Spoilers Ahead
This is not a review of Ultimate Spider-man #1.
I think reviewing singular pieces of a serialized medium like comics (or TV) is incredibly silly and unhelpful for cracking into the marrow. But I do want to talk about USM #1 more broadly.
Before anyone asks, let me just get my thoughts on USM #1 out there in the parlance of the day: They cooked. This was probably the best single issue of a Spider-man comic since Amazing Spider-man #10 dropped in September 2022. There's a nice, gut-punch of a reveal, gorgeous art and a story that flows almost effortlessly into an exciting cliffhanger. I'm not sure there's much more you could as for from a Big 2 first issue.
But I can't help but feel like this book has to be graded on a curve.
Fans have already begun to derisively compare the current Wells ASM with the setup of USM. For example, I saw someone joke that the book is a breath of fresh air simply because it gives Peter Parker a supporting cast. People seem to accept the idea that Amazing Spider-man is bad because Zeb Wells suddenly became a bad writer when he took over the book, and that Ultimate Spider-man is good because Jonathan Hickman can do no wrong (he can by the way - his entire Avengers run is a massive wrong.)
There's a lot of chatter about how Amazing Spider-man is "the worst it's ever been," which fans griping at another drawn out story to explain why Peter and MJ can't be together again. But the fan chatter doesn't really line up with the numbers.
Per Comichron, Amazing Spider-man was basically a top 25, if not a top a top 10 book, practically every single month of 2023. The gulf here between the hyper-online section of fandom and everybody else reading ASM, has never really seemed bigger. A fellow fan (and commensurate hater, Hi Dan) said in a chat the other day that ASM's continued success shows that Marvel understands their core audience much better than they let on and I think that is kind of undeniable. If the Spider-man/Mary Jane relationship was as much of a dealbreaker as many people claim it is, sales would probably reflect that at some point. And they simply do not - ASM occupies multiple spots on the top 100 books of 2007.
2009 seemed to be a slow year with ASM only appearing twice in the top 100....but it claimed that #1 spot.
Hell, even 2020, which was a rough year for every industry, did not seem to show a significant decrease in demand for Amazing Spider-man.
Don't get me wrong now, I do not believe that sales equate to quality. There's that old adage about McDonald's which comes to mind, but sales numbers do at least give us a sense of how consumers seem to feel about something. Controversial as it may be, I would argue that there is no significant portion of comic book readers who are actually unhappy with the narrative and editorial direction of Amazing Spider-man. They've had 17 years since the release of One More Day to make themselves known in some way besides crying on the internet and it simply hasn't happened.
And yet there was an outpouring of fanboy joy when Ultimate Spider-man was solicited, especially when fans saw the "Meet the Parkers" variant by Ryan Stegman (featured at the top of this post.) The idea of an adult, married Peter Parker with children is catnip to a certain section of the internet and I've never really understood why. I love a fictional dad, truly do, but with every fictional father comes stories of them being awful dads (unless you are Scott Summers.)
I've seen how my boys Goku and Naruto got dirt thrown on their names, I don't want that for Peter Parker.
But I digress.
Something I've found myself asking a lot over the years when I've picked up a Big 2 comic and didn't quite know how to parse it out was "who is this comic for?" Sometimes you can tell why a comic exists by the types of characters in it, how the creators are stumping for it on social media, the types of venues that run PR pieces about the stories...I will always remember Gail Simone lamenting that vast gulf between tumblr retweets of panels from The Movement compared to issue sales, for example. A book created entirely for an audience of people who were never going to buy it. Lesson learned.
I didn't really have that problem with Ultimate Spider-man #1. I knew exactly who this comic was for by the time I finished it...and that might be a problem in and of itself.
The most basic summary of the current Ultimate line I can give is that The Maker (evil Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe) found a random universe, travelled through time to prevent the rise of superheroes and has seized control of the world with a cabal of supervillains.
From Ultimate Invasion #2
A fairly basic set of tropes, not unlike say, Marvel's Ruins or or JLA: The Nail, but with a villainous actor behind the scene rather than mere cruel twists of fate. A common trope in these stories is that our heroes can feel it in their guts that something is wrong with the world, that their place in it has shifted. A good example of it is Clark Kent recognizing the names of his fellow superheroes in a rewritten version of reality where the Justice League is rendered human amongst a largely superhuman world.
From JLA: A Midsummer's Nightmare #1
A similar trope is gestured at in Ultimate Spider-man #1. Peter confesses to feeling like there's something wrong with him, that there's a hole somewhere in his life. In many cases "show, don't tell" isn't the most appropriate advice but this kind of comes out of left field. We have no real indication that Peter has ever felt like something was wrong, nor do we really seem him express emotion at the recent death of Aunt May. Or have any sort of reaction to the fact that he lives in a world controlled evil by evil super-humans. Heck, we don't even know what he does at the Daily Bugle, just that he is a sad white man.
From Ultimate Spider-man #1 (2024)
From Ultimate Spider-man #1 (2024)
The next page doubles down with the words "These people stole your future. They robbed you of your destiny." And I couldn't help but feel a little queasy.
There's something particularly odious about seeing those words in bold red font next to the face of a middle aged white man, in a story written by a middle aged white man, after months of white men on the internet hyping up this comic as their Great White Hope to save Spider-man. I might even go as far to say that the notion of a white man with a destiny stolen by a secretive cabal should be radioactive in 2024. But as we've all seen, the the only things radioactive at Marvel are the things that upset a certain end of the political spectrum.
Y'all see where I'm going with this?
A lot of people griped at how much Across the Spider-verse and She-Hulk spent their runtimes directly addressing the worst white men on the internet but to be honest after reading this issue I'm not sure that movie and show were as harsh as they should've been.
As I kind of alluded to in my long lead up up to actually talking about this comic, there is this pervasive idea in fan circles that Spider-man has been taken from them.
The "why won't they let Spider-man grow up and get married" crowd might think they are singing a different song from the "Get that jiggaboo Spider-man out of here" people, but I'm not really so sure. This book feels like it was grown in a lab to bring those two segments of fandom to the table and make them eat their dinner instead of sending death threats to marvel staffers.
Even the choice of writer seems perfectly focus grouped to draw as little ire as possible. Fan circles have elevated Hickman to godlike status when it comes to modern Marvel writers. Its not enough that what he's written is praised endlessly, even the stuff he hasn't is obsessed over as well. Too many forum posts and podcast time have been spent lamenting his early departure from the X-line with many fans crying begging to see his planned finale for the Krakoan Age. In many minds he is the sole auteur responsible for anything good about X-men comics since 2019 and his 2022 departure after Inferno is why quality has (allegedly) declined.
Now don't get it twisted, I have no ire towards the man and enjoy much his creative output. Beyond that, I've listened closely as unfairly maligned writers like Vita Ayala, Leah Williams and Tini Howard have expressed how much time Hickman put in behind the scenes championing their work and ideas to the powers that be at Marvel. Hickman should be remembered for helping to foster a creative environment where a diverse group of writers got to flex on one of comics biggest franchises. When it all shakes out, in the long run, I think people will understand the Krakoan Age not as an auteur driven project, but a writers room where tons of peoples contributions gave us those stories we loved.
But there is a certain kind of Big 2 fan who believes that good comics can only happen when a Jonathan Hickman, a Si Spurrier, a Donny Cates, a Chip Zdarsky, an Al Ewing or a Kieron Gillen is allowed to lay claim to a property and "put their mark on it." (And it's worth noting that the current Ultimate seems to have originally been conceived as a Cates lead project before his accident necessitated the handoff to Hickman.)
I shouldn't even have to point out the very obvious thing all those writers have in common. And its all the more bitter tasting when you listen to what writers outside that club have to say about when the editorial hammer drops on them.
So when I say that Hickman and crew cooked on this issue, I think it should be explicit that they were allowed to use seasoning. The spice cabinet is locked and only a select few ever get the keys.
I think Hickman is a deft writer who will easily subvert expectations. I don't expect this comic to be the slice of life, happy fan service that the worst people on the internet have been begging for. But I guess I'm most curious about what is going to happen when this book isn't that. Will sales tank? Will Hickman's name get dragged through the mud like Zeb Wells? Or will it be so popular it finally encourages changes the same vocal minority has demanded in the mainline title?
I don't know.
And I think that's a good place to leave it.
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Well. That was a lot of words, about a lot of things. I wouldn't call it a proper essay, it'd put my good English teachers to shame. And I certainly wouldn't call this a review. Lets just call it a blog post, we used to have those, remember?
If enough people read this, I suspect I'll write another one next month. That feels like a good goal. Chewing the marrow once a month.
They hate seeing manifestations of their anxieities made clear to them. They cannot see themselves writhing in the shadow of progress.
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