Ultimate Spiderman #160

And now the end is near and so I face the final curtain. As I write this I look up at my canvas print of the Amazing Spiderman #40 with a muscular Spidey standing over the Green Goblin beside the caption, “SPIDEY SAVES THE DAY!” I can’t help but notice the ironic parallels between that classic cover and this finale as we join our hero taking a final stand against his arch nemesis to protect his friends and family.

If you tore open your super secret polybag expecting to find a huge spectacle or some shocking twist then no doubt you will finish this issue feeling disappointed. However if you have any love for Spiderman, Ultimate or otherwise, then you may agree with me that this is a damn fine ending to a stellar series.

To avoid spoilers please look away now…

I’ll admit that I’d begun to accept the title of this storyline as some kind of macabre red herring. But as the issue drew to a close I felt like a bit of a fool. All this time I spent second-guessing them and they get me with the old double bluff. I believe I was in so much shock that I couldn’t take in the magnitude of this event.

Peter Parker, the Ultimate Spiderman is dead. Bereft of life he rests in peace. Now I know that superheroes die all the time these days so it really is a rarity to read one with this much dramatic weight to it. It would be very difficult to undo the impact of this story with any quick-fix resurrection that might be around the corner. And that certainly shouldn’t be a priority for Marvel because what they have is that rare example of a hero’s journey coming full circle. We can see just how much he has grown in these last moments and with his last words he seems to find a sense of closure that few of us could expect.

One of Mark Bagley’s greatest strengths is that he can put as much manic energy into his action scenes as his smaller character interaction. While the conflict almost approaches Tom and Jerry levels of violence, the sight of Mary Jane hitting the Green Goblin with a truck lifted my spirits. In spite of all the blood and fire, it was Aunt May’s hysterical reaction to the death of her nephew that really sold that pivotal moment to me.

So Brian Michael Bendis tops off his record-breaking run and he has every right to be proud. While edgier writers like Garth Ennis and Mark Miller taunt that the classic superheroes would be psychopaths and dickheads in the real world, Bendis seems to offer Ultimate Spiderman as a mature reply that our favourite wall crawler would not. His is a story of true heroic sacrifice…with webs.

Joe Read.

Ultimate Spiderman #159

The fact that this issue revolved around a big fight scene did mean that it flew by in an instant on my first reading but there is more than enough to savor in this outing. After some sporadic action throughout this storyline Mr. Mark Bagley throws in his most kinetic and electrifying work since his return. The pages snap, crackle and pop with the super-powered violence our hero battles and really makes you wonder at the amount of punishment one radioactive teenager can endure.

Those little boxes of Peter’s inner thoughts have never shone through so humbly and with such vulnerability as they do at times here. It just wouldn’t be Spiderman if he weren’t still cracking wise in the face of impending death and those quips still made me smile though my heart was breaking. Watch out for a nicely timed almost DC reference.

I am avoiding spoilers in this review so I won’t go into detail on what Gwen Stacey describes as ‘the very definition of awesome’ but suffice to say that it couldn’t happen to a nicer chap. The moment almost takes a strange pride in establishing an already hardened character as the next Dirty Harry. One might question if they would be as quick to do what they do if they knew what the Punisher had done to Peter but these are desperate times in all the confusion I somehow doubt it.

The final reveal is an infuriating ‘Oh for crying out loud…’ cliffhanger but it certainly didn’t damper by appetite for the end of the end. I know we’re all very anxious to see what Brian Michael Bendis has got for us in his polybag of tricks.

Joe Read.

Ultimate Spider-Man #158

The Ultimates are dickheads and even Spiderman thinks so. He wakes up in shock here and that could be because the Ultimates as written by Brian Michael Bendis have usually tried to look out for him. They may be rougher around the edges but deep down they’re as noble as their Earth 616 counterparts. They certainly wouldn’t leave him buried under rubble. Unfortunately the satirised pricks created by Mark Millar would and they’re the ones he tried to help.

I may have been too hard on this in my last review but my point that this crossover seems to only exist so that Spiderman could be shot is just plain silly. I’m not playing favourites but it’s obvious that one writer cares more about the characters they’re writing than the other.

It’s a credit to Bendis that the more understated moments of this comic always have the biggest impact. There’s a funny exchange between Bobby Drake and Johnny Storm that conveys a lot of frustration about being delegated to supporting players in someone else’s story before they get pulled into the action. On the subject of underplaying things, the gradual portrayal of the Sinister Five as super-powered thugs instead of megalomaniacs makes their appearance here and their simple plan (Find Spiderman. Kill Spiderman) uncomfortably believable.

Mark Bagley really nails the emotional beats of this issue. In particular, he blew me down with a wordless moment early on that perfectly encapsulated Spidey’s selfless nature. He has done a great job of setting the scene for the High Noon style showdown to come and that last moment really helped to stir me up for the endgame.

Joe Read

After checking off eight issues from my Death of Spiderman checklist, the question of when he will die looks like it may soon be answered. It’s difficult to think of a character in the Marvel Universe less deserving of death than Spiderman. Except for Howard the Duck. But in the words of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, ‘Deserves got nothing to do with it.’

This time we join our hero darting around New York trying not to freak out. Meanwhile the Sinister Six (or Ultimate Six?) are struggling to get their act together. It is a fact we’ve all learned from bad action films that a super villain cannot handle rejection. So it was nice to see that little convention played out between two of Spidey’s most notorious villains even if the result felt a little abrupt.

Brian Michael Bendis clearly has big plans for the character from the deft way he keeps the plot racing and emotions flowing in equal measure. A moment between Peter, Aunt May and Gwen is only a couple of pages long but proves very sweet amid the calamity.

Mark Bagley is on great form once again, easily rising to the challenge of unveiling this big story on a small scale. I will say that his recent depiction of the Green Goblin looks a little rushed compared to his previous work on the character.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room. To avoid spoilers please look away now… It may be undeserved, but you couldn’t come up with a way of offing Spiderman that is more befitting to his character. I’ve observed that superheroes have different techniques; Batman is a detective, Superman is a godlike sentinel, and the Fantastic Four are scientific explorers. Spiderman is a well-meaning teenager. He leaps into the fray with naught but his moral compass to guide him. More often than not it works in his favor. It has nothing to do with ego or bravado but an innocent desire to help. If this leads him to his demise then I can appreciate it.

But I may be jumping the gun if you’ll pardon the expression. I’m not sure yet if I’m taking the title of the storyline too literally or not literally enough. You may have heard that issue #160 will be sold in a plastic bag. This means there’s a big twist coming up and it must be something other than his death. It seems cruel to let a gunshot wound last for three issues.

Joe Read.

Released on the 27th April, 2011.

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