Goodness, I nearly forgot about this one.  “Arms of the Octopus” is a crossover between the annuals (sorry, “Specials”) of three titles – All-New X-Men, Indestructible Hulk, and Superior Spider-Man Team-Up, presumably selected by chucking darts at the solicitations while blindfold.  It’s getting its own trade paperback collection, which will be rounded out by the immortal Wolverine: In the Flesh (the one with the celebrity chef).

Stories like this always have more than a hint of schedule padding about them.  But this actually isn’t bad.  The people behind it seem to understand that inconsequential schedule filler presents an opportunity to have a bit of fun, and that if you’re going to do a random team-up between three unrelated heroes, the entertainment had better come from the way they interact with each other.

“Arms of the Octopus” – a title that has pretty much zero to do with the content of the story – opens with the X-Men’s chapter.  The original team (minus Angel, who’s with the breakaway team at this point) head into Manhattan for the day, and Hank ends up stumbling into a reunion with his old university professor Dr Jude.  If you’re wondering quite how Silver Age Hank can have an old university professor, well, his origin story did have him going to college before joining the team, and besides, it’s never been terribly clear when he found time in continuity to get his degree.  Conveniently for the plot, Jude used to work in gamma radiation but now researches time travel, which hasn’t been going that well for him.  The Silver Age Dr Octopus shows up and attacks, and the X-Men and Spider-Man beat him.  Spider-Man is understandably a bit confused about where this impostor came from and wants to stick around to sort out the answer.  Since Octopus is also heavy on the gamma radiation, the plot bends over backwards by having them call in Bruce Banner to lend his contribution.  And we go from there.

The Hulk, frankly, is a bit shoehorned in here.  The story doesn’t need him, he gets shunted aside before the final act, and there’s something a little odd in the way he acts as if he’s meeting Spider-Man for the first time.  But he does at least provide a character who can play the experienced voice of reason for the middle section of the plot, so that the current Spider-Man (of whom a little can go a long way) doesn’t have to take that role throughout.

On the whole, though, this is pretty good.  Mike Costa’s story is nothing earth shattering at the plot level, but it does work as a background for the characters, who get plenty of room to breathe.  The scenes of the X-Men exploring modern Manhattan, which take up a big chunk of chapter one, are nicely pitched, with the team feeling like characters in their own right instead of just artefacts of a time travel story.

Spider-Man – who is, of course, Dr Octopus at this point in continuity – is also handled very well; he’s certainly obnoxious and self-important, but he’s never over the line to the point where the X-Men have any reason to reject him.  After all, he is doing all the right things, and his attitude problem is certainly no worse than Quicksilver’s.  And the team have never met him before, so they’ve got no reason to think he’s acting out of character.  (The Hulk’s another matter, as I’ve said…)  The final chapter makes particularly good use of the rapport between the team, with Spider-Man trying to prompt the X-Men into ambitiously complicated uses of their powers and getting met with blank responses of “yeah, I can’t do that”.  When he finally does get them to do what he wants, Spider-Man smugly sees himself as a veteran mentor figure who’s helped set these young turks on the right course.

There’s some strong artwork here, too.  None of it particularly reflects the tone of the notional parent titles, but Kris Anka’s X-Men chapter is nice clean work that fits with the idea of the team as displaced Silver Agers.  Jacob Wyatt’s Hulk chapter gets the Hulk an overgrown child, and uses some imaginative layouts to liven up what could otherwise have been some staid scenes of people talking in a lab.  He does a good Spider-Man too; his version of the mask is slightly off model, with the web design a little more erratic, but the change works for his style.  Michael Dialynas’ closing chapter is less immediately gripping, but he’s still a strong cartoonist and all three artists give us expressive characters.  It helps, of course, that Costa’s script gives them something to express.  The story is straightforward, but it gives the artists something to work with, and they take up the opportunity.

A very pleasant surprise, this one.  It could easily have been phoned in by all involved, but it certainly isn’t.