They certainly don’t pull any punches on the spoilers when they have a big event coming up, do they? That said, I’m not going to go into any of the future spoilers (of which I know somewhere between one and two) in this review; all I’m going to do is take them at their [notoriously untrustworthy where death is concerned] word that the title is accurate, and go from there. Because, while the story in the Ultimate line’s prelude to Death of Spider-Man was good[1], it’s hard to get very worked up about it with such a huge shadow looming over the future landscape. But I shouldn’t sell it short, because it was a really great book, pulling together just about every extant plot thread and weaving them all together seamlessly. More about Mysterio, Spider-Man’s biggest foe since the Green Goblin? Check.[2] Fallout from… I mean, whatever you want to say about the way Stan Lee created the first superhero with human problems, and that being what made Peter Parker special, sometimes that boy has problems that nobody else has, because he’s a superhero. So, as I was saying, fallout from the most literal form of identity theft I’ve ever seen? Check. When the Ultimates hold a coffee klatch about whether you and/or your image can be reformed, you know things are serious. And that’s leaving the girls out of it entirely. My point is, Pete just had a really bad week, and this week wouldn’t be looking so great either, even without Mysterio’s latest gambit or the newest and arguably most dangerous holder of his secret identity.

There. Review out of the way. Now, let’s talk.

I’ve been thinking about this upcoming “death of” storyline for a couple of months now, basically since I received this book and then moreso a few weeks later when spoilers erupted in the media based on the release of a relevant comic (to be portrayed in a graphic novel somewhere down the line, I reckon), but the thoughts didn’t coalesce until after I read this one. We have this guy, Spider-Man, right? He is freakishly strong, although not much stronger than the strongest man without special powers. He has designed a web fluid that lets him swing around to get places faster[3] and that makes it easier to trap / blind / distract opponents or make a safety net for himself / bystanders. He can stick to walls. And he has a danger sense that tells him if something bad is about to happen. Not a bad little list of powers, and he makes good use of them. But all in all, if Spider-Man died, what would change? The Ultimates still take care of alien threats, large-scale terrorist activity, the really high-powered villains, that type of thing. And the Fantastic Four still takes care of random dimensional incursions, or would if they had ever gotten back together. But at least they used to, and their being missing now doesn’t really mean Spider-Man could take up that slack. More inventors with delusions of evil grandeur would get away with their initial schemes, until they got rich and powerful enough to attract the attention of the big boys, at which point it all ends up in the same place, just with a few more people hurt along the way. I’m not saying that’s nothing, but new superheroes come along all the time. It honestly isn’t a whole lot, you know?

But then we have this guy Peter Parker. Pete’s done a lot of things. He’s received random powers for no apparent reason, and even though he’s one of the smartest people on the planet, the freak genetic accident didn’t turn him into a super-villain. How many people can say that in any Marvel universe? Answer: few indeed! When New York was underwater, and most people were either trying to track down the perpetrators or else just get to safety, he was the only hero I remember who was actually running towards the devastation (well, diving towards it) and trying to pull people out. Over the past year or so of comic continuity, his aunt has changed from an angry and somewhat resentful aging widow to a strong mother figure to a lot of other heroes in the teen set, who can and will stand up to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agent if it will help her kids. He’s taken Nick “it’s the one that says Bad Motherfucker on the handle” Fury to task over poor ethical decisions, and even more amazingly, been successful at it. Pretty much every superhero he comes across respects him, and the exception (Captain America) is the very one whose place I see him as taking in the Ultimate universe, even if Cap almost never lives up to those aspirations in Marvel’s main continuity either. (Well, at least not as of 1976.) I see some arguments that Superman does this in a few of his movies and perhaps in limited comic runs, and Captain America in the recent movie did exactly what I’m talking about. But in long-form comics, the only character I’ve ever seen that makes everyone he comes in contact with a better person, who basically makes the world better with his every action and makes it worse with virtually none of them, is barely sixteen year-old Ultimate Peter Parker.

On the one hand, death is a very fleeting even in superhero comics. Always has been, probably always will be. But on the other hand, I’ve seen only a bare handful of people in this particular continuity come back from death, and most of them were via special cheats written into the original Marvel storylines the authors were covering. So I don’t really know what to expect, and I give you my ironclad guarantee that I have no special knowledge of what is to come, beyond the aforementioned one or two spoilers that I’m avoiding here. What I do know is this. If Spider-Man dies, as they are so strongly implying, I’ll miss a cool character, but it won’t be a big deal in the scheme of things. If Peter Parker dies, as he would nearly have to for Spider-Man to do the same, his world will be the worse for it. I’m invested in the Ultimate universe, pretty obviously to you who have read me review every last one of their releases. I’m not going to stop just because they make a choice I’m not okay with, at least not right away. But it could be that before this time next year, I’ll really want to. Why would I keep forcing myself to go back to a darker, sadder place?

[1] Isn’t it always, though? I was wondering recently whether there has ever been a 160 issue run by the same author for a shared superhero character like this.
[2] And let me tell you, I am impressed at how well they’ve rehabilitated a mostly lame smoke-and-mirrors guy from the original run.
[3] Though once he leaves or before he gets to Manhattan, what are his web-lines attached to? He’s always way too high outside the City, you know? I have no point here, it’s just always bugged me.

It’s funny[1] that I was just talking about the clever storyline from the Marvel universe where they explained how Captain America could have been both frozen in the Arctic Ocean after World War II and also fighting Communists in the 1950s. Because Ultimate Captain America tells an analogous story, albeit without the need to justify the continuity issue the original guys had. Only, you know, quite a bit darker, as Ultimate Cap has always been. I shan’t say any more, because there isn’t a whole lot of story in there. But I definitely liked what there was well enough, and I’m still definitely in the mood for short-form fiction right at the moment.

[1] Although not that surprising, since it was during my review of the character’s recent movie.

Something like a year ago (in graphic novel time; longer ago in single issue time, you understand, but I bet that the ratios work out about the same), the Ultimate universe came to a crashing halt or I suppose more appropriately was swept away on a tidal wave. I may have mentioned it. And then new stories began to trickle in, from Spider-Man, the Ultimates, and their black ops cousins the Avengers. Notably missing were the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, though in the latter case the fact of worldwide mutant hatred due to their ongoing terrorism made sense of that part at least. So, in the meantime, Amazon had this link to a book called Enemy that was meant to be coming out last fall, and it was the next big event in the Ultimate universe. I pre-ordered it, as you do, and then watched in dismay as it was pushed back further and further and further still.

Then, sometime in May or June while I was waist-deep in both ice and fire, suddenly I get a shipping date. Only, now the book is selling for $40 list under a new name, even though my cost never changed from $13 or so. So that was weird. Then Doomsday arrived, and it turns out to be a collection of three separate never-published graphic novels making up the entire story of which Enemy was to be the first third. I appreciate your commitment to low prices on pre-orders, amazon.com! And now, months after that, I have finally come up for air long enough to read something new. Which is nice.

So, anyway, the Fantastic Four are back, more or less, although they’re by no means the only people around. This is one of those stories like the Ultimatum or the big Galactus trilogy a number of years earlier where just about everyone gets a piece of the action. The story starts with a bang, almost moreso literally than metaphorically, when many different heroes and also, somewhat inexplicably, the occasionally nefarious Roxxon corporation are all targeted for destruction on the same day at the same time, with varying degrees of success. Then the survivors must come together to solve the mystery of who is out to get them and what to do about it.

I shan’t say more, except to allow as how I’m really suspicious of the outcome being the real end of the story. We’ll see, though! Eventually.

Taken by itself, Blade Vs. the Avengers was actually a pretty cool story, with mostly logical twists (one unmentionable massive spoiler aside), convenient clearing away of what I at least considered to be a good deal of chaff, solid character interactions (if basically no development), and one hell of a cliffhanger. Where it fails is in context, and I feel bad saying much more, depending on how spoiler-allergic you are. So, now’s your chance to stop.

Okay? Okay.

So, one of my two problems with it is that a vampire invasion (’cause, see, Blade, and his name in the title is why I don’t feel like this is a big enough spoiler to just avoid talking about it entirely) is entirely too much like a zombie invasion, which has been done  too recently (and also better) in Marvel. That it mostly stays clear of the Ultimate universe is really beside my point, here. The other problem is with Captain America. He’s really cool and all, and I like a lot of what they’ve done with him as a character, but I’m getting a little tired of their over-frequent choice to use him as a plot device. Particularly in the Avengers line, when he is explicitly not a member of the Avengers and doesn’t fall under Nick Fury’s purview anymore. Here’s all I’m saying: enough with the deus ex dux, already.

A thing I have noticed about the Ultimate series in the wake of their big climax a couple of years ago is that most everyone has seemed adrift. Sure, Nick Fury put together a new black ops team, but that dude always lands on his feet. Everyone else, though… mutants are outlawed and being hunted to extinction, the Fantastic Four broke up, the Ultimates are in an unsatisfying holding pattern, and Peter Parker, well, he’s doing okay I guess, but his personal life has been teetering on the brink of shambles for a little while now, and since his stories have always been strongest on the personal side, I think he gets to be included in the general malaise of the series after all.

My prediction is that Thor Reborn, nominally about a new plot by trickster god Loki (and with a sideline into a truly horrible version of the Defenders that I really just wish had never been involved in the plot at all), is really positioned to be the start of returning the Ultimate universe to some kind of status quo, where things can seem appropriately light-hearted and/or epic[1]. I mean, without discussing anything that happens in the book at all, just look at the title! Once dead characters start coming back, there’s no surer sign in comic booklandia that things are getting back to normal.

[1] Those sound contradictory, I know, but for comic books, they just aren’t. And the whole run has felt, well, pretty heavy for a good long time.

I’m excited by the fact that the Ultimate Comics imprint is finally wrapping up enough storylines to have started publishing graphic novels again. After so many months of a limitless supply (that has finally dried up this year as I caught up with the line), I finally have an inkling of what people who insist on watching TV episode after episode all in a row must feel like waiting for the sixth (or whichever) season of House (or whatever) to finish up. While I will be saddened sometime in June by the speed with which I ran through my glut, for now, I can bask in the existence of two more books in my house after this one, both of which will tell me more about the future of that world.

Unlike Ultimate Thor, which is wholly comprised of backstory and origin on the Norse god turned Ultimate who we most recently saw… well, that would be a spoiler, I suppose, so I will say no more than that he hasn’t been in any of the books since Magneto’s ultimatum played itself out, culminating in the devastation of New York City and ensuring the destruction of all mutant rights for years to come. Though that is the subject of another book. Anyway, my point is that Thor’s story here tells only of the past, spanning the history of Asgard and his divine family, the unexpected enmity of Baron Zemo in World War II, and his re-emergence in the modern world some months ago, around the time that the Ultimate universe started reckoning time. On the one hand, it’s a good story (and perhaps a necessary one, after the way that reality was toyed with in The Ultimates 2). But on the other hand, of course I’m eager for more aftermath and new storytelling instead of retreading the past. Which is why it’s so lovely that the two more books on deck freed me to enjoy this one for what it was.

It is Really Hard to wait for new graphic novels to be released on their own schedule, you know? Or it could be that with the decades of digital Marvel comics I have access to and the decade (singular) of Ultimate Comics I’ve read over the last few years, I’m just extremely spoiled right now. All the same, it’s more exciting now when a good one arrives on my doorstep, and I guess that’s a fair trade-off, right? Case in point, the newest Ultimate Spider-Man.

Chameleons introduces another take on an old villain, of course, as you can imagine from the title. Well, really, it’s more like what I can imagine from the title, since you don’t read this many comics from the ’60s (and now I’m almost halfway through the ’70s, so, wow), but yes, there was a master of disguise called the Chameleon, back in the day. But next to such “sub”-plots as the government’s ongoing war against mutants, the Watcher’s choice for savior of mankind[1], and the return of J. Jonah Jameson, mere supervillainy doesn’t hardly rate. And since the Chameleon story was the only one that had me gasp in disbelief, it’s not like I’m saying it’s just because it wasn’t very good.

I guess my point is that next spring the Ultimate Comics line is set to explode, with maybe five different new titles, but for now Bendis still has the most control over the path of the overall story, and while that means Spider-Man is sometimes a bit player in his own title, it also means that the overall story is in the most capable hands, and I really like what’s being done with it.

[1] I can’t be shocked by the [re]appearance of Rick Jones, but I sure can be disappointed. This must be what it feels like to a be a Trek fan who hates Wesley Crusher.

I’m well over two-thirds of the way through the next book, mostly because I can’t be bothered to stop reading it long enough to actually review Crime and Punishment, the latest release in Marvel’s Ultimate Comics line. Although this certainly reflects far more on the book I have in front of me, I’m not able to claim, as I would like, that it has nothing to do with this one. Basically, it was not dissimilar to the previous Avengers book, but with fewer things I found awesome and more things I found subtly off. Which is to say, still more extraneous characters (apparently just for the sake of being new) and a focus that has shifted completely from the Ultimates in favor of recently-demoted Nick Fury’s blacker-than-black ops governmental hit squad. It’s not that I think a world full of genetically enhanced super-villains doesn’t need a secret government hit squad so much as that I think that’s a little more realism than I want from my superheroes comics. And then mix that in with the appearance of the Ultimate Ghost Rider, and I have a whole host of new complaints that are, admittedly, more fairly entrenched in my readthrough of the original Marvel line (where I have now gotten to October of 1973), and these complaints are purely personal taste, so take them as you will. But dammit, superheroes and the supernatural just don’t mix, five years of the CW’s Thursday (now Friday) night line-up notwithstanding.

Seriously, I just read a storyline where Spider-Man had to fight against a space werewolf. I like Spider-Man, you know, kind of a lot. And I like space werewolves! I just don’t really like them together. It’s like lemon pepper in spaghetti sauce: you’ll regret it. So now, when I’m watching these Avengers guys in combat against a skeletal biker sent by the devil to kill powerful people, it reminds me that it took about ten years for regular Marvel to start pulling this crap too, and I get a little bit despair-filled. Still, it is what it is, and it’s not like I intend to stop anytime soon. Oh, also, if you like the Punisher, he’s still kicking around and gets most of the best parts of this particular story. So that’s alright.

With my completion of The Next Generation, there are no longer any Ultimate Comics for me to read, and I have to wait for new ones to be published. That’s just weird, is all I’m saying. As for the story itself, well, that was pretty good, albeit with a healthy dose of the darkness that the Ultimates have been known for in the past. That said, my ongoing read of old Marvel comics[1] has served me well in caring much about this story, because if I was not aware of the long-standing rivalry between Captain America and the Red Skull, it would have been a lot harder to swallow the idea of this giant terrorist threat that’s been around for decades, only we never mentioned him before now because of how he retired prior to the current wave of genetic superheroism.

Anyway, though that’s the main focus of the story, the stuff going on in the background as set-up for future stories is entirely intriguing, and that’s what I want out of another first volume of a re-reboot: lots of groundwork for awesome futureness. And I guess I’m done, because the plot part of the story is more than good enough for me to not want to carelessly reveal anything that actually happens, and yet the themes are not really all that deep the way they have been in previous Millar Ultimates stories. The weird (and sad) part is that there’s some pretty fertile thematic ground available, if they had chosen to exploit it.

Oh, and I will complain about one thing, which is the random insertion of a ton of new characters that seem unnecessary when there are old characters already sitting there, in some cases filling identical roles. I trust there will be some kind of payoff in future volumes, when these new folk become awesome? Except for the random new Stark brother, as that is just a downright stupid retcon that violates every other published story with Ultimate Tony Stark present, and as far as I know violates all the main continuity stories. (At least, the ones through the spring of ’72.)

[1] I am up to April of 1972!

The only particular problem with The World According to Peter Parker[1] is the name. I mean, it’s not a terrible name, and if it felt as much like the first entry in a series as the name implies, I might well have no complaints. But it’s obvious that there’s some amount of continuity that the reader is behind, regardless of the new imprint[2] the series is being published under. Maybe it’s not obvious that there are twenty-two volumes of continuity, but some amount is definitely detectable.

Everything not the title, though? Good stuff. Six months have passed since the Ultimatum event, which indicates some decent passage since Tony Stark’s one-man war against his stolen technology, and things are kind of getting back to normal. Well, unless you’re Peter Parker, whose life has changed in all manner of unpredictable ways. But that’s what I’m digging the most about this brave new world, is that with so few titles as yet launched in the Ultimate Comics line, Bendis is at least for the moment at the helm of the whole Ultimate universe. So we get to see the fates of some other familiar heroes[3], the violent rise of a new nemesis[4], and generally see the lay of the land, all while leaving room for a very gradual reveal of the changes (and underlying causes thereof) in Peter’s non-hero life. And, okay, I’m willing to admit that for the most part, this actually does work as Volume 1 after all, not just of the new series but of the whole new shebang, even if it was the second story to be told in this recovering universe. Which really is why I’m glad Bendis is the one mostly in charge right now, until more titles have launched.

All that said, the art is surprisingly manga-like. It’s not bad, other than in the case of one character that it might be spoilerish to even mention, but it’s a little jarring in this context. Still, yay for not being bad!

[1] And it may be a Garp [or some other] reference that I’m just not getting?
[2] Is that the right terminology?
[3] And, predictably, more of the awesomeness that is May Parker.
[4] True story: the end of the first issue? Total “Holy shit!” moment.