Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 Power & Responsibility
I am gonna say it right off the bat and say that Ultimate Spider-Man is my favorite series out of the entire Ultimate universe. I love every issue of it! So I expected to be still wowed away when I read this again especially since I actually reviewed this on another site and gave it a high score.
To my amazement, I wasn't so excited. I still like it, it's got a lot going for it. The characters are still great and the art is fantastic. Hell, the art is the only thing my opinion hasn't changed and with good reason. Mark Bagley is a superb artist and there is a reason he and Bendis wrote Ultimate Spider-Man for 110 and a half issues which is the longest Marvel run for a single creative team since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four.
Is it the best artwork on Spider-Man? That depends on your taste but it is certainly wonderful in any case. And I still like Bendis take on Peter Parker, his Uncle Ben, and Green Goblin. Who I remember being weirded out by when I first read this but have since accepted as a great version of Green Goblin.
This trade also holds one of my favorite Ultimate Spider-Man issue of all time, #5. That was Bendis and Bagley at their best. Since it has been around 15 years since then, it's basically the aftermath of Uncle Ben being killed and Pete looking for the killer.
We have a depressing and sobering account by Aunt May to a police officer on what happened. Then Peter angrily searching the city for the killer and finding him in an abandoned warehouse. We get nice updated panels of the original origin story without trying to outright copy them. And finally having Peter realize the killer is a thief he could have stop and finally understanding that with great power comes great responsibility.
It is a powerful issue and I still love it. So with those praises, why am I not so wowed? Because that was the only issue where Bendis was at his writing best with only some of those moments sprinkle throughout here and there. The very beginning had Osborn telling a random worker about the myth of Arachne and then followed by stupid and contrived events to explain why Peter gets bit a genetically enhanced spider later in the story.
There is also the typical Bendis writing that goes along the lines of characters repeating what the others say. Not only do humans not speak like that, especially with so many different people, it comes off as just padding to justify why this is around 7 issues long. You could probably cut out enough material to make a still pretty good 5-6 issues.
Also, there was a scare where after Peter accidentally broke Flash's hand, he just got his powers and didn't know how to hold back his strength yet, where Flash's parents were going to sue the Parker family if they don't pay for the hospital bill. We don't know what happened afterwards as it just served to make Peter angrily shout at his aunt and uncle and to later set up even more guilt for Pete when Ben dies. If it were followed up anyway, like Flash's parents dropping it because Ben died soon after the call, I would be cool with it.
So overall, good first trade collection worth recommending just for the art and the fifth issue included. And the problems with the book just making it not great but still good.
I give Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 7.5 spiders out of 10.
Come back next week, when we look at an ultimate take on the most uncanny group of them all.
And come back tomorrow when we take a look at a story that started a controversial decision from DC comics.
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