Superior Spider-Man #25

[cyberghostface]

The Green Goblin and his cronies have kidnapped Carlie Cooper and exposed her to the Goblin formula.

 

Realizing that the symbiote is controlling him, Otto attempts to shun it.






However, the Avengers are still suspicious...

Comments

[chrisdv]

The only good part is Peter.

Monster is yet another example of why Slott needs removing from the book, and really? It took the Avengers this long to tell an intelligent member of the team about the tests they ran on Spider-Man?

[ablackraptor]

Its a terrible name, but I kinda hope Carlie sticks being a villain. Keeps her away from Peter and makes her less-insufferable.
Dislike the look though; I'd prefer if it was more deformed and scary, rather than just 'hot girl with a big smile and some scales'.

[crinos]

So, Peter actually has been around this whole time, he's just been laying low so Otto didn't notice him?

[cyberghostface]

Only recently; we saw him breaking out of the 'rubble' of Otto's memories a couple of issues ago.

[stillanerd]

Well, technically, this looks like it's actually Ghost Peter, who was hinted have been resuscitated in Superior Spider-Man #19 when Otto tried to access Peter's memories to figure out an equation to save Horizon Labs, only to find he had erased that memory. And in Superior Spider-Man #9, Otto states that Ghost Peter isn't actually the real Peter Parker but rather a "memory fragment" that somehow gained self-awareness due to Otto having kept Peter's memories during the mind swap.

[naebler]

"Harvey" Scorpius from Farscape... however I think it's Otto trying to rationalize the fact that Peter was never truly gone, Otto just put an approximation of his own mind over the body's owner. By SCIENCE! Peter is fighting back against the mind washing to become Otto!

[stillanerd]

"Harvey" Scorpius from Farscape

Exactly.

however I think it's Otto trying to rationalize the fact that Peter was never truly gone, Otto just put an approximation of his own mind over the body's owner. By SCIENCE! Peter is fighting back against the mind washing to become Otto!

Yeah, the idea that Doc Ock actually brainwashed Peter with a downloaded copy of his own mind would be the simplest explanation for how Peter actually comes back, I agree. Of course, that would also mean that Doc Ock really did die in ASM #700 thinking he was actually Peter.

[starwolf_oakley]

"You're not Peter Parker! You're a memory fragment. A leftover! An underdone potato or big blob of mustard that THINKS it's Peter Parker!"

"Nice Dickens reference. And its not like I'm the only Superhero that undergoes a perpetual existential crisis. As long as the word 'clone' is never used I'll be fine."

[big_daddy_d]

I LOVE the look on the Avengers faces. It plainly says "...Whatever mother fucker."

Also who is that other female Goblin next to Carlie? She looks pretty cool, artwork considered.

[stillanerd]

Carlie's former best friend, Lily Hollister, aka Menace

[stillanerd]

There's also the fact that SpOck pulls the same "I was infected by the Venom symbiote all this time" excuse on Mary Jane and she believes him because she now "feels" that the part of him that's still his same old self is there again, not realizing that she's subconsciously sensing Ghost Peter because she's Peter's soul mate or some such.

Also, the Green Goblin and Carlie/Monster share this exchange:

GREEN GOBLIN: Now, families don't keep secrets. So let's cut to the big reveal. The Spider's real name. Who is he?
CARLIE/MONSTER: If I did know something like that, I wouldn't share it with just any old Goblin. Quid pro quo. Who are you?
GREEN GOBLIN: Heh. Don't let the theatrics fool you. It's me...Norman Osborn.
CARLIE/MONSTER: Easy to say. Prove it. Take off your mask.
GREEN GOBLIN: Aren't we forward! I'd be a fool to unmask for someone who hasn't proved she's traded her NYPD badge for a spot on Team Goblin.

So basically, unless Dan Slott is pulling a massive double bluff, this pretty much confirms that whoever the Green Goblin is, he's not Norman Osborn. And that Carlie, even though she's now a psychotic Goblin-themed super-villain, may be playing "undercover cop" in an attempt to double-cross them.

[jlroberson]

Consider that the people they give a beatdown are criminals doing crime things, after all. I think there's something to your idea.

[goggle_kid]

I'm calling it. The Goblin King is going to unmask to be one of Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy's kids from "Sins Past," because Slott just LOVES his continuity porn and when you've got a story in cannon that's aged as well as a carton of milk over 10 years you may as well try to make cheese out of it.

[cyberghostface]

I was thinking it'd be Vin Gonzales. He's been away for a while.

[ablackraptor]

Possible theory, it is Norman, and his face has been disfigured to actually look like a Goblin, to tie in with what they (might) be doing with ASM2's Goblin, and he just doesn't want to show it.
Though, it being someone else, or just trolling, is a lot more likely.

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

Last panel, to the left of Jessica... is that Logan? And what happened to his head?

[jlroberson]

Squashed. The mask is actually his compressed hair.

[thezmage]

I didn't notice it before, but that is a massive perspective error.

[stillanerd]

So how much do you guys want to bet that when the Avengers go after SpOck, he's going to manage to take them all down and imprison them, justifying this by saying they're preventing him from protecting the city...which of course is what further helps the Green Goblin and his army to take over during Goblin Nation.

[skjam]

Given that the real Spider-Man has been able to defeat an entire lineup of Avengers before, I will be reasonably accepting of this. (Also, it will mean that the storyline will be over quicker in Marvel Time (tm) so the Avengers can appear in their three other books.)

[chrisdv]

"That does it! Time to bring Spider-Man in!"
*Next issue*
"Can you help Tony figure out who erased our security camera footage?"

[chrisdv]

Good. Doc thinks he did it all this on his own.

...What?

[q99]

SpOck doesn't hear ghost spidey, and fighting off the symbiont left him out of it enough to be not exactly sure what kicked it off.

[chrisdv]

I was actually pointing out that the sentence I quoted makes no grammatical sense.

[althechi]

Yeah, had either "[...]thinks he did it all on his own" or "[...]thinks he did all this on his own" been used it would've been a coherent sentence, but leaving both in means you've got a sentence with two objects directly next to each other, which means the whole thing is now ungrammatical.

[junipepper]

It's an editing failure. The writer or maybe the inker went to change from one object phrase (it all) to the other (all this) and didn't delete the first object. Or just lost track of what they were writing, same result. Someone should have caught it, but sloppiness like this is all too common these days.

[mykoko96]

Going by the grin that Carlie is sporting there, I'm just going to assume that the green goblin has managed to break across universes, and stole joker venom.

[shadowpsykie]

wait,.... the panels don't show who he is.... or are we supposed to infer?

[his_spiffynesss]

So, super special snowflake Carlie Cooper has been turned into another Goblin family villain? Does this mean the editorial love affair with her is over and they will kill her off in the upcoming storyline?

[chrisdv]

Of course not, they'll have her come out of this story looking better than ever somehow, because she got out & Harry couldn't.

[cyberghostface]

Well to be fair Harry exposing himself to the Goblin formula happened pretty late in his storyline, he became the Goblin right after discovering Peter was Spider-Man. He was driven more by psychological issues than anything else.

[obsidianwolf]

That or if they do have her die they'll do it in an attempt to make her the new Gwen Stacy. I can see it now she'll be put in danger and Slotto will try to save her but just before he can Peter will finally triumph over the murderous body stealing scumbag only in that tiny delay she'll die.

So Peter can then spend the rest of Slott's run angsting about how he killed her by trying to taking his body back when he did.

[chrisdv]

That sounds scarily like something Marvel would do.

[stillanerd]

I don't think they'll kill Carlie off now because that would make her into another Gwen. Instead, I'm thinking that it will be revealed that Carlie will be turn against the Green Goblin and have a throw down with Menace. But because the Goblin formula has made her insane, she gets admitted to Ravencroft for treatment.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

But if Carlie is the new Gwen, then that means they're free to bring back the old Gwen and have Amazing Spider-Movie Synergy!

[ablackraptor]

I'm now really, really scared they'll do that. Unless Gwen dies in ASM2, in which case they won't need to, but who knows. Though, I'd personally rather she gets spared and moves away to avoid her being in danger, since it'd have the same effect (angsty Peter) without fridging her.

[ablackraptor]

I...kinda hope they don't kill her off. I REALLY don't like Carlie, but it'd become another fridging and another cheap 'make 'em angst!' moment. I'd rather she stay insane/evil and just moves out of the way so Peter can move on and reunite with MJ.

[beyondthefringe]

Wolverine: sniff..sniff... "I smell bullshit."

I am glad that when Tony came back, he called them out on their lack of experience on the technology. "You fools! Only I am paranoid and tech-savvy enough to know what I'm doing!" Pause. "The symbiote made me a a jerk. Really."

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Is it me, or does it feel like something is missing between the dialogue in the last two panels?

[silverzeo]

... Oct DOES know he needs to act differently from how he normally is... otherwise they'll catch on... he could start by NOT referring subordinates as "minions"...

So... when it looks like Ghost Pete has been ASSUMED to killed in the mind-scape, he was thought to be dead and then turned out he wasn't... how did he got over something like that to begin with? Oct had Peter's memories LITERALLY killed... or is Peter now like Sora from Kingdom Hearts, making Cain and Ben Riley Ventus and Roxas? .... and if MJ is Xion while Stacy as Namine... Kairi better not be Carlie...