Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man—Volume 1

Comic Info

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1

Reprints Ultimate Comics:  Spider-Man (2) #1-5 and Ultimate Fallout #4 (August 2011-February 2012). Miles Morales’ uncle is the Prowler. When the Prowler breaks into an Osborn company he accidentally leaves with a hidden passenger…a genetically engineered spider like the one who transformed Peter Parker into Spider-Man. Miles is bitten by the spider and finds he also has gained powers. When Peter Parker is killed in battle, Miles realizes he must carry on the Spider-Man name himself for the sake of the world.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis with parts of Ultimate Fallout written by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer, Ultimate Comics:  Spider-Man—Volume 1 (It says Ultimate Comics:  Spider-Man on the cover but lists itself as Ultimate Spider-Man inside so it is unclear which it is) relaunches Ultimate Spider-Man in a new direction. The relaunch was widely covered by news media, first with Spider-Man’s death and then with a new African-American Spider-Man, and it has been well received by readers and critics.

Brian Michael Bendis had kind of burned me out. I loved Powers, I loved Alias, I loved some of his independent projects, but I hated his Avengers and multiple mini-series for Marvel. I had been an avid reader of Ultimate Spider-Man and kind of forgotten how much I enjoyed that also. This story also reminded me of this.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #4

The nice thing about the Ultimate Universe is that it isn’t as convoluted as the Marvel Universe. When it was launched there were a few titles and events in one title actually effected events in the other titles. As the Ultimate Universe progressed, more & more titles were born, more limited series, and it soon became unreadable for the casual reader. There seems to be a push back to the original concept of the Ultimate Universe in this volume and other recent Ultimate titles and that is a welcomed thing.

Miles Morales is quite likable. He seems a nice balance of Peter Parker aspects combined with his own personality. He’s smart but he’s not a genius and of course like every Marvel comic book character, he has family issues. I hope that the book finds a nice balance between the school and family issues and it doesn’t become too weighted down in both causing Bendis to remember that it is supposed to be fun.

I like the art about seventy-five percent of the time, but sometimes I feel it gets too simplified. There are plenty of shots of Miles “thinking” and I would prefer the series just keep moving.  One of the Ultimate Comics problems is that stories that should be one or two issues get stretched out too long. This story borderlines on that and maybe could have been four issues.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man has some hope. I had stepped away from Ultimate Spider-Man but now it has me itching to go back and read some of the comics leading up to this series. I will definitely be looking for the next collection of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man.  Ultimate Comics:  Spider-Man—Volume 1 was followed by Ultimate Comics:  Spider-Man—Volume 2.