Superior
First Aired: October 13th, 2019
Synopsis: As Miles carries Peter's mind in his robotic body away from Doctor Octopus in Peter's body, he passes by the facility where Venom is being held. The symbiote senses that Spider-Man is nearby and awakens. The next day at Midtown High Doctor Octopus finds himself surprised by how much he enjoys talking to Anna Maria, and when Flash Thompson tells him that Spider-Man's been too brutal recently, he starts to realise that he's got a point. The Venom symbiote escapes its holding and arrives at Horizon High, looking for Spider-Man. When Max Modell doesn't tell it where Spider-Man is, it bonds with him to read his memories and sees Doctor Octopus as Peter quit the school. Over there, Doctor Octopus is bonding with Anna Maria over being outsiders when he gets a call from Peter, warning him about Venom. Ock is dismissive, but when the symbiote arrives it grabs Flash and Anna Maria. It detects that Ock isn't really Peter, and threatens to kill its hostages.
Peter arrives in his robot, ready to sacrifice himself to help stop Venom, but Doctor Octopus willingly swaps their minds as he realises that Peter's methods were superior to his all along. Venom wants to bond with Peter and Peter pretends to accept, but simply sets things up so that Anna Maria can drop a ceiling light on Venom and overload it with electricity. Anna Maria admits that she knows that Peter is Spider-Man, but Peter explains what happened with Ock. The robot that he's in is breaking down but Peter takes it to Ock's body and transfers his mind. While it doesn't awaken Doctor Octopus from his coma, his brain activity increases. In the aftermath, Peter goes out swinging, happy to be returned to his body.
Review: Urgh. After everything that's gone down throughout this arc, I'd sadly have to call this, the climax, the weakest part of it all. Doctor Octopus admitting that Peter was superior all along was a strong moment in the original comics, but the execution here isn't as strong. It doesn't feel as though Ock has been backed up against a wall, nor does it feel like he's had enough time to reflect on his methods and understand why he was wrong. His bonding with Anna Maria also feels kind of creepy - I know that Doctor Octopus is older than Peter, but even with that in mind we're still seeing someone in a teenager's body start to get a crush on a faculty member which feels wrong.
The Venom symbiote feels pretty lacklustre here. I've said before that Venom's at his best for me when he's forcibly inserting himself into Peter's life, and while that's technically true here, having Ock be able to immediately change to Spider-Man takes away from one of Venom's unique traits. Venom isn't even that intimidating here - as Anna Maria puts it, it's a literal ball of slime. It's a raving, rambling monster, one that, when it's defeated, grows to ridiculous size and explodes. It's definitely not its finest moment, and feels more like it would be at home in Ultimate Spider-Man.
On the plus side, we've finally got Peter back in his body, so that's satisfying. Hearing his quips and banter during battle is something that I hadn't realised how much I'd miss, and it's genuinely fun to see him swinging again, happy to be back. He's also got to deal with the fallout of Doctor Octopus' actions from here, so that should give us a few episodes of content and drama within his life. Overall, the Superior Spider-Man arc was mostly average, so here's hoping that with Peter back we'll get some stronger plots going forwards.
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