Last month, Marvel killed off Ultimate Peter Parker/ Spider-Man (There are multiple Peter Parkers/ Spider-Men in a number of different continuities. This is not the real Peter Parker/ Spider-Man, however it is the one I have found most interesting over the past decade).
I just got around to writing about it because I had been behind on my comics. School, the thesis, graduating, vacation, this blog and finding a job got in the way of reading my comics.
A few months ago I wrote about Marvel’s Ultimate Universe and it’s impending reboot –
https://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/%E2%80%9Cultimate%E2%80%9D-reboot/
The reboot is happening by way of an event story called Ultimatum. In no small terms, Ultimatum sucks. It has no redeeming qualities and I am only reading it because I have read every single Ultimate story that has come before it. I am disappointed in writer Jeph Loeb and Marvel for pushing this steaming pile of poo on the general public at $4.00 an issue.
But wait, there’s more!
Event stories are never self-contained. They spill-over into the regular monthly titles, and usually bring them down in the process.
As a result of Ultimatum, Brian Michael Bendis has killed off Ultimate Spider-Man. After nearly a decade of consistently good and interesting super hero stories (a feat in and of itself) Ultimate Spidey bit the big on in an issue devoid of dialog.
If you are unfamiliar with the title, it was famous for its dialog; it was the best part.
To artist Stuart Immonen’s credit, the story is very easy to follow visually.
However, looking at the pages I am fairly certain that there is no dialog because putting words in the characters’ mouths would underscore how stupid this turn of events was. I can’t see how Bendis could have made the dialog anything but trite.
The Ultimate line was created so that Marvel could do things with the character that they couldn’t get away with using the “real”/ original versions. With that in mind, I will give them a little bit of wiggle room and hope that the reboot breathes new life into the Ultimate line.
That being said, the only Ultimate title that didn’t need improvement was Spider-Man.
I hope the folks at Marvel know what they are doing. If they screw this up, they will lose my readership on the entire line of comics… a reboot is a good place for new readers to jump on, but it is also a great spot for old ones to hop off.
“‘Nuff Said”
The Geek Whisperer 