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

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #3 – Review

By Brian Bendis (writer), David Lafuente (art), and Justin Posner (colorist)

The Story: Mysterio makes his move against NYC while Peter and MJ air-out their anger against one another. Plus, Johnny Storm establishes his permanence in Peter’s daily life.

What’s Good: Those of you who like the “Bendis banter” will like the lengthy dialogue that Bendis dishes out in this issue, as everyone has yucks it with another member of the cast. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bendis’ Spider-Man is supremely Seinfeldian. To this end, this issue continues this tone and thrust.

Meanwhile, Mysterio is an awesome character and his agenda is a great place to reboot this franchise. In this issue, we get more insight into him, though exactly what he is still remains a mystery-o (I know…).

Overall, this issue cements that Ultimate Comics Spider-Man will be as rich and layered as USM was, before Loeb, I mean Magneto,  killed it.

What’s Not So Good: For a slow read with a lot of dialogue (attributes I tend to look for in a comic), not a whole lot happens in this issue. There is basically zero suspense and if it wasn’t for the solicitation for next issue at the end of the comic, I would think that there was no momentum to this series, save the teenie-bop Peter/MJ/Gwen love triangle. Which brings me to my second point: I hate the Peter/MJ/Gwen love triangle. The heavy focus on this plot-line and the magna styled art, makes me think that this comic is geared for teenage girls. This is all well and good as I guess this demographics is underserved, but at the same time, I am really losing interest in this book. I’m used to seeing Peter suffering through dramatic events and devastating battles where he barely survives in the pages of USM. Now, the biggest things facing him are his after-school job and  his girl problems. I don’t know, something just doesn’t work unless Peter and everything he knows is under some type of mortal threat. Most worrisome is that Johnny Storm’s constant presence can only signal more teenage angst for the Webbed- One.

I really like the art when Peter is in costume and the visuals of the villains he faces off against, but the people in general and their faces specifically are really quite one dimensional. Everyone looks like they are closely related and Japanese-toon statues . As Ray said in his last review on this series, the art is really distracting to this series.

Conclusion: This usually fresh and upbeat fun series is starting to feel stagnant and predictable. Not only predictable in the macro sense (Johnny Storm meets Gwen Stacey), but also in the micro where every conversation and interaction is predictible and hovering on the cliche. Basically, I think it is time for USM to grow up. I know Bendis is just rebooting this series and the ball just got rolling, but I’m barely feeling this series. That being said, I am looking forward to the new focus on a new character next month.

Grade: C

-Rob G.