Superior Spider-Man #18 Review!

Hello everybody, Donlinedude here and welcome to my review of Superior Spider-Man #18. Sorry about the long delay with this post, but at least it's finally up, and hopefully when #19 comes out, I'll have my review of that up much faster.

Synopsis:

Face to face with his present day counterpart, Miguel O'Hara attempts to re-introduce himself to who he believes is Peter Parker. Unfortunately for him, it's really Otto Octavius, who has no idea who this guy is (since he erased Peter's memories before he had the chance to study them all). So he just elects to punch Miguel in the face instead. While Miguel briefly confounded by "Spider-Man's" actions, SpOck turns his attention back to Tiberius Stone, who continues to wind him up. O'Hara gets between the two however, declaring that Stone is under his protection (since he's Miguel's grandfather) and the two Spider-Men face off, each unsheathing their talons.

Inside Horizon Labs, lawyer Hector Baez leaves to go and help Max Modell, who is still in federal custody, despite Uatu "Not the Watcher" Jackson's protests. Grady Scraps is also about to enter his "Time Door invention (despite his girlfriend, Bella's protests and the fact that a future Spider-Man just came through the thing!) to expose Stone for the little swear word that he is.

Back outside, Otto manages to slash Miguel in the gut, only to find that it did jack squat! Miguel explains that his costume is made of UMF material, which is standard in the year 2099, though it looks cutting edge to a "low tech" like Otto, which infuriates SpOck to the point where he picks up a car with his retractable tentacles. Seeing his chance, Stone activates a portable Spider-Jammer in his hand, overloading "Spidey's" Spider-Sense and causing him to drop the car, which almost crushes Normie Osborn. Thankfully, Miguel saves him with a web line before taking off with Stone. A frustrated Octavius gives chase, remarking that this is all unacceptable (...you're unacceptable!)

 

He orders his minions to search for Spider-Man 2099 in conjunction with the Hobgoblin. The call is interrupted by another from Anna Maria Marconi, who is offering to come over and help "Peter" with his college thesis. Through his response, Ock realises that all his thesis work is stored over at Horizon and heads back there as fast as he can.

Meanwhile, Miguel puts some distance between himself and Doc SpOck, landing on a rooftop with Tiberius Stone.Tyler Stone (the corrupt CEO of Alchemax, Tiberius' son and Miguel's dad) informs Spidey that his personal timeline is stabilising. Miguel briefly ponders whether or not he should allow his scheming grandpappy to live since that will lead to the creation of Alchemax, but is interrupted from his thoughts by Tiberius, whose figured out that Spider-Man won't harm him, putting his theory to the test by jumping off the rooftop. Miguel saves him and promptly webs him to the wall,
 deciding to hotwire his wrist communicator to another channel. He "dl's" the thought bank of his holo-assistant Lyla to his location, instructing her to "info-dump" him on everything she knows about the connections between Tiberius, Horizon & Alchemax.

Travelling back into the past, Grady (who is invisible to everyone there ala the Pensieve from Harry Potter) uncovers Stone's sabotage of Peter Parker's demonstration of his "Parker Particles", taking photo evidence before contacting Bella and Sajani to input the next set of coordinates so he can jump back further. While this is going on, Otto is removing all of his equipment with the Living Brain. They are met outside by Hector & Max, who begs "Peter" to trust them as they can sort this out. Of course, Otto refuses to listen and ultimately infuriates Max by cutting him off mid-sentence to take a call from his Spider-Lings, who have located the Hobgoblin, but instead of Phil Urich, it's the Goblin King in disguise as the original Hobby. Out of patience, Modell informs "Parker" that if he leaves right now, he's fired! Guess what Otto does? As this is happening, Lyla informs Miguel that Stone's sabotage led to the actual destruction of Horizon Labs, which led to the rise of Alchemax. She also reveals the date of the event, which leaves Miguel "shocked" since (in the Marvel U anyway) it's today!

Heading back into Horizon Labs after firing "Parker", Modell discovers what his employees have been doing with the time door. Grady emerges from it just as Max calls for them to pull him out, saying when they hear what he's found it, the whole thing will be worth it. Outside, Otto frantically pulls on his costume as he fumes over all the different problems that are plaguing him. It's at this point that he receives a call from Mary Jane Watson, who simply wants to talk. Otto basically snaps at her before spotting Spider-Man 2099 heading to Horizon with Stone in hand.

Back inside Horizon, the time door has been shut down, but there are still several chronotons in the air. Grady explains that they aren't from the door and that this was always going to happen, a claim that's backed up by Miguel as he arrives with Stone. He tells everyone that the place is about to blow, but if they listen to him, they can all make it out in one piece. It's at this point that SpOck chooses to wallop Miguel in the face, asking "What?" (I don't know Otto, what could you possibly have done wrong?) as Miguel's watch states that a temporal event will occur in sixteen minutes!

Thoughts:

Midway through this arc and things are heating up nicely. Despite all-out mayhem occurring in these pages, Dan Slott keeps things surprisingly coherent for the most part, with a cliffhanger ending that makes the wait for the concluding chapter all the more difficult.

While I personally would have liked to have seen Otto's decisions throughout the series negatively affect him earlier than this, it's still good to see Slott taking him down this route now. It's rather satisfying to watch the "Superior Spider-Man's" mistakes, both past and present (which I guess is an apt phrase for this storyline), catch up to him. It definitely seems as though Doc SpOck won't be coming out of this unscathed.

Miguel O'Hara continues to function well as a duel protagonist. His detective work ensures that he remains his own character rather than being reduced to a pawn of Alchemax, and it also allows Slott to bring in more characters from 2099 briefly. And while he may not have much of a sense of humour, Miguel's actions provide some much needed comedy to the story, like when he calls Otto low-tech. The only moment that seemed a little out of place was the brief appearance of the Goblin King, though this could pay off in the next issue so it's not really a criticism.

Ryan Stegman provides some truly spectacular panels of artworks here. There's an abundance of detail in the characters and the surroundings, with an awesome action scene between the two Spider-Men. So far this has proved to be a pretty effective story. A lot is resting on the final part however and I'd be lying if I said I haven't been disappointed by Slott in the past, but hopefully he can deliver a satisfying conclusion to this story...

Score: 4.0/5.0

Superior Spider-Man #17 Review!

Hello everybody, Donlinedude here and welcome to my review of Superior Spider-Man #16, featuring the return of everyone's favourite future hero, Spider-Man 2099!

Synopsis:

In the city of Nueva York, in the year 2099, the Public Eye order everyone within the vicinity of the headquarters of mega-corp Alchemax to evacuate immediately. Miguel O'Hara disembarks from a nearby "mag-lev" and suits up as Spider-Man 2099 to investigate.

It turns out that the Public Eye are trying to contain several biplanes and a T-Rex that have emerged as a result of temporal energy distortions. After assisting them in their endeavour, Spider-Man breaks into Alchemax headquarters, suspecting the corporation of causing the distortions in the first place. Instead, he discovers that the CEO of Alchemax, Tyler Stone (Hmm, that surname sounds familiar?) is being slowly erased from history by some unknown force from the past. Unfortunately for Miguel, Stone is his biological father, which means that he'll also be erased if he doesn't prevent whatever's causing the problem, which is pinpointed to the year 2013. He's forced to go anyway as he's recorded as appearing there already (As a Time Lord once said, Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.).

In the present day (2013) Otto Octavius is taking part in a company softball game at Horizon Labs. After hitting a home run and being a complete arse about it, the game is suddenly interrupted by several federal agents, who arrest Max Modell on the spot and take him away, shocking Otto (trust me, no pun intended there.), whilst the devious Tiberius Stone looks on from the distance, musing that this is only the start of a very long fall for Modell.

 As the news spreads of Max's arrest, Horizon's stock prices plummet, and an "anonymous" individual begins leaking classified documents of theirs onto the internet. The Daily Bugle reports about the leaks, but not the footage of Modell's arrest since Robbie believes that this insider is trying to manipulate them all like pieces on a chess board.

Meanwhile, in the Goblin Underground, Phil Urich is whining at the Goblin King to let him go and challenge "Spider-Man" for a rematch, saying he was unprepared before (yeah right). Naturally the Goblin King kicks his arse whilst reminding him of how he nearly led "Spidey" to uncover the Goblin Protocols, though he suddenly stops and giggles to himself, saying that Urich has given him an idea.

Back at Horizon, "Peter" is being reminded of all the questionable actions Horizon has taken, replying that his memories been fuzzy lately (and whose fault it that?). The group then receive visitors in the form of Liz Allan (and her son Normie), who has just become the majority shareholder of Horizon. She's also brought along her choice for the sites new supervisor...Stone, who informs everyone that every unpatented idea they've worked on is now the intellectual property of "Al Chem" (Al Chem, Alchemax...why didn't I think of that?), which includes all of the technology that Peter & Otto built for Spider-Man!

As they leave, Grady gets the idea to use his time door to go back in time and gather evidence of Stone's wrongdoing's, but "Peter" has already decided to solve this problem as "the Superior Spider-Man" and pursues the Al Chem limousines . As Grady goes to activate the time door, it activates by itself and O'Hara comes bursting through! After clarifying what year it is, he takes off to find and prevent the anomaly, noting the name Horizon as he goes.

Outside, Otto lands in front of the limos and demands that the occupants exit them. Liz trusts him as she considers Spider-Man an old friend much like Peter, but Normie creepily says that he knows who "Spidey" really is and that someone should do something about him (All he needs to do now is enunciate "Redrum"!). Stone takes pleasure in telling SpOck that everything he's doing is aboveboard, meaning he's supposedly untouchable. That doesn't stop Otto from trying to knock his block off with his bare fist, but Miguel stops him with a webline. The two Spider-Men confront each other, with Miguel declaring that he's "the Spider-Man of tommorow, here to save today!" (As well as his own "shocking" grandfather.)...

Thoughts:

This issue gets things of to a "shocking" good start. Dan Slott invests a great deal more focus than he has in previous story arcs, which is probably why they were so unfocused in the first place, and delivers a satisfactory first part.

Within seconds of reading the opening scenes in 2099, you can tell that Slott has a real reverence for the character of Miguel O'Hara and his voice for the character is really consistent with Peter David's. Miguel is very distinct from Otto and his motivations are nicely complicated to go along with the Doctor Who-style time-travel.

What's also impressive is how Slott ties 2099 to the present day Marvel U. The reappearance of Liz Allen was a nice surprise and I never suspected that Alchemax could be a future version of Al Chem merged with Horizon Labs. It's good to see Otto express concern over Max Modell's arrest and speak highly of him for once, I was getting tired of hearing him insult everything that moves. There's some good jokes here too, the gag of the Horizon staff being divided into everyone who got turned into a spider versus everyone who got turned into a lizard is pure genius!

Ryan Stegman returns for art duties this issue and he does a great job, with the exception of some of the scenes set in 2099 which are a little hard to follow, though Miguel looks like a total badass in every panel he features. Overall, very promising...

Score: 4.0/5.0

Deadpool Kills Deadpool #3 Review!

Hello everybody, Donlinedude here and welcome to my review of Deadpool Kills Deadpool #3.

Synopsis:

Continuing on from last issue, Galactipool has arrived to consume this version of Earth. Despite this literally enormous threat, the Watcher chooses now to recap the story to us before Deadpool yells at him to focus (who'd have thought Deadpool of all people would have more sense than the Watcher?).

The Deadpool's soon start fighting again, with Deadpool curb-stomping the crap out of Evil Deadpool and Pandapool taking on the Deadpool versions of Wolverine & Spiral. Lady Deadpool is saved from Galactipool by the Watcher, who confesses that she's his favourite (I'll bet she is.), Cesspool, who she was fighting beforehand, isn't so lucky.

The Corps retreat to an underground cellar, with Pandapool pausing to bisect Spiral-Pool with one of the hatch doors (Ooh, that's gotta hurt!). Inside, Lady D & Wade arm themselves with several pieces of weaponry specialising in killing Deadpools, with Wade lamenting how much of a waste that is.

Outside, they are attacked by Wolvie-Pool, who Deadpool dispatches by tossing a grenade containing hundreds of ravenous insects that eat him alive (Okay, now that's just nasty!). Deadpool then notes that when Lady D showed him the cellar, she said that he'd need it, not they'd need it. Lady D responds by giving the Watcher an almighty smooch and then retreating to the Bea Arthur, activating it and ramming it into Galactipool's giant head, sacrificing herself to destroy him.

The Watcher answers Deadpool's question of what they should do next, saying that they must travel to their Dreadpool's homeworld. He's interrupted however by Evil Deadpool, who has survived along with Spiral-Pool and doesn't intend for them to go anywhere. Enter Galactipool's gored head to put them both out of commission.

Their enemies dealt with, the Watcher teleports Wade & Pandapool to this worlds version of the Savage Land, with the intent of discovering the Nexus of All Realities. Unfortunately, this worlds Nexus has been burned out, with the only other alternative being described by the Watcher as "more costly than even I imagined".  As Deadpool moans about how the important stuff always comes with a cost, the group are besieged by more Deadpool's serving Dreadpool, Deadpool versions of Devil Dinosaur, M.O.D.O.K and Howard the Duck (what a duckin' cliffhanger!)...

Thoughts:

Once again a very good instalment. After two issues of utter insanity, Cullen Bunn changes gears and gives us a rather melancholy issue that meshes well with the established tone, though of course there's still plenty of crude humour and gore.

With so many different versions of himself dying him, it's nice that Deadpool goes through some self-introspection in this issue. His desire to be a hero is what balances his more extreme qualities and reminds us that he is somewhat of a protagonist. Seeing him start to question whether he's capable of such helps to boost sympathy for his character and make the conflict deeper than it was previously. Lady D's death is undeniably the saddest of all the Deadpool Corps as she's arguably the most well developed of all of them besides Kidpool. I'm still wondering if they'll stay dead, but if they are, then we're in for quite a somber ending.

Like I said there's still a good deal of humour and violence to behold. I'm digging Bunn's knack for coming up with different incarnations of Deadpool so much that I almost wish the series would continue for longer so we could see more of them. Salva Espin fills the panels with some over-the-top, chaotic and sometimes gruesome images, with Veronica Gandini offsetting the dark material with some bright and beautiful colours. I'm very much enjoying this series and here's hoping the conclusion will be just as good...

 Score: 4.5/5.0

Rayman: Jungle Run Review!

Hello everybody, Donlinedude here and welcome to my review of Rayman: Jungle Run.

Rayman has had it good these last couple of years. Despite his series being hijacked by the Raving Rabbids, he made a comeback with the amazing and hugely successful Rayman Origins in 2011, and with the release of the sequel Rayman Legends, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the Origins spin-off for IOS & Android, Rayman Jungle Run.

Developed by Pastagames, and retaining the art style of Origins, Jungle Run sees you dash through 70 levels as Rayman, with the goal to collect all 100 Lums in each level to unlock the the extremely challenging Land of the Livid Dead. What's impressive right out of the gate is that, despite the friendly-looking and quite frankly gorgeous art style, the game does not shy away from challenging you. The levels have a fast paced, almost parkour-esque nature akin to the treasure chest stages from Origins. 

Sometimes it's difficult enough trying to stay alive, never mind trying to 100% the level.  Each stage is well designed, especially the Land of the Livid Dead segments, which require some expert platforming if you're to make it through in one piece.

All this expert level design would be for nought however, if the controls weren't up to scratch. Thankfully, they're polished to near-perfection. The first four stages ease you into the different abilities Rayman possesses here, namely jumping, hovering, wall-running and punching, and they all mesh together nicely. The animation is crisp and flows brilliantly for both Rayman and the various enemies, which includes the giant plant monster & pirate ship from Origins as bosses. The game lifts the wonderfully ear-pleasing soundtrack from Origins, which enhances the experience of each level and makes it feel fresh, particularly as the tracks switch randomly with each attempt and are exclusive to certain areas.

Much like it's console counterpart, I could gush sycophantically about this game for quite a while, so I'll just finish up now. Considering it could easily have been a lazy port of Origins, it's all the more gratifying that Ubisoft & Pastagames put the effort into making Rayman: Jungle Run a unique, refreshing and above all, fun, must have app for any mobile gamer...

Score: 5.0/5.0