’m sure as I went back over the issues as I doing the review I would have come up with a few more. But what’s the point?
I really don’t see much to give a flying flip about in the comic. I don’t care about Spider-Man so why should I care about what is going in the book? Yes, there is some stuff that was kind of interesting presented to me but was just it: it was “kind of interesting”. Not good, not great, just kind of interesting. If what I was reading was horrible, rage inducing, down right bad: then I would have something to write about. Maybe it is? I just don’t know but that’s because as I’ve said: I don’t care about Spider-Man.
I don’t mind trudging through issue upon issue of “bad” comics. I read all of Brightest Day: 26 issues long & only about every 7 issues of that series did something kind of interesting happen. I read all of Futures End, that was 48 issues long! Most of it was not good. It had “good” bits but could have been so much better. Why was I willing to push on through those series but I can’t get through 8 issues of Spider-Man. Might be 9 issues, one issue was Issue 700, so it had some more content then the other issues. I guess it’s because I cared about Brightest Day & Futures End where as I don’t about Spider-Man. All three aren’t that great of books but I at least cared for BD & FE in some small way. Superior Spider-Man? not so much.
To answer my questions:
Why am I doing this? I thought I'd try something new. Try out a series I hadn’t read before & see for myself if I’d like it or not. I came out ambivalent on it. There were thinks to dislike about it but not enough for me to actively devote time & energy to.
What does it matter? It matters, just not to me. In reading those issues there were things that I could easily see that were “wrong” with it.
Who cares? This was more about my posting of my review of the book.I could have easily let this pass on by, as I have let other books I could have reviewed. But I did announce elsewhere online that I was going to be “reviewing” the series & I felt that I at least owned those interested a post of some kind. It’s not much of a post but a post none the less.
One last thing: I might not care for Spider-Man, Superior or otherwise. But I would suggest to search out The Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spenser & Steve Lieber. It’s not very long, only 17 issues but well worth your time. It was one of the better Marvel books I was reading when it was coming out. It almost alway near the top of my “good comics I read this month”. It also doesn’t feature Spider-Man in it, just Villains doing villain things! If you want a fun team book, Superior Foes is a good choice! I’ve also met artist Steve Lieber a few times, nice guy.
Until next Stay Jazzy everybody!
- Brian
