Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Illustrated by Mark BagleyThe End before The Beginning.
Ultimate Spider-Man #160 – aka the actual death of Ultimate Peter Parker – earned a perfect 10.0 rating from this site courtesy of me and my inability to hold back my tears.
But now is not the time for tears. Now is the time to move forward and welcome the future of the Ultimate Universe! So get rid of any remaining tissues, because there’s no way this is going to continue the trend of being depressing – right?
Check after the cut for some thoughts.
God dammit. Ok. Go get your tissues out of the trash. You’re going to need them again.
This is not the first time Brian Bendis has written an otherwise depressing epilogue to an event. He wrote the Civil War and Secret Invasion epilogues, both dealing with deaths of characters and people being sad at funerals. Both issues were quite good. with Iron Man’s scene with Captain America’s body post-Civil War being particularly memorable. Of course, these weren’t stories that Bendis had been writing for as long as Ultimate Spider-Man; Bendis didn’t even write Civil War! And hey, this isn’t even the first time Bendis has written a post-death issue of Spider-Man in the Marvel Universe (Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem, anyone?)! These things happen, apparently. It just gives us more material to measure Bendis’ work against, in a completely appropriate form.
That being said, this issue is both vastly greater than and somewhat on par with his previous endeavors. The majority of the issue is basically what you’d expect from the issue: brief looks at the lives of those important to Peter Parker and where they are immediately after his demise. Gwen believes it’s her fault, Mary Jane wants to prove it’s everyone else’s fault, Johnny Storm is furious; just another sad day in one of the Marvel Universes. We’ve had a lot of post-death issues recently from both of the Big Two, and death is quickly becoming a familiar character in it’s own right within comic books (which is a rather bleak notion, especially since there actually is a personification of Death in comics). We roll with the punches and accept that our heroes will never be the same again.
However, what helps this issue excel is the final four pages. The final four pages may actually be one of if not the saddest things Bendis has ever written, definitely on par with the death of the hero in Ultimate Spider-Man #160. It’s a heartbreaking scene that created a welt in my throat as I read it, and while I couldn’t possibly spoil it for other readers I will note this: it’s what Fallout #1 was building up to all along. Each epilogue issue of this nature always slowly builds to a swell that results in some sort of “moment” that changes things, however you seek to define it. This particular issue’s build was slow and certainly rolled along in a par for course fashion, but there’s no way anyone with a beating heart can’t be hit a bit in the chest upon that finale; it’s definitely in my Top 5 Things Brian Bendis Has Written In His Career.
Mark Bagley has had a long career on comics at this point (I can remember him drawing Venom when I was a wee lad!), but it’s safe to say he’s very much built himself up rather astonishingly as an artist. What was once very jagged art has become smooth and much more defined, really bringing these character to life in a much fuller form than when Ultimate Spider-Man began over ten years ago. Obviously he’s not doing it alone – Andy Lanning (of DnA fame) is helping out, and Justin Ponsor and Laura Martin are doing an amazing job on colors; you can really tell whose coloring what page in this issue (or maybe I just can became I follow Laura Martin’s colors in multiple titles at this point). It’s a killer art team on the title, and credit where credit is due; however, it’s Bagley that begins these character’s lives throughout the page, and without his emotion-fueled original pencils the issue wouldn’t be half as powerful as it is. It’s wonderful to have Bagley drawing Spider-Man again.
There’s no short answer about it: it’s a GREAT time to be an Ultimate fan again. Since the end of 2007, it’s been rather hard to get jazzed about what was going on in the Ultimate Universe for anything more than short bursts of time. However, Marvel’s plan to give it a new (third) life is paying off brilliantly. I essentially feel like a kid again; I, like many others, came back into comics with the Ultimate Universe after dropping out for a bit, so new Ultimate books are to me the equivalent of someone else’s Christmas morning. The Death of Ultimate Spider-Man was fantastic, and all things considered the first issue of Ultimate Fallout is just as powerful. Yes, it’s a slower read and takes some time to build up it’s steam, but what a fantastic ending. It’ll be very interesting to see Spencer and Hickman working on the book as well, playing off what Bendis began, but so far things are looking up.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Buy it if you’re an Ultimate fan, and buy it if you’re not an Ultimate fan
