Superior Spider-Man #3

Hey all, first review of the night is none other than the third issue of Superior Spider-Man!  This is the first issue of this series that I've reviewed, as JT has been the resident Superior Spidey reviewer up to this point.  Here's hoping this issue is as strong as the first two were!

Superior Spider-Man #3

Summary: This issue starts with Mayor Jameson summoning Spidey with a massive Spider-Signal.  Spidey seemingly destroys it upon arriving(or does he???) since he figures it would simply tell his villains where he was...  Take THAT, Batman!  From there, Jameson tells Spidey that the Vulture was up to his old tricks again(which Spidey already knows!), and he ends up getting paired with Carlie on the case, since the two managed to bust Vulture before.  Carlie again notices that Spidey was acting... off, and thinks back to Spider-Man #700 and what Doc Ock said to her...  Spidey fixes the lenses in his mask to track down the electro-magnetic signature Vulture leaves behind and ditches Carlie.  While travelling, Spidey(and Peter) relive a moment Spidey(back when he was still Doc Ock) and Vulture had back in the day.  The gist of the flashback was that Vulture was only in the crime game for the money...  Spidey tracks Vulture down and confronts him, telling him he would give him 50 million dollars from hidden back accounts if he simply retires.  Vulture figures this was another one of Spidey's wisecracks and has his little henchmen attack.  Spidey tires of that and smashes one of the henchmen, knocking their mask off and realizing that the henchmen were actually little kids.  That causes Spidey to flashback to his own abusive childhood, and makes him decide that he had to stop Vulture...  For good.  Vulture realizes that Spidey seemed REALLY pissed and decides to take flight, but is followed by the still angry Spidey.  The two tussle in the air a bit and Spidey manages to direct Vulture over the Spider-Signal from earlier, using it to blind Vulture and then driving Vulture head-first into it, nearly killing him.  Naturally, Carlie is on the rooftop when this happens, and states that the Spider-Man she knew would never do anything like that.  Spidey explains that he couldn't allow Vulture to continue harming people like Carlie and the children, and Carlie seems to accept that, which leaves Peter feeling very worried.

Thoughts: I enjoyed MOST of this issue thoroughly.  The stuff between Vulture and Spidey/Ock was great.  I loved the flashback, and the fact that Ock was going to simply pay Vulture money to go away since he considered Vulture something of a friend.  I also liked the fact that Spidey/Ock decided he was going to kill Vulture here...  Well, I kind of liked it...  I'd have been okay with Spidey/Ock deciding to kill Vulture because he was using children to do his bidding and that was evil.  However, we're led to believe that Spidey/Ock was SO outraged that Vulture made him strike a child, much like he himself had been struck by his father, that he snapped and wanted Vulture dead...  That kind of bugged me because Doc Ock once tried to like, oh, I don't know, destroy the world!!  Was he somehow exempting kids from his extinction plan?  Or was that different because he was dying?  Another thing that bothered me a bit was the end.  I wasn't sure if I should take it to mean Carlie realized that Ock really WAS Spidey, but was a better Spidey, or if she realized he was Spidey, or if she still thought it was Peter...  Or maybe something else entirely...  But yeah, that was a bit confusing.  However, everything besides those two quibbles?  Great.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.

To be honest, I deducted a half point because the die was never cast...