The most recent (and in a way, the final?) Ultimate Spider-Man book is based on a video game. That could be a death sentence in a lot of hands, but Brian Michael Bendis has, through years of solid effort, earned my trust. More troublingly, though, it’s based on a video game that came out in 2006, which by even the least generous of publishing schedules means that its events would be months or years out of real-time date from when these scripts were being adapted. So it was kind of strange to see, at a time when every other comic in the Ultimate universe was getting ready for the big Ultimatum conclusion to everything, the Spider-Man story jump back in time by a month or two for a pretty meaningful story-insertion (or, if you feel bitter about it, a big retcon).

War of the Symbiotes tells of what has been happening with Eddie Brock, trapped inside the Venom suit, or possibly it trapped inside him.[1] The problem of course is that I wasn’t all that interested in Venom the last time I saw him, and he’s only gotten iffier since. But in my experience thusfar, a mediocre Bendis Spider-Man story still makes for a pretty good ride on average, and certainly this one got better as it went along. The end result (courtesy of an additional, unrelated retcon) is a pretty big deal, like I said. I cannot decide if I approve or not; it depends on how it gets used down the line. But I have a feeling I’m not going to find out until after the whole big Ultimatum thing, which I am beginning to realize I will have a hard time taking with perfect seriousness; it’s been looming over my knowledge of the series for entirely too long. But I guess we’ll see!

[1] Even in video games, Bendis is pretty good about providing that minimal amount of depth / uncertainty, about just who the parasite is supposed to be.