Superior Spider-Man: How Angry Are You? (Spoilers)

SPOILERS ahead for Superior Spider-Man #9, out today.Superior Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, who [...]

Spider-Man fights Spider-Man

SPOILERS

ahead for Superior Spider-Man #9, out today. Superior Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, who famously "killed" Pater Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man #700 and replaced him with longtime villain Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man's body, earned the ire of a lot of fans on the Internet for that move--and a few death threats. It wasn't but a few weeks until things simmered down considerably, though, as the first issue of Superior Spider-Man revealed that Peter was still alive, his soul disembodied from his brain and acting as a kind of bizarre Jiminy Cricket to Doc Ock. Shortly after that, when the solicitations for this month's product hit the stands, Slott began teasing that today's issue would make fans even angrier than #700 had, joking that he might have to unplug the Internet again for a while.

mind-wipe

Titled "Superior No More," fans of the character unhappy with the current status quo actually got their hopes up for a while that this could spell the end of the Doc Ock era--which of course was a mindset only bound to lead to disappointment. In a battle that took place in the landscape of Peter's brain, Doctor Octopus finally discovers the shred of Peter that's trying to hang on and proceeds to fight with him, debating tactics and ethics along the way, before finally screaming "commence mindwipe" and apparently eradicating all traces of Peter (although he's not killed--just left alive, wandering around the brain and with no recollection of who he is). Whether this will eat away at the elements of Peter embedded in Doc Ock's own consciousness, thus making it incredibly difficult for him to go on living Peter's life without something being conspicuously wrong to even casual observers, is up in the air. Certainly it seems like that's both a rich storyline to mine, but one with a very finite lifespan. Obviously leaving Peter ostensibly alive in the brain leaves things open to continue on -- but it seems to be taking the book farther away from returning to the classic Spider-Man status quo, rather than closer to it. What do you think--is this actually more frustrating than the last time around?

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