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'Devil's Reign Superior Four' TPB provides the ultimate Doc Ock experience
Marvel

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‘Devil’s Reign Superior Four’ TPB provides the ultimate Doc Ock experience

‘Devil’s Reign Superior Four’ TPB is a great way to enjoy Doc Ock.

If you missed out on the Devil’s Reign event and its crossovers, fear not, as the trade paperbacks collecting it start to come out this week. That includes the main Devil’s Reign event, as well as Devil’s Reign: Superior Four. Customary of comics events, crossovers allow for different takes on characters and stories thanks to the setup of a main crisis. In this case, Doc Ock must contend with three other “Superior” Doc Ock’s from alternate dimensions. Piece of cake, right? That is until you realize each one is a “Superior” form of Hulk, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider!

If you enjoyed Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man, you’ll probably like Zac Thompson and Davide Tinto’s four-issue story. An incredibly arrogant villain like Doc Ock is a fun read, so just imagine different forms of him! Something that is immediately obvious when you open this book is how well Thompson captures Doc Ock’s voice. He’s intelligent, the perfect amount of pompous, and just the right amount of evil. He’s a bad guy for sure, but at a level that’s fun to explore and enjoy. The book opens with Doc Ock talking through his childhood trauma via captions. It puts us on Doc Ock’s side before diving into the central conceit of the series.

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That conceit, which features the Superior Four aka Doc Ocks of other dimensions that came into the form of Wolverine, Hulk, and Ghost Rider, is a lot of fun. Thompson defines each in subtle ways that add a dimension to each so that they aren’t just clones of Doc Ock. This allows the Hulk version, for instance, to come off as a bit more caring, or the Wolverine version is a bit more animalistic. Plus his adamantium arms are quite cool too.

Tinto and color artist Matt Milla put a lot of detail in every panel, with many smaller panels still doing the work to show all four Doc Ock characters. There’s a level of detail going into backgrounds that add richness to the world around the characters. It ends up making the book feel like it has more value. Character design is a good blend of goofy and traditional with the Superior characters, but expect to find some new characters pop up in the book. There’s a cool remix on a classic that’ll have fans excited for sure.

'Devil’s Reign: Superior Four' #1 review

This is gonna be a lot of fun.
Credit: Marvel

Readers who may not be interested in Devil’s Reign should know this tie-in isn’t that connected to the main event. The hook into this series is the fact that Doc Ock has access to Mr. Fantastic’s home base. It is revealed there is a Superior Doctor Doom that seems to think he can rival Doc Ock, that ends up being the main antagonist. As the series progresses, we see Doc Ock is bested, but not for long. Thompson explores the ultimate ego by combining Dr. Doom and Doc Ock in an enjoyable main villain. The fact that Doc Ock–far less powerful than all other Doc Ocks presented in this series–is the best there is proves he truly is the most superior.

Letters by Ariana Maher are clean and easy to follow. Sound effects use a stroke effect to make them pop. In a few panels, they are integrated with the art in exciting ways, popping up behind characters.

This collection also houses the Devil’s Reign: Spider-Man one-shot by Anthony Piper and Carlos Gomez. This issue tackles the Ben Reilly version of Spider-Man currently working for Beyond Corp quite well. The voice of the character is on point, and it also features his handler at Beyond Marcus Momplaisir. Tying into the event and the Beyond Corp era of Spider-Man, this issue is less for casual fans than the Superior-Four, but I guess it needed to be collected somewhere.

Devil’s Reign: Superior Four is a fun romp in the headspace of Doc Ock. Leaning into the Superior Spider-Man angle on the character, the creative team clearly understands the character. It’s also goofy, which is uncommon in superhero comics today.

'Devil's Reign Superior Four' TPB provides the ultimate Doc Ock experience
‘Devil’s Reign Superior Four’ TPB provides the ultimate Doc Ock experience
Devil's Reign Superior Four TPB
Devil’s Reign: Superior Four is a fun romp in the headspace of Doc Ock. Leaning into the Superior Spider-Man angle on the character, the creative team clearly understands the character. It's also goofy, which is uncommon in superhero comics today.
Reader Rating0 Votes
0
The book understands Doc Ock very well
Fun to see Doc Ock lean into his ego unencumbered
Art packs a lot of punch into every panel
Superior Four isn't super tied into Devil's Reign, making it easier for casual fans to enjoy
Not being tied into Devil's Reign also makes it odd that it's branded a tie-in!
The Spider-Man tie-in one-shot feels tacked on in this collection
8
Good
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