Meet the "Ultimate Spider-Man"!
Plus a Man-Mountain of "Gang War" B-Title Reviews
Hi, we are Dapper Dan Gvozden and Mischievous Mark Ginocchio, co-hosts of the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast. With each newsletter we hope to give you greater access into our thoughts on the world of Spider-Man! This time we are celebrating the arrival of Ultimate Spider-Man (vol. 3) #1 and reviewing all the B-Titles since our previous Substack!
Additionally, on our podcast we are talking with all the latest and greatest Spider-Man creators, as well as reviewing all the latest Spider-Man comics. But, if you want to keep up with our thoughts on all things Spider-Man, the best way to do so is to subscribe to this Substack!
And, if you want to help support what we do, plus get bonus episodes of the Amazing Spider-Talk, digital artwork, prints in the mail, and early access to every episode of the show, please check out our Patreon. Putting this together takes a lot of time, energy, and funds, so we would be hugely appreciative of your support.
Ultimate Spider-Man (vol. 3) #1 Discussion
The following is a discussion of Ultimate Spider-Man (vol. 3) #1, by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson, and Cory Petit, which released this week to tremendous acclaim, both by comic creators, readers, and critics alike. Rather than simply review the comic, we wanted to discuss it in the context of its release and our complicated thoughts on it. Please be warned, there will be spoilers, but we do issue a warning. That said, it is probably best to enter this discussion having read the comic.
Dan: When prompted, I am not entirely reluctant to admit that despite my intense collecting, cataloguing, studying, and podcasting about the Peter Parker of The Amazing Spider-Man, it is actually Peter Parker of the Ultimate Spider-Man that has full hold of my heart as my favorite interpretation of the character. Yes, that version of Spider-Man comes with intense 20:20 hindsight on all the decades of comics that preceded it, and as such could take the best elements of the character and his world and rework them into a piece that neither Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, John Romita, or any of the many wonderful creators who followed could even have dared to dream up spontaneously. (We talked about my favorite arc, “Learning Curve”, on an Essentials episode of our show) And yet, when I discovered the character in my teenage years, his journey meant so much to me, and still does, as a purely distilled version of Spider-Man that really stands on its own as a work of art, born of the tireless work of Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, but is also a celebration of how sequential art can continue to build, with countless contributors, to find the ideal shape of something.
Ultimate Spider-Man was also meant to provide an answer to a shortcoming of the then modern Amazing Spider-Man comic: a safe place for new readers to come aboard without the mountains of continuity of that main series. It was addressing what was considered a need then and filling what turned out to be a huge hole in the Marvel publishing line. For me, it was exactly the story I needed. Married Peter Parker was great, but a teenage Peter connected with me in a way that I’ve rarely experienced in comics. I would take at least five trades with me to school every day and pour through them in my classes. Peter quickly became a best friend, a confidant, and a power-fantasy escape, as well as a moral tale about the folly of using solely power to get justice.
So, when we heard that Ultimate Spider-Man was coming back, I was initially excited to see how modern creators would continue to shape that idea, with the expectation that we would be returning to the Ultimate Universe of old. That notion was quickly dismissed as erroneous, supplanted by the realization that world-builder Jonathan Hickman would be reshaping his own, new Ultimate Universe with slight ties to what came before. What this promised was a sort of identical approach to what the original Ultimate Universe promised. What would it look like to take a modern lens to these characters and to offer a story that fills yet another percieved hole in the Marvel publishing line?
The Ultimate Universe is special to me and so many. The title suggests, perhaps due to legacy, that this new approach isn’t just any alternate universe continuity story, but something special that promises to answer the questions I posed above. Before we get into talking about this particular issue, Mark, what is your history with the Ultimate line and your expectations for what this new line and series might fulfill?
Mark: Despite being the “old man” of our pairing, the Ultimate Universe is a much newer concept for me when compared to what Dan has outlined — and with that comes, perhaps, a bit of cynicism, but also, I hope, a different critical lens featuring less attachment to “Ultimate” than some others.
The original Ultimate Spider-Man series launched when I was in college and lapsed from reading comics, so by the time I had jumped back into the hobby the book was a good 50-60 issues in. I did want to check it out since I heard such incredible things about it, and because I always loved artist Mark Bagley’s work on Spider-Man going back to his run in the 1990s on Amazing Spider-Man. Notably, the first issue that I picked up of Ultimate was the first part of the debut of Ultimate Carnage, which then led to the death of Ultimate Gwen Stacy, and to be honest, I was really uninterested by this concept. Sure, Peter Parker was younger and seemed far more “modern” in terms of telling a teenager’s story, but I also thought “with a blank slate to tell these stories, why is the default setting to not only kill off Gwen, but to bring back Carnage?” I quit the book soon after.
By the time I started writing Chasing Amazing in 2010/2011, Ultimate was all the rage again with the “Death of Spider-Man” arc, and the debut of Miles Morales. I thought that would be a good time to try and jump back into it and be a part of the conversation, but it was still a struggle for me to connect to this world in any kind of meaningful way. In fact, Ultimate really didn’t click for me until I started Amazing Spider-Talk and Dan continued to sing its praises. So, in an effort to better understand where this person I was sharing a podcast show with was coming from, I binged the entire first volume on Marvel Unlimited and I finally started to see what all the hype was about. Granted, engaging with a comic in this fashion is far from ideal, but I at least could objectively recognize, “yeah this is a really good comic.”
Still, I would be lying if I said there was no disconnect from me whatsoever, primarily, as good as I thought Ultimate was, I still could not separate myself from the mindset that this was not the “real” Peter Parker, and that all of these characters, in some shape and form, are pale imitators. Well-developed pale imitators, but pale imitators all the same.
Meanwhile, I haven’t even gotten into the Jonathan Hickman of it all — a creator that many many people in the world of comic book criticism regard as one of the greats, but whose writing — similar to those early attempts to engage with Ultimate — just doesn’t click with me.
So, with the debut of this new Ultimate Spider-Man series, I had a lot of mixed feelings going into it. I absolutely think telling a story of a truly “grown-up” Peter Parker is a fantastic idea and one that creators (outside of the Into the Spider-Verse series) seem wholly uninterested in telling. But what does this comic actually mean in the modern landscape, and how will Hickman transition into this whole new world, without defaulting to some of his noted idiosyncrasies and ticks as a storyteller?
So Dan, with that in mind, how do you feel the first issue of this all-new Ultimate Spider-Man story transitions into this new universe — with new origin stories, yet some very familiar faces at the core of it?
Dan: I think this title transitions as smoothly as you could possibly expect, especially after the very lore-heavy, Hickman-complicated, introduction that sets up this new universe in the Ultimate Invasion and Ultimate Universe miniseries. We get a new Peter Parker, the extended Parker family, the Daily Bugle, the Osborns, etc. It is a lot to digest in a single issue, some of it explored deeply and other things left for fleshing out in later chapters. I ended the issue thinking two things: 1) I want more. 2) Who is this Peter Parker?
I think the second question is the biggest trouble that I have with this issue, with hopes that it will be fleshed out at a later date. We will be discussing spoilers in this thread eventually, so I’ll save my specific thoughts for later, but it’s the one thing that kept me at an arms’ length about this issue, while so much of the rest of it felt like a warm hug.
For so long I’ve been clamoring for Marvel to allow Peter to grow up, as you mentioned earlier. I even wrote a piece for The Hollywood Reporter about this very thing. I don’t know that this series fully fills-in what I suggested was a giant hole in Marvel’s publishing line, at least not yet, but to see a thematic conflict born out of a classic Spider-Man problem posed in a new way through a character that is unlike the standard Peter Parker allowed for the story to begin to address new conflicts born of a different era of adult life. I’ll admit, it gave me a bit of an existential crisis that had my wife asking me, “Are you okay?” It has been awhile since a Spider-Man comic challenged me like this and it largely came from seeing the character presented in a stage of life that’s very similar to the one that I’m currently going through.
That’s not to say that I think all Spider-Man comics should follow the typical age of its readership, which is to say middle-aged adult males, but for me it worked and proved my hypothesis that the story of Spider-Man works when translated beyond youth. We’ll get to discussing the central conflict of the issue later, but I suspect it is a thematic idea that many people who are at a similar stage of life as this Peter Parker will relate to.
What I found most interesting about this issue, that I think is very different from the original Ultimate Spider-Man, is that Hickman seems to be addressing writing this story as response or conversation with Amazing Spider-Man and our knowledge of that world. This doesn’t read as strictly as a typical What If…? story, where there is commonly a very direct cause-and-effect to changing something in the Marvel comics timeline, but so many of the beats here rely on your previous knowledge of Spider-Man comics. I can’t point to how this Peter became exactly the person he is in this comic in the way I would in a typical What If…?; for example: How does Peter wind up with MJ as his wife without ever being Spider-Man? How does Uncle Ben avoid being killed by a burglar? Etc. Whatever butterfly effect changes occurred, most of them are fairly opaque.
But, the book takes care to play with our expectations. In an early scene we see J. Jonah Jameson yelling for “PARKER!!” and we immediately think about Amazing Spider-Man or the various films and fill in the blank reflexively, before our expectations as to who he is calling to are surprisingly subverted. It’s a clever moment, but I think points out the very different approach this book is taking to the Ultimate Universe compared to the original, which is to say that it is operating as a fun-house mirror, not an update/modernization of a classic character.
What are your thoughts on this approach? Does it make it more exciting that we are getting something truly new and different than what came before rather than a rehash/modernization? Or do you worry that it might purely be an exercise in maybe giving the fans what they want, knowingly, or offering a fun-house mirror whose novelty will wear off?
Mark: As I always like to say (see the B-book review section for further reference), I’m all for a good writing exercise, but if you’re going to play in the sandbox of storytelling with long-standing (and revered) IPs, I’m ultimately going to judge your work by how faithful you stay to these characters. As Dan notes, this first issue is filled with plenty of subversion, head fakes and zags, and I think, for the most part, it captures the spirit and aesthetic of these characters wonderfully — except in the instance of the titular character, Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker. That’s not to say this iteration of Peter is completely foreign to me, but it’s probably the least developed part of this book after the first issue. And if the hook of this comic is going to be “Spider-Man”, then Hickman needs to start dialing up the details with his main character quickly, or this book is going to lose the thread fast.
Without getting too too spoilery (but, note, some spoilers), I think this is most evidenced in how Peter’s journey to the last page is illustrated by Hickman’s script. For the majority of this book, Peter feels very much like a supporting cast member in someone else’s book — like he’s one of the enjoyable Daily Bugle colleagues like Robbie or Betty that we’ve come to know and love from the 616. The “choice” he makes that will undoubtedly make him the main character in a Spider-Man comic going forward, feels very underbaked and without personal justification. It also very blatantly flies in the face of another one of my favorite premises: that ANYONE could be Spider-Man and that the fact that in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962 a radioactive spider chose to bite a nebbish outcast named Peter Parker is sheerly coincidence, not destiny.
Dan: I, too, am mixed on the finale of this book, outside of Marco Checchetto’s incredible art on the final three pages (not to mention the rest of the book). Here’s where you and I are going to go into hard spoilers for this issue. So…
FAIR WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD!
The setup is spectacular, with both Mary Jane and Ben Parker providing inspiration for Peter to be his own catalyst for change, choosing to open the capsule provided by the futuristic Tony Stark (and Thor, re: lightning) and embrace his destiny as Spider-Man. (Side note: I love that the black sphere that contains the spider is designed to look like the pod from Secret Wars #8 and will likely end up with Peter having a transforming suit, just like the symbiote.)
The page layout and silent page-turn to a creeping shadow of Spider-Man, ready to leap off of the rooftop, is downright stunning. There is so much potential in this story to provide us something new and iconic. What does it mean for a Peter Parker to choose to be bit by the spider instead of it being thrust upon him by chance? Honestly, outside of Peter’s age, family, and all the other changes… this is the one that I’m most interested in.
But, I could also see how this might move the character into the realm of: not Spider-Man. I’ve long been opposed to the idea of injecting destiny into Spider-Man’s life, whether that be the “Web of Life and Destiny” or whatever was happening in Amazing Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man’s story isn’t The Matrix, with “Chosen Ones” or some grand plan, it’s a story about what one man does when power is suddenly and randomly granted to him. That power amplifies who he is inside, which at the time… isn’t someone very nice. He has to learn to be worthy that power by using it responsibly. It’s what makes it such a perfect coming-of-age tale.
But here, it’s something entirely different. Peter chooses to accept the power and his role in someone else’s plan as a way of escapism or forcing a change in his life. For whatever reason, Peter isn’t happy with his idyllic lifestyle at home with a beautiful woman who calls him “tiger” as frequently as she can, while posing for some imagined camera, and precocious kids. He wants a change and “Spider-Man” is a representation of that change, and he’s supported to embrace it by his wife and uncle. (I laughed because Ben tells him to “wake up”, and we first meet Ben in Amazing Fantasy #15 as he wakes up Peter) I think I could stop there and criticize the book for shifting the thematics of Spider-Man away from what we know. But, honestly, I’m just eager to see this story play out and embrace the difference.
I suspect that the fantasy of change for Peter might be an illusion, as that escapism turns into its own separate responsibility that makes him no more happier than he was before. Except, this time he chose to have this power and responsibility, and the guilt associated with it might be greater than ever before. And, at the same time, it appears he has more support from those he loves to make a hard choice like becoming Spider-Man and embracing destiny. Yes, the whole thing sounds like a Green Lantern comic: “Accept the ring from the man from the future”. But, this notably isn’t a coming-of-age story anymore.
The problem with this issue is that we have no idea of the details of Peter’s life that leads him to make this dramatic change, as Mark noted earlier, and so as beautifully rendered as this moment is… it’s hollow. For now.
I had a profound moment reading this where I supplemented my own problems into Peter’s life that made this decision especially beautiful, enough that I had a bit of an existential crisis at the end of the night. I, like Peter, am in my mid-thirties and I am completely unsatisfied with my work and direction in life, despite having an attractive red-head for a wife, who loves me, doesn’t call me “tiger”, and a wonderful son who I’m beginning to bond with over… of all things… Spider-Man. I’m looking to do a complete overhaul of my career and living situation, which is just as dramatic a life choice, to me, as becoming Spider-Man. But, my reasons for doing so are rather obvious for all to see. Peter’s choice presented here has hollow core, which allowed me to fill in my own reasonings, but upon rereads I noticed just how much work I was doing to fill-in my own emotions to justify understanding his choice. Still, it was pretty amazing that as much as the original Ultimate Spider-Man touched me as a teenager, this one was able to connect with me again, with my age again lining up perfectly to Peter’s.
I’m sure Hickman will continue to flesh out who this Peter is and why he decided to make the choice he did, but for me the emotional core of this book was kind of missing. I loved all the stuff with Ben and Jonah, but… yes… who is this Peter?
Mark: Dan, this is an Arby’s…
OK, seriously … despite some of my concerns about the impetus for Peter Parker’s decision, there are many, many wonderful things to glean from this comic. As we both have alluded, this comic contains several inversions on the classic Peter Parker status quo, but what distinguishes it from the standard done-in-one What If…? or alt-universe mini is the sheer confidence in how the premise and characters are written by Hickman. After the initial “PARKER!” from Jonah reveals that the Parker in question is actually Ben Parker, managing editor of the Daily Bugle, the comic doesn’t pause or nod at the camera in any kind of winking and knowing way, but just keeps moving, because this is all just a part of the story we’re reading here. It’s really something extraordinary to be introduced to a concept that is just so radical and yet read it as if everything is perfectly calm and cool.
The comic manages to walk this masterful tightrope throughout — it’s both chock full of Easter Eggs designed to draw in the diehards (is that Foswell as Patch?), while also building its world and establishing its characters and supporting cast. While I shouldn’t be surprised, when you consider this is Jonathan Hickman at the helm, it’s also incredibly refreshing to read something that’s so clearly intricately plotted and mapped out. Like one of Hickman’s data charts in the introduction, this is a story that’s guided by precision, and yet it’s also full of heart and warmth from its characters and their interactions.
But still, there was something that gnawed at me beyond Peter’s choice to get bitten by a spider. While I didn’t experience it in real time, when Ultimate first debuted in 2000, my understanding was that the universe was designed to be a bit of a hard reset for comic book fans — a way to cut past the bloat and incongruence of storylines that had plagued the character in the years prior like the “Clone Saga”, the miscarriage of a child, et al, and instead give readers new and old a proper access point to start over and experience all the highs and lows of a teenage Peter Parker as if they were happening for the very first time. There was something both familiar and surprising about Ultimate Peter. In the case of the 2024 reboot, the same could be said, but I’m still struggling to pinpoint what the actual ethos of this comic is going to be. AKA, what’s this comic ultimately going to be about? Let it be said that since “One More Day”, we’ve had several attempts to show older/married Peter Parker, most notably the Renew Your Vows books. Ultimate is most certainly NOT Renew Your Vows. But I can’t be too sure it’s a “marriage” book either. Or even a “older Peter” book. The overall themes just came across as muddied and unclear, which gives me pause about getting too attached to this book over the long haul.
Dan: I’m glad you brought up the “marriage” of it all. I’m not going to go on a screed here about whether I’m anti-marriage or not (I’m not), but I do think it is important to note that a particular readership of this book has been championing this title as some sort of redemptive pro-marriage statement that redeems Spider-Man after the choices made in “One More Day”. I think an issue like this getting automatic praise from that particular crowd only reveals the shallowness of the request, if only because the marriage element plays such a small role here. (Or really, just as much of a role as Peter’s singleness has played in the fifteen years since “One More Day”.)
Frankly, if readers were truly just clamoring for the restoration of the marriage in an alternate universe title, we got that in Renew Your Vows. I would argue that title made the marriage and family element far more core to its central concept, at least by the end of its premiere issue. That’s not to knock this book in any way, it is a better comic than 2017’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1, and it has its own agenda and goals, with MJ and the kids being a major part of it. However, I don't think the title is really looking to make any statement about the Spider-marriage being an essential part of the mythology of the character, more than it is establishing what Peter might stand to lose by signing up to become Spider-Man.
That said, from a helicopter viewpoint, I remain confused about Marvel editorial’s approach to handling these titles. If we are to get an older Spider-Man title meant to challenge long-standing readers, wouldn’t it make more sense to include that in the book with the greatest longevity and daunting numbering while saving the evergreen, youthful approach to the character for an always modern alternate title with less continuity? Basically, what I’m arguing for is the set-up of the previous Ultimate/Amazing Spider-Man era where Amazing was complicated but featured an adult Peter and Ultimate was fresh, new reader friendly, and youthful. I guess, I’m just pointing out that it’s weird that we’ve found ourselves in an inversion of what came before.
What was surprising to me about this title and its themes was just how much time it spent on Uncle Ben and J. Jonah Jameson’s newspaper empire and the concept of “truth”. Additionally, there does seem to be some kind of perfunctory action-drama going on behind the scenes with Kingpin and a new Green Goblin, who we are meant to assume is Harry. I suspect focusing on all of these side characters is meant to draw them into some web together that will challenge Peter and put his loved ones in danger. It also echoes some of the thematics around a sort of secret cabal that Tony Stark is assembling to eventually fight off the Maker in several months. Will the citizens of New York City eventually learn the truth about the Starks and the Maker and champion the new heroes of this universe to free up their destiny to be their own? Will Ben and Jonah’s new news organization be behind that process? What role do the Green Goblin and Kingpin have to play in all of this?
Honestly, the Ultimate Invasion of it all has me the most worried about this series. I want to explore what it means for Peter to choose to be Spider-Man as a middle-aged adult, not watch him join up with Stark for time-travel shenanigans against Kang and the Maker. I fear that we are headed in that direction, as grounded as this story is, and that it will bring out the Jonathan Hickman that many feared wouldn’t be a good fit for a Spider-Man title. Do you share similar fears?
Mark: It’s hard not to be trepidatious about that very idea Dan, because like you said, this is first and foremost, a Jonathan Hickman comic. And as much as I enjoyed that kind of approach in a wild and cosmic book like Fantastic Four, I have admittedly liked every iteration of it since then less and less.
This brings me back to my core criticism about this debut issue — if we’re relaunching Ultimate Spider-Man with this new status quo, then I damn well better be getting a “Spider-Man book” out of the deal or my interest will wane fast. This first issue feels like about 80-90% Spider-Man comic. If you put that in terms of a television pilot episode (which is really the best pop culture equivalent I can find for a first issue of a comic), that’s pretty darn good. But the next few issues where I suspect we’ll get more to the core of Peter’s “why” are going to be crucial. Time travel shenanigans are a non-starter for me, and frankly, I can see Marvel losing the good will it has earned with the first issue very quickly if Mary Jane, the kids and Peter’s family all don’t play a key part in the Spider-Man narrative going forward.
Dan: I totally agree. I have faith in Hickman telling inventive stories, and even heartfelt tales about family (see his Fantastic Four run), but a grounded story about a street-level hero is very new for him, enough that he swore he would never write Spider-Man. I think he’s supported by one of the best art teams in comics who can help to keep him grounded with their very practical approach to storytelling. This issue did a lot of excellent work, enough that I would wholeheartedly recommend it to every Spider-Man fan and champion it as a new perspective on an old story. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am just about as confident in this story, as disjointed as it can be in some elements, as I was back in 2000 at the end of Ultimate Spider-Man #1. That issue ended with Peter realizing his powers, and I think did a better job of establishing who he and his supporting cast were as characters, but I think had an easier job of adaptation rather than reinvention. I’m onboard with this new Ultimate Spider-Man and excited to see the twists and turns that this takes and I know a lot of our readers feel the same.
This Week in Amazing Spider-Talk
On the podcast we just closed out our sixth season with a discussion of the original “Gang War” story that closed out the Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz run on Amazing Spider-Man. We discuss the events of that story and how they ended several careers on the Spider-Man titles, led to the eventual toppling of the Editor-in-Chief, transferred the behind-the-scenes bickering onto the page, and brought forth the silliest moment ever put into a Spider-Man comic: Daredevil in a fat suit!
Plus, we released our review of Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 6) #41, as Kingpin and Tombstone fight it out for rule over the gangs of New York City!
Watch or listen to it on Patreon!
Swarm’s B(ee)-Title Reviews
With every new edition of the Amazing Spider-Talk Substack, Dan and Mark will venture to write short reviews of all the various Spider-Man books (and major Marvel releases) that have released since the previous newsletter. Sometimes our arch-villain Swarm might chime in as well. So “bee” prepared!
Spider-Boy #2
Dan: I have gone on the record saying that I don’t “get” Spider-Boy. With the release of this issue, I feel like I have a much stronger understanding of what Dan Slott is doing with the character and his stories, while still being uncomfortable with his place in the larger Spider-Man mythos. Here, we get an evergreen Christmas story where Spider-Boy teams up with Captain America to take down Taskmaster. The tale is funny, heartwarming, and charming “hoo-ha” comics storytelling. I won’t lie, I found it utterly charming and inoffensive. Clearly, the childlike joy of Bailey is working on me. That, is undeniable.
The problem remains how Bailey fits into the overall world of Spider-Man. This book still feels like a kid-friendly Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man comic, which isn’t to denigrate it at all. The market needs more books like this, especially with the caliber of talent on it that Slott and Medina bring to the table. But, if I’m being honest, I think this title and character would work better if he was treated more like Ryan North’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl where it pretends to be in Marvel continuity but, let’s all be honest, it isn’t. That allowed North to play faster and looser with how the character interacted with the world without the need to adhere to any ongoing events of the Marvel universe. As I will get into in my review of Superior Spider-Man (vol. 3) #2, it’s Bailey’s adventures alongside Peter Parker where the boundless joys of this character begin to get tripped up by the complications of his existence alongside the rest of Spider-Man’s world.
I’ll be curious to see how this book sells now that readers are getting a more clear understanding of what it is, no longer supported by what I assume (perhaps incorrectly) was an intense speculator chase that helped launch the title. Honestly, I think in regards to the broader reach of comics, this book finding an audience would be a refreshing thing to see. Can a “hoo-ha” book truly find a family-friendly modern audience? Time will tell. I found this issue an endearing, perhaps forgettable, comic of a type we don’t see often from the Marvel line.
Mark: With all due respect to my podcasting counterpart, I just refuse to overthink what Spider-Boy is, and what Dan Slott being on this book means to the “Spider-Man comic book universe” at large. Through two issues, we’ve gotten likeable characters, fun storytelling, and great artwork. The fact that this is all being directed by one of the longest-tenure Amazing Spider-Man writers who very notably “left” the book in a psuedo-retirement five years ago is immaterial to me. What Spider-Boy ultimately becomes remains to be seen. In the meantime, I enjoy this comic.
And yes, a Christmas/holiday story that illustrates a raucous team-up with Captain America and Bailey is a story that manages to thread the needle of feeling both incredibly unique in the modern era of Spider-Man comic storytelling, and an old school throwback to the “hoo hah” days of Spider-Man. Actually, this story felt more spirtually connected to the wonderful Darwyn Cooke tale, Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #21. Will this comic have the longevity of Cooke’s tale (which I maintain is the best Spider-Man Christmas comic ever)? Probably not, but I’m all in on Spider-Boy right now being a totally different flavor and directed by a creator who seems very content to just tell these kinds of old-school stories with his cast right now.
Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #3
Dan: I can’t believe it took until issue three to reveal what we all suspected all-along: Mysterio has a hand to play in the nightmare the Peter is living through. I can’t say that this revelation has saved this story for me, but it certainly helps to reorient it back into the familiar world of Spider-Man rather than a random series of horrors. The visual reveal of Mysterio is legitimately shocking, but it is his suggestion that he’s a prisoner that adds some level of intrigue here. Can we trust the infamous illusionist?
The revelations provided by the story’s end, which I won’t spoil here, didn’t spark my imagination, mostly because the villains involved have been utilized as culprits for several recent stories that… well… didn’t move the needle for me. Just to say, throw a dart and you’ll hit a lame Spider-Man story that has been pinned on this particular villain, whose powers typically amount to some sort of story cheat.
But the real problem here is just that I still don’t quite get why this is a Peter Parker story. What is it about this horror tale that makes it uniquely a Spider-Man story? Even issue #0 in this run did more to justify its existence than these following three issues have. Maybe the final issue will justify it, but that’s a lot of heavy-lifting for a single issue to do and the track-record for Spider-Man stories coming together in the end isn’t exactly strong. Saladin Ahmed has done incredible horror/escape stories before, specifically his Eisner-winning Black Bolt, but that was a long time and a bunch of lackluster stories ago.
Mark: Like Dan, the most recent installment of Spine-Tingling at least moved this comic more into the “comprehensible” realm of storytelling, but I too am still struggling with the “why is this a Spider-Man comic” of it all.
Marvel clearly wants to give Saladin Ahmed work, and obviously, winning an Eisner award is certainly going to justify such an editorial decision. With all that said, this guy has taken multiple cracks at Spider-Man’s universe and his adjuncts (like Miles) and there’s nothing he’s produced that has led to me thinking that he truly “gets” Spider-Man as a character. Nor do I feel he “gets” other characters either, most notably Mysterio/Quinten Beck who Ahmed tries to paint as this sympathetic figure here, when, at the end of the day, I think most people just want to see Beck wear the fishbowl and wreak some mind-altering havoc on Spider-Man.
This comic feels like such a random use of an IP, which brings me back to one of my other big buggaboos I talk about a lot in this newsletter and on the podcast — if you’re going to tell a story that is so blatantly outside the general constructs of an established character, why don’t you just create a new universe and character and tell your story through them? I know the answer of course: because Marvel stands to make far more money with people buying a Spider-Man comic, regardless of whether or not it’s true to the character, because by the time people realize this book has nothing to do with Spider-Man, Marvel has already made enough sales to justify the decision.
Superior Spider-Man (vol. 3) #2
Dan: As the premiere title of the “Dan Slott Spider-Man Universe”, a world hardly mentioned outside of the titles he’s writing, Superior Spider-Man has had a lot to balance between the inclusion of Spider-Boy, the reintroduction of Doctor Octopus, and justifying why we needed to return to the story that put Slott’s name on the map a decade ago. I honestly don’t think Slott has hit a home run on any of these concepts: Spider-Boy is an awkward, morally questionable inclusion to the world of Spider-Man, Otto is only involved because of a retcon and a sloppy identity reveal, and the reintroduction of the Superior character is to save a damsel in distress who was already the lynchpin of the original series’ conclusion.
However, this comic begins to address the shortcomings of all of these ideas by making it the meta-text on the page. Peter begins to question: “Hey, yeah, why would I allow a ten-year-old to accompany me on my adventures? That makes no sense.” I don’t know if this will go anywhere other than to poke another hole into the concept of a child sidekick for Spider-Man, but I appreciated that Slott at least knows people are uncomfortable with this inclusion. There is also a sort of, “Hey, haven’t we been here before?” to the whole comic that will hopefully lead the characters to acknowledge that they are just playing out the same roles from before and choose to do something different that evolves their relationship. If anything, the surprise ending to this issue is perhaps the first step in that direction. So, consider this a moderate approval from me.
That all said, this is Mark Bagley’s book. I disliked his work on the previous “End of the Spider-Verse” story, if only because I think he was given too much to do and that story lacked grounded environmental realism for him to play with. Here, we get a showdown in Times Square and Bagley showcases that few artists are quite as good as him at building coherent geography, managing the rhythm of fight sequences, and rendering the personal dramatics for individual characters through distinct portraiture. The only thing that lets his work down is the over-rendered work of the unnamed colorist (perhaps Edgar Delgado) whose hatched colors distract from the clean line-work of Bagley and inker John Dell.
Mark: Similar to my thoughts on Spider-Boy, I’m reading this new reboot of Superior Spider-Man right now and the question that keeps popping into my head is, “am I having fun?” And the answer continues to be: “yes.”
Apologies if I can’t offer a more academic critique of these comics, but the fact of the matter is, at a point in time where we are getting absolutely hammered with Spider-Man related content: multiple “Gang War” tie-ins, Miles Morales and his solo series, symbiote books, and Dan Slott’s two current ongoings have been reliably more enjoyable.
Superior #2 manages to advance a lot of the new dynamics introduced in this series that I know drove Dan and others crazy, but what difference does it make if Slott is making this thing WORK? Everything from Otto’s realization of Peter’s identity, to Peter’s dynamic (and wonderfully touching moment at the end) with Bailey is cooking right now, and Mark Bagley has been delivering some of his finest artwork since Life Story (Bagley gets “aging Peter” better than anyone, and the juxtaposition to him and Bailey really helps up the tension of the irresponsibility of Peter hanging out with a 10-year-old).
With a Slott comic, there is always the risk that a lot of what I’m praising can turn on a dime, but I’m not going to worry too much about that right now if I continue to get this level of joy from these comics.
Carnage (vol. 4) #2
Dan: I reread this issue twice and I’m not sure that I’m much closer to understanding exactly what this run of Carnage is going for. That’s mostly because the language used by Torunn Grønbekk is so…. philosophical… for lack of a better word, that it gives very little for the reader to grab onto concretely. I love some of the thematic ideas that she’s playing with here, especially when they act as commentary on our real-world, but they are so numerous it’s hard to get invested in any one idea. Add onto that the complicated history of the Carnage and Cletus Kasady characters and I was completely lost. Here we see this new Cletus confront an older version of Cletus who is living in the sewers on a pile of bodies, as his new ideology seems poised to confront that of his predecessor. But, dear reader, I’m still grappling with trying to understand what exactly the status quo of this character is. Last I read, at least I think, Cletus was a disembodied voice inside the mind of a detective who was traveling across the known universe to confront his symbiotic other half. Typing that sentence just made me go cross-eyed.
So, yes, Grønbekk is onto something interesting here: specifically that in today’s world the best way to sew chaos is to utilize the media to undermine people’s understanding in the world and prop up their acceptance of conspiracy. But also, like, throw me a bone here. Between the resurrections of Flash, Cletus (old), Cletus (new), etc. I can’t make heads or tails of what has become of the Carnage character. So, smart ideas aside, maybe he just needs to go back to being the two-dimensional character that just wanted to “paint the town red”, at least that’s a primary color.
Mark: I was pretty hard on the first issue of this series and in retrospect, it might have been a snap impulse review, or perhaps I just wasn’t in the proper headspace for it. That’s because there was something about the second issue here that jibed with me far more than the debut. As Dan right notes, Torunn Grønbekk takes a philosophical approach to Carnage/Cletus Kassady and the comic almost reads like it’s in iambic pentatmeter as a result. But in addition to the poetic nature of the dialogue, there’s also a gritty true crime element to this comic that leads to a pretty need hybrid of a story here (think Season 1 of True Detective). Carnage as Freddy Krueger is such a tired and played out concept and while the previous iteration of this book initially attempted to tell a new story, it went off the rails by the end. That may still be the case with Grønbekk here, but I’m far more interested in what she’s selling in Carnage, than say her multi-issue run on Venom that recently concluded.
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War #1
Dan: I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War #1 since the announcement that Shang-Chi would be getting his own part to play in the “Gang War” event. Most of the credit for my excitement is due to the work of writer Gene Luen Yang (Dragon Hoops, American Born Chinese) and his various Shang-Chi miniseries over the past several years, which have rewritten the character to be more analogous to his movie counterpart and been uniformly excellent reads. Those books positioned Shang-Chi as the tenuous head of the formerly villainous Five Weapons Society as he seeks to reform it from within. The “Gang War” event seemed poised to be the perfect way to test Shang-Chi’s commitment to that ideal and his grasp on the power structure of the Five Weapons Society.
So far, I feel like my anticipation of this series, now written by Marvel stalwart Greg Pak, has been well-placed, even if I haven’t yet fallen in love with Caio Majado’s artwork. This issue starts immediately with a flashback that sets up the precarious place that Shang-Chi finds himself in, operating in his deceptive father’s shadow and then reflects that challenge on him as the defender of Chinatown, and his own moral code, during the “Gang War”. I wouldn’t say that this comic is immediately new-reader friendly, if anyone hasn’t read the various mini-series these past few years, but Pak does a decent job of setting up what Shang-Chi faces through the comparisons between the past and present of the character’s status quo. If you’ve seen the movie, I think it is safe to say you can get up to speed here fairly quickly. But, his smartest play comes in by the story’s end, where Shang-Chi is tested and comes out with a different and more exciting status quo and proves himself to be not as naive as he might initially appear. It took a comic that I thought was just fine and elevated it into one that I think is ready to smartly play off the “Gang War” to elevate the character of Shang-Chi.
Mark: Man, I saw that David Aja cover on this comic, and just felt my expectations rolling into a boil here and instead this comic is just … fine.
As has been the case with the other “Gang War” miniseries, outside of a perfunctory appearance by Spider-Man within this book itself, tying these books into the larger storyline in a way that feels truly essential feels like a marketing gimmick first, rather than an opportunity to expand the “Gang War” storyline in a meaningful way.
To be fair, I’ve always struggled with Shang-Chi content. Greg Pak does an admirable enough job here to try and bring folks up to speed (and as Dan notes, having seen the recent Marvel movie does a lot of heavy lifting as well). We get good chunks of exposition and characterization as it relates to Shang-Chi and his father, but the narrative also seems to lack any real snap, crackle and pop to draw me in beyond the base level of story. Meanwhile, Caio Majado’s art doesn’t come close to the visual highs of Aja’s brilliant cover, making this series a really tough sell for me over the long haul.
Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: Battleworld #2
Dan: Do you like Tom DeFalco and Pat Olliffe at their absolute best, as if they never left writing Marvel’s top characters? Well, then this book is for you. This comic is just so much dang fun. High art? No. A blast? Undoubtably.
We’ve been getting so many of these throwback comics over the past few years which allow absolute legends to step back into the eras they were most famous for and unearth a story that slipped through the cracks. The fallacy of so many of these stories is that they tend to push writers and artists to just try to recapture their former glories by echoing stories that made their work iconic in the first place. What results is a bit of a hollow shell that reflects more on how the creators have changed from when they first wrote the work that made them legendary, rather than unveiling a new, modern classic.
But with Tom DeFalco and Pat Olliffe they are adding wrinkles to someone else’s story, specifically “Secret Wars”, in a way that only slightly bumps up against the start of DeFalco’s post-"Secret Wars” run with artist Ron Frenz. This allows the comic to just be flat out fun and not sweat the details, it is Battleworld after all. But, even forgetting all of that, it’s just so refreshing to read DeFalco’s interpretations of all these characters, specifically Spider-Man, as he’s finally given room in modern comics to just unload all the joyful characterization that he’s known for in his writing. Reading Spider-Man’s dialogue on the page immediately conjures forth an old voice that I thought I had left in my childhood, save for my frequent rereading of his various runs of Spider-Man comics. The same goes for all his other heroes and villains, enough to make the ‘80s kid that I am so utterly gleeful. Olliffe is the same, but his work proves that even back in the day he was ahead of his time. His work can still stand toe-to-toe with the best that Marvel has to offer, both conjuring forth the classic styles of the past with modern blockbuster visual staging.
Mark: All I can say after reading the second issue of Battleworld is “Hoo hah!”
Look, I’m not one of those fans that’s going to turn a blind eye to the fact that the world of comic books has changed dramatically and if some of the great Spider-Man creators of the past were to take over the “main” title, they would feel woefully out of place. At the same time, dang, this comic is such a wonderfully crafted time capsule to a time, place and narrative tone I didn’t even realize I was missing until I started reading this it.
Certainly, there are a few tropes/techniques used by Tom DeFalco here that just feel way out of time — every single character introducing themselves (to the point that the comic even makes a meta-joke about it). I still don’t 100% know what the actual plot of this comic book is, though the same could be said about the original Secret Wars from 1984. And yet like a bowl of classic sugary cereal (think Frosted Flakes or Fruit Loops) this comic just brings a sense of comfort. I’m really enjoying it.
Meanwhile, Pat Olliffe just brings it on this comic and demonstrates that maybe he could still hang with the “new generation” of Marvel artists the company keeps talking about. His pages are action-filled and dynamic. Mike Zeck eat your heart out.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man (vol. 2) #14
Dan: It has been two issues in a row on this title that seriously bait-and-switched us readers. Last issue the cover promised Hobgoblin and we got nearly nothing and in the letters pages they promised the return of Hobie Brown in this issue only for the letters page to yet again promise his return in the following issue. So, it’s good that Cody Ziglar’s stories manage to make me forget about those promises and focus on the immediate characterization of Miles and his particular world. I can think of few writers who so effortlessly weave stories in and out of events, tie-ins, and the original plans of their run of comics and yet make it seamless to follow because the core character journey is kept at the heart of it all.
But this issue stands out because of its supporting cast, which brings the Cape Killers back into the fold and finds a way to continue that storyline from earlier in the run and merge it with the events of “Gang War”. This book puts Miles up against the anti-vigilante team, plus squares him off against the Enforcers and Prowler, who are all working for Hobgoblin. It’s a crowded affair, which leads to crowded work between letterer Cory Petit and artist Federico Vicentini, whose work already leans into being over-crowded. It is mostly easy to follow the action, but the overall sense here is that “Gang War” is going to be real test of Miles’ abilities to step up as the new Spider-Man and to build a team of his own, which we see by the issue’s end. The only exhausting element here is the millionth return of Uncle Aaron, who essentially breaks the fourth wall to tell readers that there is a good reason that he’s evil again. Hopefully Ziglar can find a stable status quo for Aaron, a character that has been misused since his rebirth and transition to the 616 Universe, as he has done for much of Miles’ cast since the beginning of his run.
Mark: This series takes a step in the right direction with this issue, but Miles Morales overall has been sputtering a bit since the Blade/vampire arc, and while readers were baited with something important coming between Miles and Peter Parker during the Gang War: First Strike comic, this solo book has really failed to capitalize on the potential story there.
Far be it for me to criticize a comic for it’s ambiton, but this story just has SO MUCH going on, and I’m not sure if any of it is really what I was looking or hoping for from the series at this juncture. After initially getting baited with a Hobgoblin showdown when this tie-in began, we instead pivoted to the return of Uncle Aaron. Now it’s Uncle Aaron — who really seems to be lacking any agency here, he’s just in the comic being evil for … reasons — plus the Enforcers, plus the Anti-Vigilante squad is making arrests, and … listen, I know Dan keeps making fun of me for missing the debut of Miles’s energy sword in this book, but can you blame me when each issue just crams so much random stuff into every single issue?
The bottom line is after First Strike, of all the “Gang War” tie-ins, Miles’s book was the one I was anticipating the most. The character had seemingly had a reawakening under Cody Ziglar. I still believe in that potential, but as of right now, we’ve seemingly reverted to the status quo of not really knowing what to do with Miles in the 616.
Spider-Woman (vol. 8) #2
Dan: After being excited that the soul of Spider-Woman had returned in the first issue of this run, I have to admit that I thought this issue was a bit of a lifeless letdown. The rich world of characters and street-level adventures of the first issue are replaced with a skyscraper break-in story that pits Jessica against a group of faceless Hydra thugs and a who’s-who of Hydra villains. I feel like I’ve read this Spider-Woman comic a dozen times, especially in the previous run of comics, and Steve Foxe’s knack for warm dialogue felt dialed back compared to the previous two outings with the character. With “Gang War” focusing heavily on the generational divide and the role of parental figures, it was a shame that the drama around Gerry is relegated to a cliffhanger mention.
But it was Carola Borelli’s art that disappointed the most, especially after two previous stories where her characterizations stood out for their unique, and bold, twist on Spider-Woman. Here, her figures are distorted awkwardly by foreshortening, the details of the city are relegated to vertical lines equivalent to the vanishing point exercises one might do when learning to draw (ok, I know, harsh). Colorist Arif Print does their best to add detail to the pencils, allowing the nightlights to reflect off the glass exteriors or adding an interesting texture to a gradient in a dialogue-heavy panel, but its not enough to lift this art style into one that demands a reader’s attention.
Mark: It’s hard to add anything else distinct from what Dan succinctly mentioned above. After building me up a bit in the first issue of this series, Spider-Woman #2 was a lifeless slog that manages to pull off the nearly impossible task of leading me to become disinterested in a story where a mother is trying to reunite with her child who has seemingly been kidnapped by an evil crime organization. It makes me wonder how we can get several years of wonderful stories from the brain of Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum, and rather than build on the world he created, Marvel has unconscionably decided the best path forward for Jessica Drew is “let’s bring this character back to her duller wallpaper roots of the late 70s/early 80s.”
Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 #1
Dan: Opening with a nod to Night of the Living Dead, Steve Orlando’s horrifying zombie tale, set in 2099, is further proof that he’s the perfect match for telling modern tales set in the world of Miguel O’Hara’s Nueva York. Honestly, this is probably my favorite book of the past few weeks, as have been most of Orlando’s 2099 offerings. He channels the perfect amount of futuristic language that makes it a blast visiting and deciphering the intricate world of 2099 while also delivering perfect done-in-one storytelling that highlights character and what makes the future such an exciting place.
Paired up with artist Devmalya Pramanik and colorist Raúl Angulo and there is honestly few titles at Marvel that are this visually appealing page to page. Together they sell the horror and superhero vibes throughout, whether that be the hordes of perfectly rendered zombie citizens, the splattered particle effects, the digital screens and high tech of the Public Eye, and man… the final full-page splash of Spider-Man 2099 declaring the Barrio under his protection is one for the ages. This series immediately shot up to my “must read” list, especially considering we are getting a whole mini-series of stand-alone team-ups across the entire, Orlando-refurbished 2099. I couldn’t be more excited to see what new ideas he has waiting for us.
Mark: While I wasn’t quite as sold on this comic as Dan — it’s strictly a “Mark thing” but I just have a hard time getting into zombie stories as it relates to Marvel — I still found this new iteration of Miguel O’Hara and the 2099-verse inherently enjoyable. Like Dan noted, Steve Orlando probably gets the vibe and language of this universe as good as anyone not named Peter David, and his script really finds its way to place the reader into this world without it feeling like you’re getting dragged into it unwillingly.
Perhaps what I was most impressed by this comic is the fact that while it’s part of a five-part miniseries, it finds a way to wrap up the “zombie” storyline while still leaving enough breadcrumbs out there for other conflicts to organically unfurl in this time and place in 2099-ville. With all of the “writing for the trade” happening in comics for the better part of the past 15 years, it’s such a pleasant surprise when a creative team approaches a comic with the attitude of “you can read just this one issue 10 years from now and still derive a full experience from it.” Kudos to Orlando and Devmalya Pramanik.
Venom (vol. 5) #29
Dan: And just like that, Al Ewing and Cafu return to Venom, rocket things forward on the timeline, tease a ton of amazing-sounding stories to play out over the next year, and restore my interest in this series. Yes, we’ve finally gotten to the end of the cycle and learned how Eddie eventually became Meridus, only to learn that this actually isn’t the end of the cycle and that Meridus isn’t quite as all-knowing as he presents himself to be. The story still feels completely detached from the Dylan-centric stories, save for a mention or two of Dylan Brock, but it’s hard not to adore the universe-spanning story that Ewing and Cafu are charting for the Venom character, as they exploit what it truly has meant for him to become a “God”.
This issue is special because the clockwork nature of the entire Al Ewing-led stories in this run is mirrored by this individual tale. Here we are introduced to a moment in time that eventually is replicated from a different, but similar viewpoint at the story’s end. In fact, the entire issue is a mirror where one version of Venom sets up an event that an entirely different version has to deal with later. It basically makes this a giant series of set-ups and pay-offs that are really satisfying to read. Let’s keep this ball rolling, with stories this good it’s not kind to make us wait.
Mark: Well, I whined and begged and pleaded with Marvel to give me Eddie Brock back in a Venom comic, so ultimately, I brought this on myself.
There is something unquestionably ambitious and admirable about how Al Ewing has chosen to approach Venom since taking it over from Donny Cates, who also had an enormous heir of ambition, and high-mindedness to his storytelling.
If you’re waiting for the “but” here it is… like Jonathan Hickman in almost every single comic book series of his I’ve read, there just comes a time in the Al Ewing experience where I have to bust out my Ewing-to-English dictionary/Rosetta Stone, and look, maybe at my advanced Generation-X age, I just don’t feel like going on such an existential journey when reading a comic about a character who used to earn his paychecks talking about eating brains and killing Spider-Man. “But characters need to grow and evolve, Mark,” you will say, and you are probably right, but good gravy, I’m watching Eddie Brock react to six different versions of himself like it’s the Council of Reeds and this just does not do it for me. These are the kinds of comics that remind me of being in college, having possibly done some illicit substances, and having to listen to someone start talking about Nietzsche or Freud like it was some kind of mind-altering experience.
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ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN…. your thoughts? Have you been liking the various “Gang War” tie-in issues? Let us know in the comments.
Dan, your experience with the original USM is strikingly similar to my own (though I think I started reading around the age of 9 or 10, which is arguably a tad young for that series).
Despite the fact that I’ve since purchased the omni collecting the same issues, I can’t make myself ditch the very well-worn trades that I also used to tote around everywhere. When I use this word “countless,” it’s normally intentional hyperbole. But I truly cannot begin to say how many times I’ve read those first six trades. The only book that comes close is The Essential Spider-Man Vol. 1 AKA the book that made me think (for way too long) that all old comics were in black and white.
Had to drop a thank you for making me feel seen here!
Really excellent reviews all around though. There are several B titles here that I haven’t gotten to read. Though I really dig the DeFalco/Frenz era, I had no intention of reading the Secret Wars comic. These retreads have largely left me more depressed than anything, and I didn’t want to see DeFalco go the way of JMD. But now I’m legitimately excited to check this one out!
Thank you both for the great commentary!
I am having trouble squaring my thoughts on the new Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s clearly beautiful and a good comic. But it’s hard to be too blown away that feels like an elseworlds tale more than a new ongoing continuity. The Maker’s shadow really affects this just being What if Spider-Man was older. This kinda just feels like Life Story in that it’s just a different version of Pete. Albeit with high profile creators.
In addition I have lots of little thoughts on Ben, the Bugle, some writing tics, that keep me from loving this book. Which I’m not going to bore anyone with.
But i am intrigued and that’s big.
Still if I had to choose between only reading this or the current 616 Peter I’m choosing 616. It’s more fun! Maybe subsequent issues will sway me.