Review by Frank Plowright

Superior Spider-Man Companion collects team-up issues from the time Doctor Octopus displaced Peter Parker’s consciousness to become Spider-Man. Most stories are written by Chris Yost, with more pages drawn by Marco Checchetto than any other artist.

Yost makes a sprightly start with Otto Octavius examining what he now is, and what he previously was. He’s confronted by his former self as he visits one of his old hideouts, setting off the defences, and Yost provides an interesting self-evaluation. Going forward Yost has a good handle on Spider-Man’s new antagonistic personality, as established by Dan Slott in the main Superior Spider-Man series. Otto believes himself a scientific genius, and has no time for lesser minds, and this dismissive arrogance extends to the superheroes he finds himself teaming with. As in the main series, his hubris can be his downfall.

While Yost handles that aspect well, particularly when the even bigger ego of Namor turns up, and produces generally entertaining superhero thrillers, he falls flat when it comes to big emotional moments. Kevin Shinick, plots for the final few stories include imaginative surprises, but his dialogue falls really flat, characters explaining themselves to the audience using jokey references dated on publication, never mind now.

Artistically there are no problems. Checchetto isn’t yet the artist who’d later illustrate Daredevil with such style, but he has the basics down, just needing to add more ambitious page layouts. That’s something at which Mike Del Mundo already excels, and the styles of other artists may vary widely, but all impress. Javier Rodriguez is great on Chistos Gage’s tale of how Aunt May is protected.

While most chapters are standalone or two-parters, Yost gradually builds a bigger story, as Otto won’t kill Spider-Man’s foes, many of them his former Sinister Six allies, but instead keeps them captive, occasionally freeing one under his mind control. Inevitably that all goes to hell before the end, and part of the joy is waiting for it to happen.

Partly because this is an episodic series there’s no pretending it’s the equal of Slott’s work on Superior Spider-Man, but there are highspots. Finding cheap used copies of the original paperbacks isn’t difficult. Look for Superiority Complex, Friendly Fire, Versus and Superior Six, and follow the links for more detail about individual stories.