I just finished reading the latest issue of The Superior Spider-Man, issue 4 circa 2019. This is the latest in the adventures of Doc Ock in Peter Parker’s body. Sure it’s a cloned copy with some spliced DNA, but it’s close enough. For the most part, that’s how I see The Superior Spider-Man. At least, that is, until this issue.

A little back story. When I was in my first year of college, I’d started reading Ultimate Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man weekly. I’d get the new issues, and do my best to catch up on the old ones. I ended up reading a whole lot of Spider-Man, to the point that it became my safe space.

Then The Death of Spider-Man happened. They killed Ultimate Peter Parker. I lost half of my escape world. I picked up the first issue of Miles Morales, but it didn’t feel the same. I wasn’t ready for something new.

To compensate, I dived full-force into The Amazing Spider-Man, which was, as you might expect, Amazing. I read through Big Time, Spider-Island, and a huge story involving loads of Goblins. So many Goblins.

Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Doctor Octopus stole Peter Parker’s body. Thus, The Superior Spider-Man was born.

I dropped it after about five issues, right around the time when Peter’s ghostly figure inside of Doc’s head was buried beneath some rubble in their shared subconscious. Needless to say, this left me without refuge, and feeling pretty bitter toward the new Spider-Man.

I picked the story up again when Spider-Man 2099 showed up, when I could recognize a face in the Spider-Man world. I was not disappointed. Only a few issues later, they brought Peter Parker back, a full year after they’d killed him off. It only got better from there. Spider-Verse happened, and Peter got to land the most satisfying punch in the 616 history, right in the face of Doc Ock inside Peter’s past body.  Sorry if that’s a little confusing, there’s no way I’ll describe the scene better than it’s laid out in the actual magazine.

Deep breath reader, back story is about finished. Extremely long and convoluted story short, Doc Ock died after giving Peter his body back at the end of The Superior Spider-Man. In preparation for his own death, Doc Ock stored a copy of his mind in the Living Brain, as you do. He then downloaded the copy of his mind into a perfected clone body that contained a mixture of his own DND mixed with that of Peter Parker’s. Then he moved to San Francisco where he now works for Horizon Labs.

There are a couple of points I’d like to address here. Eddie Brock, the original Venom, was born and raised in San Fransisco. Doc Ock got created his clone body with the help of The Jackal. Peter Parker used to work for Horizon Labs. Are we seeing some common threads here?  Everything about The “Superior” Spider-Man glows with the toxic hue of a cheap knock-off.

So why write about it now? Well, this latest issue changed my mind about accepting Doc Ock as a member of the Spider-Family. The truth is, before this story, I didn’t think he came close to Miles or Gwen on the top of the list of substitute Spider-Powered heroes. There are so many Spider-Themed characters out there. Even Spider-Man 2099 is still hanging around present day, and Scarlet Spider is wandering around in Houston. There are more Spider-People out there than ever before, thanks mostly to the developments of the aforementioned celebrated story-arch, Spider-Verse.

It only took a few panels to change my mind. Spoilers to follow, nudge nudge, wink wink.

In Issue 4, The Superior Spider-Man finds and saves a kid from some fallen building rubble. The kid’s mother doesn’t survive. While comforting the kid, Superior Spider-Man drops the ‘Superior’ out of his title and claims to be the true Spider-Man. How dare he, you might be thinking. I sure was.

But then he does something incredible, even more so than lifting half a building off of a kid. He puts himself on the kid’s level emotionally. We don’t hear the conversation in the next four panels, and we don’t need to. He tells the kid what he needs to hear, that’s what matters. Then he swings away to help other people. A full panel’s worth of other people.

The thing is, he didn’t have to tell the kid anything, and, more importantly, he did’t have to swing away with the weight of not only his own grief of his lost parents on his shoulders, but the weight of the kid’s grief as well. But he did, and he carried it the same way a Spider-Man would.

This issue made me realize that there doesn’t have to be only one. There can be any number of Spider-Men or Women or… pigs, as long as they represent the same idea the with great power there must come great responsibility. Doc Ock spends a lot of time talking about his powers and gifts in this issue. He goes on and on about his superior mind, strength, and resources. And it’s not until the end of the issue, after sharing grief with a child and carrying it with him to save countless more people, that he realizes it’s the power that grants him the ability to be Spider-Man, it’s the responsibility that comes with it that he now has to embody.

Thanks for reading, reader. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the current Marvel affairs. Until next time.