Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #4 – Review

By Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), David Lafuente (Pencils), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: Following the drama of Johnny Storm moving in, and the shouting-contest with MJ, Spider-Man finally faces bigger challenges this month. The mysterious hooded vigilante (aka the Shroud) serves up his/ her brand of justice once again, while saving MJ. Meanwhile, Mysterio strikes, cementing his position as NY’s #1 bad guy.

What’s Good: Almost everything but the art. Bendis crafts a good Spider-Man story, weaving together entertaining and cinematic action with the signature focus on the “human aspects” for the teen hero. From MJ’s emotional breakdown to the chemistry developing within the Parker family, Bendis does an amazing job highlighting family and relationships– two crucial aspects to the Spider-Man mythos. In between all the explosions and chaos, it’s good to see that Bendis can still cleverly finds ways to fit in all the proper character drama that make up a good Spider-Man book. A perfect example of this is with the use of the character on the cover. He/she reluctantly shows up and makes for some good opening action, while his/ her effect on the characters not only moves this arc forward, but also brings about an interesting character change in MJ, while possibly introducing a new conflict for Peter. Issue #4 holds as Bendis delivers in character and relationship developments.

What’s Not So Good: Lafuente’s manga style continues to fail. Peter’s hair still sucks. Speed lines look last minute. And there’s way too much gratuitous anime-style eating and food debris flying. I understand how Lafuente’s style is supposed to fit with USM, especially with the series dedicated to all the high school drama… But do all these goofy, stocked anime scenes have to make the pages? I just wish the exaggerated reactions and the ridiculous looking characters weren’t such a distraction for a story that’s packed with this much drama.

Conclusion: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man scores pretty high this month, as Bendis gives us the familiar compelling Spider-Man storytelling. If Bendis can consistently deliver memorable villains and the exciting drama surrounding Parker’s relationship issues, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man might not just be a good reboot of the character and the series, but it might just be the Spider-Man book that everyone should be reading.

Grade: B-

-Raymond Hilario