Introduced in the summer of 2013 during an era where Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s brain so he could inhabit his old foe’s body and prove that he is a superior Spider-Man, “The Superior Foes of Spider-Man” by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber joined “Superior Spider-Man Team-Up” as the new books that would further explore the new status quo in the Marvel Universe that basically saw Otto Octavius take over his nemesis’ life and “do it better.” This series followed the Sinister Six, but not the more well-known iteration that included Doc Ock. No, Spencer and Lieber’s all-new Sinister Six included a roster of low-level villains. In fact, after their sixth member Living Brain was out of the picture, there were only five members: Boomerang (Fred Myers), Shocker (Herman Schultz), Speed Demon (James Sanders), Overdrive (James Beverly), and the new Beetle (Janice Lincoln).
This book picks up after Myers finds himself in prison for his most recent crimes. With the help of The Chameleon, he tricks his teammates into bailing him out and talks them into one more job that would secretly repay his debt to the notoriously twisted master of disguise. Though Boomerang tells them it’s a jewel heist, in reality, they’re supposed to steal the head of former New York crime boss Silvermane from the current kingpin, The Owl.
Along the way, the team has to deal with fairly everyday things in the life of a super criminal. For example, Lincoln, the daughter of feared hitman Tombstone and the sixth person to take up the Beetle mantle, is trying to find her place in the criminal community. Meanwhile, Schultz is trying to reconcile his long-time friendship with Myers with the fact that he constantly gets double-crossed by the same man.