Ultimate Spider-Man is always a favorite here at the Revolution. Ultimate Spider-Man has been a consistently good title during the vast majority of Bendis’ tenure. For the first time in a while, Ultimate Spider-Man has been on a bit of a downturn. I wasn’t all that impressed with the past story arc with Deadpool. Will Ultimate Spider-Man #95 get this title back on track? I’m on my 3rd mug of Café Bustelo and one of my chicas is making a nice breakfast for me here at the Bunker so I’m ready for another review.
Creative Team
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler: Mark Bagley
Inker: John Dell & Jimmy Palmiotti
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: The issue starts with a flash back several months ago. Spider-Man is following a guy running from some crazy man with guns blazing. Spider-Man swings in and webs up the guy shooting his guns at the other guy. The guy Spider-Man webs up is a black guy with little sunglasses and a black trench coat. Must be Blade. Spider-Man then approaches the guy who was being chased and asks if he is ok. That guy turns around and shows his fangs. He is a vampire and he attacks Spider-Man. Blade then runs his sword through the vampire and kills him. Blade then tells Spider-Man if he ever touches him again or even looks at him then he will kill Spider-Man. (Whatever. Loser. Blade is as cheesy a character as you can get.)
We then cut to Peter at the Daily Bugle talking to Kitty on the phone. Peter is watching the news that has footage of Spider-Man holding Kitty. The news is reporting that the two of them are an item. Once again, we go through the whole “are we ok?” “are we still dating” conversation for something like the 100th time.
J. Jonah Jameson and Ben Urich walk by Peter arguing about vampires. Peter tells Kitty he has to go and hangs up with her. J.J. is telling Urich that his story interviewing a woman claiming to have been bitten by a vampire is garbage and not believable. Peter then asks Urich if he could read the story. Peter reads Urich’s interview with Jennifer Grunwald who claims that one night she was seduced and bitten by a vampire.
We then shift to Peter at school. He walks over to Mary Jane and says “hi” to her. Mary Jane doesn’t want to talk to Peter. Peter asks her what is wrong and MJ shows him the cover of People magazine with Spider-Man holding Kitty Pryde with the caption “Mutant Love in Krakoa: Spidey Getting It On!”
MJ says that Peter wouldn’t date her because it put her in danger, but now he is dating Kitty Pryde. Peter says that Kitty’s mutant powers of being intangible means that unlike like Mary Jane, Kitty can’t get hurt. MJ says that Kitty is perfect for Peter and then asks if he loves Kitty. Peter says not yet. Peter claims that the media is blowing their relationship out of proportion. MJ then asks Peter if he knew Kitty when they were dating. Peter said yes. MJ says that she is not Peter’s friend anymore. That she is mad at him and that she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. That she hates all of this. MJ storms off leaving a dejected Peter by himself.
We then cut to Ben Urich meeting Jennifer Grunwald at her apartment to tell her that he won’t be able to run her story. Jennifer opens the door and is wearing a sexy slutty outfit. (Yes! The Revolution loves slutty chicas!) Jennifer pulls Urich into her apartment and then vampires out on him and bites him on the neck.
We shift to Peter at the Daily Bugle. He overhears the police questioning when the last time anyone has heard from Ben Urich. He has been missing for a day. Peter then pulls out Urich’s story on Jennifer and stares at it. We then see Spider-Man swinging his way over to Jennifer’s apartment. He gets to her building and sees a wolf come flying out of her apartment window. The wolf turns into a bunch of bats and flies back into the apartment and turns back into a wolf. Spider-Man follows. Spider-Man sees Jennifer holding Urich claiming that he is hers. Spider-Man then attacks Jennifer. Suddenly, the wolf attacks Spider-Man. Spider-Man kicks the wolf off of him. An arm then comes out of the shadows and grabs Spider-Man. The figure tells Spider-Man to get out of here. We then get a one page splash shot of Morbius stepping out of the shadows telling Spider-Man that he cannot win this fight. End of issue.
Comments:
The Good: This was a solid issue. I loved the scene between Peter and MJ. It was perfectly done. You knew this was going to happen at some point. I thought that MJ made plenty of good points. Just like it is hard to blame Peter for wanting to date someone who can take care of themselves. The dialogue was great. I’m interested to see how long Bendis is going to keep Peter and MJ apart.
I like the scenes with Peter just as much if not a little more than the scenes with Spider-Man. It was nice to see Peter back at school and interacting with MJ. I thought what was the strength of this title was Peter’s character and his supporting cast from his high school like MJ, Gwen, Flash, Kong, etc. It seems that Bendis has really gotten away from that lately and that explains why the past storyline was so weak.
The final scene ends with a nice hook. You have a mysterious creature that can turn into a wolf and bats. That is probably Blade. You have Jennifer as a slut vampire. And you have the ultimate version of Morbius. I am not a big fan of vampires and I have never really been a big Morbius fan. It will be interesting to see if Bendis that make this an entertaining storyline.
Overall, this was a better than average issue, but it certainly was not anything great. Bendis writes an excellent Peter Parker and a great Spider-Man. Bendis always delivers strong dialogue. However, I’m not a big fan of Blade or Morbius so I’m not too sure how much I’m going to like this current story arc.
The Bad: The scene with Blade did nothing for me. I have always thought that Blade was incredibly cheesy and lame. I simply don’t dig his character at all. Maybe Bendis will get me to like this version of Blade. I doubt it, but I’ll give him a chance.
The scene with Kitty and Peter talking was boring and on the verge of annoying. Every time they talk it seems like it is nothing more than “Are we still dating?” “Are we still cool with each other?” Blah, blah, blah. I am officially over this Peter/Kitty relationship. I’d rather see Peter dating the Black Cat or Gwen Stacey (Oh wait, Bendis killed her off in one of the lamest deaths in all of comics.) At any rate, I’d like to see Peter and Kitty go their separate ways. Their relationship is getting annoying.
It seems like Bendis has forgotten that it is the supporting characters that make Spider-Man such a great read. Characters like MJ, Gwen, Flash, Kong, Harry, Aunt May, Black Cat, etc. Instead, Bendis has constricted his focus to really only Peter and Kitty. I would like to see Bendis expand his scope again and get all the various supporting characters more exposure.
Vampires aren’t my thing. Neither are Blade or Morbius. It shall be interesting to see if Bendis can make me interested in this current story arc. I’ll keep an open mind, but I have my doubts about this story arc.
As far as the artwork is concerned, I’m just not a big Mark Bagley fan. I find his art average at best.