The Face of Hope: A Review of Ultimate Spider-Man #1

 written by Jonathan Hickman

drawn by Marco Checchetto

colored by Matt Wilson

No other comic book announcement in 2023 had me as excited as the promise that Peter Parker would be getting back together with Mary Jane Watson, and that his adventures would be written by no less than Jonathan Hickman. Although all this was set to take place in the "alternate" reality of the Ultimate Marvel Universe and not the regular 616 universe, at least it was happening somewhere.  Besides, Miles Morales was born in the Ultimate Universe, and he's pretty much here to stay, with two hit animated movies, one of which won an Academy Award.

Anyway, this new iteration of Peter Parker spins off (hehe) directly from the events of Ultimate Invasion, in which the Maker, aka Evil Reed Richards, basically "cancels" superheroes in this world, Earth 6160, by removing, as much as possible, the events that "created" them. In Peter's case, the Maker captured the radioactive spider that was supposed to give Peter Parker his powers at the age of fifteen,  but Tony Stark, having learned what the Maker did, has taken it on himself to restore superheroes to the world.

And what a world it is. Because Peter didn't get bitten by the spider as a kid, he didn't become Spider-Man, didn't become a TV star, and didn't ignore a burglar running past him.  As a result, his Uncle Ben is very much alive, and serving as an editor at the Daily Bugle under publisher J. Jonah Jameson.  Peter works there too, in an undisclosed but apparently much more stable capacity than as a freelance photographer. More importantly, though, Peter is happily married to Mary Jane Watson, and they have two beautiful kids together.

It's not all roses, though; a cataclysmic attack on New York, which was actually evil Reed and his buddies, has left thousands dead, including Peter's Aunt May. In the wake of this chaos, the Bugle's board of directors decides that the paper's reportage is getting a little too uncomfortably close to the truth their shady benefactors want to conceal.  Jameson gets his walking papers when he refuses to compromise. The job is then offered to Ben Parker by the Bugle's secret benefactor: Wilson Fisk himself. Ben walks away to join Jonah on his new crusade of guerilla journalism, but Peter confesses to his Uncle that he doesn't have the luxury of doing the same thing.

That doesn't mean, though, that Peter isn't facing his own internal conflict; upon receiving a mysterious package with a message from the last person he'd expect to hear from Peter learns the truth about who he was meant to be, and is confronted with the question: does he want his destiny back?

I have to say; it was genuinely refreshing to see Peter as a functioning adult with what appears to be a stable job, a family and a nice place to live. We readers have, quite frankly never seen him have it all together like this and it's almost like reading a long-form "What If?" story in which the premise is "what if Peter actually had his life together before getting bitten by the radioactive spider?"  

Of course, there are some contrivances here that are a little eye-rolling. It's been written time and again that Peter has a genius-level intellect to rival those of Reed Richards and Tony Stark, so the idea that, at 35, he'd be working a desk job at the Daily Bugle rather than as a scientist in some think-tank or even in an academic setting feels like a bit of a stretch, though I'm willing to wait to see Hickman expand on what Peter does at the Bugle before passing final judgment. Also, I'm really not sure how time works here; in Earth 6160, Peter is notably older than Tony Stark, whom he literally refers to as "kid." I imagine there will be quite a few changes to navigate. One amusing similarity between the universes, though, is that here, as in Earth-616, Matt Murdock is a priest, not a lawyer. 

We never really knew exactly what Uncle Ben did before he died; all that's been explicitly said is that he was a working class joe. More, it seems, has been written about what Peter's parents (who were spies) did for a living than Uncle Ben, and as a result, dropping him into a job at the Bugle works, after a fashion. I still hope to see the likes of Joe Robertson and Ben Urich pop up, though. 

The issue does a good job of setting up just how different Peter's status quo is from that of his 616 counterpart. so it's worth the extra time it takes to do so.  While I would have preferred to have Peter power up and suit up before the issue ended, I can certainly respect Hickman's decision to leave that reveal as a tease for the next issue.  

It's a treat to see Marco Checchetto's work here, though the real fun lies ahead as he draws a really good Spider-Man. I only hope that he draws complete story arcs at a time. For all my complaints about what Zeb Wells is doing over on The Amazing Spider-Man, one thing that team has gotten spot on is how its artist rotation is by story arc and not by the number of issues. I would love to see Hickman and Checchetto do complete stories for this book.

I remain cautiously optimistic for this book.

8.5/10

Rebuilding a Universe: A (Late) Review of Ultimate Invasion #2, 3, and 4

 written by Jonathan Hickman

penciled by Bryan Hitch

inked by Andrew Currie

colored by Alex Sinclair

"Ultimate Invasion" wrapped a couple of months ago, but I wanted to weigh in nonetheless, along with some comments on how it was shipped.

So the man who ended the Ultimate Marvel Universe (Jonathan Hickman) teamed up with one of its creators (Bryan Hitch), to bring it all back, and in a very interesting fashion, too.  Essentially, this miniseries consisting of four pricey, extra-sized issues tells the story of how the Maker (aka evil Reed Richards) re-molds a new version of the Ultimate Universe (Earth 6160 and not the Earth 1610 he had come from) to his liking, removing superheroes from the equation by preventing them from ever becoming super in the first place and trying instead to create an ideal world, one that he, with the aid of several select super-powered individuals, can control.  Of course, experiments aimed at controlling people never really work out, and when Howard Stark and his son Anthony discover the horrible truth about the world that the Maker has refashioned, all hell breaks loose.  

I'll readily admit that I had stopped buying the Ultimate line of Marvel Comics even before Mark Millar left in 2007. As a result, by the time Jonathan Hickman came along and erased the line from existence, with the exception of the emergence of Miles Morales, I knew next to nothing about the Ultimate Marvel Universe, so I knew little about the Maker, who was basically evil Reed Richards.

I'd like to credit Hickman for not leaning heavily into nostalgia with this story; rather than giving readers straight up reboots of the Ultimates from the Millar/Hitch glory days, he moves his story forward rather than looking back. The Maker has made a new world, one without the heroes he knows, and the landscape is strikingly different.  

My problem with this story, however, is that Hickman's chosen protagonist, Howard Stark, is not a particularly compelling one. He doesn't have any of Tony Stark's pathos, and basically serves little purpose other than to be the reader's window into this strange, new world.  Sure, he's got a lot of clever dialogue to spout out, and he even has a friend to avenge before the third issue, but at the end of the day Howard Stark is basically just a swapped out Tony Stark, who in this world, and I am not joking here, feels more like young Bruce Wayne, possibly because of the lack of facial hair. 

 Without an especially compelling hereo on whom to anchor the story, it becomes that much easier to remember what these oversized, overpriced issues are really about: setting up a new Ultimate Universe. Does Marvel at least do a good job of that?

Well, I can't say for sure because I missed the crucial epilogue to the series, which, annoyingly was apparently down to Marvel undershipping the series overseas, something I found genuinely annoying.  The seeds for the new Ultimate Universe are planted throughout this series but apparently a lot of the major payoffs occur in the epilogue. 

The good news, though, is that Bryan Hitch brings his A-game to the book.  There is actually a very brief reference to the first few pages of the Ultimates #2, which is about as close as the book gets to nostalgia-baiting, but other than that Hitch marshals his considerable talent to elevate what would otherwise not be a particularly remarkable story. 

In the end, this miniseries was basically just a mechanism to kick start a new iteration of the Ultimate Universe, and as an unfortunate result it doesn't feel especially compelling as a story in its own right. 

7/10

Are We Really Supposed to Care? A Review of The "Amazing" Spider-Man #40-41

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

So the much-hyped "Gang War" crossover storyline continues in the pages of what is still (unfortunately) the flagship book featuring Marvel's favorite wall-crawler. Things heat up as Richard Fisk, aka the Rose, makes his move to take down Janice Lincoln, aka the Beetle, while Janice's dad Lonnie, aka Tombstone, who has made a surprising recovery from his life-threatening injuries, makes moves of his own to protect his territory from incursions from rival gangs, with no less than Spider-Man and She-Hulk to back him up. The superheroes, of course, are helping Tombstone because he's basically the least of several evils, especially when the Rose's dad Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin himself, approaches Tombstone with a threat he can't afford to ignore.

Marvel has promised a major status quo shift with the end of this crossover, quite stupidly promising to make Spider-Man's life even more miserable, as if that's some kind of come-on for readers, many of whom, quite frankly, have gotten sick and tired of the grossly contrived train of misery that Peter has been riding for the last couple of years under this "creative" team's watch.

I get that Marvel wants to build up to Spider-Man's 1000th issue by setting up something auspicious, which would go some way towards explaining the constant need to kick his legs out from under him, but if I'm honest it's gotten truly monotonous at this point, and the ultimate cruelty of imposing "Paul" on readers just when they were so close to seeing Peter and MJ get back together again has quite frankly cast a pall over Zeb Wells' entire run.

Nor does "Gang War" read particularly well on its own merit because like the more truly obnoxious crossover events it requires readers to check out tie-in titles to have a truly coherent idea of what's going on, and for the record, I was never a fan of that approach. Even Civil War, for all its flaws, had the sense to keep all of the important stuff in the main miniseries.

Much as I'd love to praise John Romita Jr.'s work here, which, quite frankly, is actually pretty good, I really can't shake the feeling that it's wasted on Wells and his delusions of grandeur.  Like I said previously, gang wars in this title actually had more weight when they had Kingpin fighting Mexican werewolves.

5/10   

Don't Quit Your Day Job, Taboo: A Review of Daredevil & Echo #1 to 4

 written by Taboo and B. Earl

illustrated by Phil Noto

Released back in June of 2023, this four-issue miniseries was originally intended to coincide with the release of the Hulu series Echo produced by Marvel Studios, the starring vehicle for the anti-hero who had been introduced back in 2021's Hawkeye series.  Release plans for that series changed drastically and as a result we're still a week away from Echo launching on Disney + over here in the Philippines. Fortunately, that means this review of this months-old miniseries still has some relevance.

Daredevil and Echo, set during the latter part of the Chip Zdarsky era of the character in which two characters, Matthew Murdock and Elektra Natchios, shared the Daredevil mantle, but because it's Matt who has the shared history with crimefighting deaf prodigy Maya Lopez, aka Echo, Elektra bows out of the story pretty early on due to, well, reasons. The threat the two of them face isn't just any street thug; it's a supernatural evil that is so powerful it even plagued their ancestors well over a century ago. Will Daredevil and Echo be able to stop what their ancestors could not?

As stories go, it's far from the worst I read in 2023, but what truly struck me about this story was how utterly superfluous it was. I rarely expect anything better from these TV/movie promotional or tie-in comics, but given that Marvel had put a respectable artist like Phil Noto on this book I still held out hope that the story would at least be a fun read, but it couldn't even be that. Its villain was a Green Goblin knockoff (Demagoblin, riding around on a glider) and the big bad, well, spoiler alert, wasn't really much to write home about either.  The dialogue was just...sad and the characters were kind of just propelled by the paper thin plot.  I don't know if co-writer Taboo, the part-Mexican, part-Native American rapper from the Black-Eyed Peas, has any other comic-book writing credits than this, but I wouldn't put this on my resume if I were him.

Perhaps saddest of all was how for much of the series Noto seemed to be half-asleep when illustrating it. I hope to see his work again elsewhere, when his heart is actually in the project. 

4/10

Nice, Slick Work: A Review of Daredevil #4

 written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by German Peralta

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Saladin Ahmed wraps up his first story arc on Daredevil in fine style, and while it's unfortunate that he is not joined by Aaron Kuder, with whom he kicked off this new era for ol' Hornhead, the extremely capable German Peralta fills in on art chores instead. The result is an issue that is highly satisfying, even as it sets up the narrative that is yet to come.

Having discovered that his old friend Ben Urich is behind the libelous stories being spread about St. Nicholas Youth Home, Fr. Matt Murdock decides to get to the bottom of things and confronts Urich himself at his office at the Daily Bugle. Urich no longer recognizes Matt, who, we must recall, has literally been brought back not just from the dead but from Hell itself, and Matt barely recognizes his old friend upon hearing him speak, until he finally gets a glimpse of what's really going on with Ben.

Meanwhile, things appear to be coming to a head with the new gang, the Heat, about to make a move on the heir to Wilson Fisk himself, Butch Pharris. Matt intervenes as Daredevil, and not a moment to soon since Bullseye himself is on the scene, though he is apparently there to serve a bigger purpose. It all comes to a head as old foes clash.

We're still pretty much in the honeymoon period of Ahmed's writing, and he has managed to finish his first mini story arc quite strongly, and that was after he delivered a good, solid, done-in-one first issue that also managed to set up the larger narrative.  The book is off to the strongest start it's had in some time and I'm glad to see it. I know "Father Matt" is the kind of status quo that's destined to change, in much the same way that "Fry Cook Matt" was never going to be a long-term thing, but I want to see how long Ahmed can keep this up because quite frankly, this is the most interesting Matt has been in a while. 

The only shortcoming I perceive with this book is the art, and not because it's bad. Quite the contrary, Aaron Kuder and German Peralta are both extremely talented artists and I wouldn't mind having them rotate on art duties, but I hope each of them is able to finish off a story arc before handing off to the other. For all of my complaints about The Amazing Spider-Man, I dare say their artist rotation strategy is one thing they've gotten right.

Well, one thing I can say for sure is that I'm on board for the immediate future, at least. It's not the firmest decision in the world as comics have gotten notably more expensive of late, but if Ahmed and his art team can keep this level of storytelling up, my wallet can take the hit. 

9/10 

 

The Next "Big Thing:" A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #39 (Gang War)

written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

When Zeb Wells relaunched this book in 2022 with John Romita Jr., he teased two major storylines, the first being the risible "What Did Peter Parker Do?" which went about as well as a wet fart.  The second storyline, however, one which has had much better build-up, is "Gang War" which is finally reaching its conclusion now.

The story kicked off elsewhere, in one of this book's numerous tie-ins, and thus Wells drops us right into the action, which features rival gangs moving in on one another's territory in New York, with Spider-Man and several of his allies including She Hulk, Miles Morales and Elektra doing everything they can to keep the city from coming apart at the seams. Treachery abounds, with all of the power players like Tombstone, his daughter Janice, aka the Beetle, Hammerhead, the Rose and Madame Masque all making big, bold moves.

My only question is: will any of this even really matter in the grand scheme of things?  

The problem with this "crime" and "gang war" related stories is that, after several decades of serialized storytelling, they all start to feel alike. Marvel only just did something like this not too long ago with "Devil's Reign" over in Daredevil.  Back when Gerry Conway was writing the book thirty years ago, he pitted the Kingpin and Hammerhead against gangster Mexican werewolves (yes, seriously, look it up).  What exactly does Wells bring to the table that hasn't been told in one fashion or another before? There isn't even any hamhanded allegory for American legislation like there was in the original "Civil War" series, it's just a bunch of criminals and supercriminals going at it, with our favorite hero caught in the middle.

Worse still, we're expected to follow all of the dozens of other books tied into this story, which is a turn-off for me even under the most ideal of circumstances. Given that comic books are now five dollars a pop, these are far from the most ideal of circumstances, and it is incumbent on Zeb Wells and JR Jr to give us a good reason to spend our hard-earned money on their book.

Honestly, so far, they haven't.

5/10

 

Foes New and Old: A (Super-Late) Review of Daredevil #3

written by Saladin Ahmed

penciled by Aaron Kuder and Farid Karami 

inked by Cam Smith and Karami

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Having discovered to his shock who has been spreading malicious falsehoods about St. Nicholas Youth Home, which he has been running together with his fellow priest Fr. Javi ever since his mysterious return from Hell, Father Matt Murdock now finds himself fighting on two fronts; by day, he has to engage with Child Protective Services and convince them that the horrible things being written about St. Nick's are not true, and by night, he has to take on the new gang the Heat, packing military-grade weaponry and who may be connected to an old foe of Matt's.

Saladin Ahmed's first mini-story arc nears its conclusion, and it's been a genuinely engaging ride so far. There are, of course, a lot of unanswered questions about Matt's new status quo, which I assume will be addressed over time, but for now I genuinely appreciate how Ahmed manages to put Matt, in his new guise as a Catholic priest, through the wringer without coming across as cruel or mean-spirited (I'm looking at YOU, Zeb Wells). 

It's not all good news, unfortunately. Aaron Kuder, who has done great work up until this point and who still contributes solid pencils to this issue, does not draw the whole issue. His co-artist Farid Karami turns in decent enough work but his style is so different front Kuder's that it's a rather jarring experience, which is a shame because given how well-paced Ahmed's script in the shift in art is the one thing that can derail it. Notably, there isn't even a clean break in the art, i.e. Kuder doesn't draw the first have and Karami the second, rather there is an overlap between the pages drawn by the artists and it is not the cleanest narrative experience.

 Still, so far, so good. 

 

7.5/10