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Spotlight on Fandoms - Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man was the first comic in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, a line of comics that asked, quite simply, "What if the Marvel Universe started today, in the year 2000, instead of the 1960s?" Most people responded, "You'll fail miserably," and it's understandable why they said that. A reboot of Spider-Man's origin had just recently been tried by comic book legend/crankypants John Byrne in the really terrible "Spider-Man: Chapter One." They hired a no-name writer by the name of Brian Michael Bendis who had written a bunch of crime comics that nobody read with art by Mark Bagley, who was a really popular Spider-Man artist back in the 90s and was now clearly slumming it. They were actually going to take one of the most perfect origins in comics, presented forty years earlier by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in FIFTEEN PAGES and stretch it over five issues. And the worst part, Spider-Man wasn't even going to appear in the first issue! It was just going to be geeky little Peter Parker!
It was a project destined to be a complete failure that would keep Marvel as the industry laughingstock they'd been for a number of years.
But there was a problem with that. When the first issue hit and people had a chance to read this disaster, Ultimate Spider-Man turned out to be really, really good.
The Background
During the 90s, as the speculator boom started to crash in comics, Marvel went bankrupt and very nearly lost its entire business. Just as bad, they were putting out a lot of really crappy comics. There were a few bright spots here and there, but Marvel was in serious trouble. Eventually they got a new Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada (who had already done his part with starting the Marvel Knights imprint, making freaking Daredevil a top-seller with Kevin Smith), and a new Publisher, Bill Jemas. They took a fairly radical approach to trying to make Marvel profitable again, including destroying intra-company continuity in order to focus on making the individual books work better on their own, getting Grant Morrison to do a complete overhaul on the X-Men, and most drastically, starting up a new line called Ground Zero comics.
Ground Zero comics was a new reality, separate from the previous forty years of continuity. Here Peter Parker could be in high school again without contradicting anything else. The X-Men could ignore the complete mess that had become of their team between the years of unresolved subplots and confusing storylines. The Avengers could be completely badass. Fortunately they rethought the name "Ground Zero" and changed it to "Ultimate Marvel" because the real world would have intruded a year later.
Anyway, Marvel knew that their best chance of success would be to launch a Spider-Man book first. He was, after all, their most popular character and easily one of the top three comic characters in the world. So they got a good but largely unheard of writer from the world of independent comics to come in and give it a shot. Seven years later, Bendis is probably their #1 writer, and this is where everything started.
The Beginning
Bendis made three controversial moves storywise right off the bat. First, he tied Spider-Man's origin directly to the man who would become his greatest enemy, Norman Osborn. Peter was bitten by the GENETICALLY ALTERED (not radioactive since we now know that radiation doesn't work like that) spider in Osborn's lab. Since Osborn wasn't an idiot, he watched Peter and made note of when he started to experience strange side effects from the bite. Like superpowers. He therefore knew from the beginning who Spider-Man was, tying them together more closely than they were in the original Marvel continuity until Norman killed that Peter's girlfriend.
The second change was to expand that origin story. Instead of just getting it all out in fifteen pages, Bendis took a double-sized first isssue to set up how Peter was a loser, establish his supporting characters, have him bitten by the spider, make a few attempts on his life, and finally watch Peter truly discover his powers. The next couple issues showed Peter to be a real teenager as he starts to use his new abilities to win a fight with a bully, get on the basketball team, show off to girls, and start a career as a professional wrestler. He reacted to his new situation in a jerkish but sympathetic way. Eventually he ran away from home, leaving his aunt and uncle in the cold because they simply couldn't understand what he was going through, he felt. It should be noted that this extra time also gave plenty more opportunities to grow to like Peter's Aunt May and Uncle Ben so that when the inevitable happened in issue #4, when Ben was killed by a burglar that Peter let get away from him earlier out of indifference, Peter's pain was felt that much more.
The third change was that Mary Jane Watson was the love interest from the start. While this may sound like a no brainer to people who aren't completely familiar with the original Spidey stories and only know that Peter and MJ have been married since the 80s and that she was the girl next door in the movies, this was a huge change. In the original book, not only did Peter have two serious girlfriends before meeting MJ, he didn't even meet her until he was in college. The changes involving Norman and Mary Jane were practically unthinkable before USM, but they were later worked into the movie version of the story, which shows how influential this book is.
The Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: The star of the book. He starts off as a broody little geek, became a wacky costumed crimefighter, and eventually developed into a true hero despite all the tragedy in his life.
Mary Jane Watson: The girl next door. Smart but popular, Mary was one of Peter's two friends at the beginning of the series. Nobody could understand why she hung around the dork, but they'd been friends forever and had a mutual crush. Aww. Peter's double life was screwing up the early stages of a romance between them, so Peter cut the crap and told her that he was Spider-Man very early on. They've broken up a few times but keep ending up back together. She is no longer completely normal.
Aunt May: Peter's sole living relative. May has lost her entire family and is now a single parent trying to raise a teenage boy who has a habit of lying to her, sneaking out at night, defying her authority, and so on, and so forth. She is understandably tightly wound. Recent issues have shown Peter revealing his secret identity to her, thus explaining large parts of the hell that their lives have been for the past year.
Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin: A corporate shark who started the series trying to recreate the supersoldier serum that created Captain America for SHIELD. Norman is a terrible father with personality issues to begin with. When he sees the result his experiments had on Peter - his accidental test subject - Norman decided that he needed to take the next step in his experiments. He had seen what his "Oz" formula would do to a human when filtered through an animal, so he decided to see what it would do to him unfiltered. The answer is that it turned him into a giant, hulking monster who could throw fireballs and was completely insane. He has coordinated two escapes from SHIELD custody, tried to assassinate the President, and thinks of Peter as the son he never had.
Harry Osborn/The Hobgoblin: The son Norman had. Understandably messed up thanks to his father, Harry went from a popular kid who liked but used Peter to a shell of his former self after he found out what kind of a monster Norman was. Little did he know that Norman was turning him into a monster, too. He is currently in SHIELD custody.
Nick Fury and SHIELD: SHIELD is a US military organization that handles superheroes, supervillains, and other genetic mishaps. General Fury runs SHIELD. He's more than a touch Machiavellian and is always preparing for the next genetic disaster. As revealed at the end of Clone Saga, Fury long suspected that Peter was primed to be the next great supervillain, on the lines of Magneto or Norman Osborn. After all, what kind of person could live through all the crap he had gone through without snapping? In a weird way, Fury is a kind of father figure for Peter.
Gwen Stacy: Unlike the goody goody in regular Marvel continuity, Gwen is a troubled young woman who came to Peter's school and ended up in detention a lot. While there was the chance for something of a romantic relationship with Peter early on, after her father died (killed by a criminal dressed like Spider-Man) she moved into the Parker house and became something of a surrogate sister to him. So, of course, she was killed by a deranged monster partially cloned from Peter. Her story doesn't completely end there...
Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus: Introduced as the big, scary scientist on Osborn's Oz team, Octavius was wounded in the explosion that turned Osborn into the Green Goblin. He had these metal arms fused to his body that he could control with his mind, severe eye damage was done so he always has to wear shades, and he went kind of nuts. At first, he went ahead and tried to kill everyone who he thought was responsible for his condition, but he was eventually stopped by Spider-Man during his first real win against a supervillain. He has since joined Osborn in a strike against the President, kidnapped Peter to Brazil only to get his ass kicked there, and cloned Peter to create supersoldiers for the CIA.
Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin: Arguably the overarching villain of the piece, even moreso than Osborn, Fisk is the top crime boss in New York. Peter discovered that the man who killed Uncle Ben was a lowlife thief who worked for a man who worked for Fisk. Peter decided to go after the big fish in the pond. It didn't work out very well to begin with, but Peter eventually nailed Fisk by giving video proof of him committing murder to the media. After fleeing the country, Fisk of course weaseled his way out of trouble, setting up a chess game between Spider-Man and himself. Peter found himself frequently getting into Fisk's business, eventually making himself such a nuisance that Fisk did the only thing he could: he used a lucky break that resulted in his gaining rights to Spider-Man's likeness to flood the market with Spider-Man goods. The more popular Spidey became, the richer Fisk would be. It's the bastard move of the century. But he's in jail now, thanks to a double crossing gone wrong for him.
Logan/Wolverine: X-Man. He and Peter really kind of hate each other.
Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat: After breaking up with Mary Jane because she kept getting herself almost killed by Peter's villains, Peter hooked up with a girl who was really tough to hurt: Kitty Pryde, an X-Man who was the power to phase through objects. They were adorable, but Clone Saga made it clear to Peter that MJ was the one for him... just in time for Kitty to leave the X-Men and end up going to school with Peter and MJ.
J. Jonah Jameson: Publisher of the Daily Bugle, the newspaper where Peter works as a web designer. He latched onto Spider-Man relatively early on, realizing that this clown was going to sell newspapers. He is the biggest hardass boss ever. He does have some depth that isn't obvious at first and actually likes Peter quite a bit.
Ben Urich: Peter's mentor in the newspaper world. He's the Bugle's best reporter, is cool, and nearly became a vampire one time.
Herman Schulz/The Shocker: A total chump of a criminal with amazing "vibro-shock" weaponry. Spider-Man has put him in jail six times.
AND MANY MORE
Criticism and Records
Bendis and Bagley were the creative team for the first 111 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, setting a Marvel record for the longest consecutive run on a comic over Lee/Kirby on Fantastic Four. Even more impressive is that they did it in roughly half the time it took Lee and Kirby, often putting 18-22 issues out in a year. This during an era where most of the big name artists have trouble getting a full twelve issues out in a year.
The early buzz of the series was overwhelmingly positive, as would be expected with a surprise hit featuring an up-and-coming writer and a solid artist. Of course, around the thirtieth issue or so, near the beginning of the Venom arc, the internet started to turn. Bendis was now popular enough that he started to get hate for no particular reason, which is common enough among comic fans. Many people will cite it being in a slump during various points starting roughly then, with the main culprits being the Hollywood arc (wherein Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire make a Spider-Man movie and Doctor Octopus kidnaps Peter to Brazil), Carnage (wherein Gwen Stacy is suddenly and brutally murdered), and Deadpool (which... okay, this one sucked really bad).
For the most part, though, this is still considered Bendis's best title even among the people who tend to hate Bendis. It is also often considered to be the best Spider-Man book on the market. Personally, I think it's the best Spider-Man book ever, period.
Storylines
Each storyline is what we call "written for the trade," basically a full story broken up into 6-7 parts. Bendis is one of the people who does this well, though. So each of the following storyarcs are conveniently found in trade paperback and doubled up in oversized hardcovers.
Volume 1: Power and Responsibility: Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and gets powers, becomes a jerk, snaps out of it, loses his uncle, devotes himself to fighting crime, and fights the Green Goblin.
Volume 2: Learning Curve: Spider-Man decides to go after the Kingpin of Crime, leading him into fights with The Enforcers and the electric-powered Electro. Spidey fights the Kingpin with fat jokes. Also, Peter and Mary Jane truly start their relationship.
Volume 3: Double Trouble: Doctor Octopus wakes up out of a coma and goes on a killing spree that only Spider-Man can stop. Meanwhile, TV show host Kraven the Hunter goes after the biggest game of all: Spider-Man. Also, Gwen Stacy shows up.
Volume 4: Legacy: Norman Osborn returns and scares the crap out of Peter, placing him into a game of chess between himself and Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. Mary Jane gets thrown off a bridge and Peter discovers that Fury plans on bringing Peter into SHIELD when he turns 18 whether he wants to or not.
Volume 5: Public Scrutiny: Gwen Stacy's father, Police Captain John Stacy, dies because of a Spider-Man impersonator. Spider-Man is now a wanted criminal and must clear his name. Also, two firsts: the first time Peter and Mary break up and the first time Peter is shot.
Volume 6: Venom: Peter discovers some information about the project his father was working on at the time of his death, a biological suit called "Venom" that could potentially cure cancer. He takes this time to reconnect with his childhood friend (and son of Peter's father's partner in the Venom Project), Eddie Brock, who was trying to finish their fathers' work. Peter accidentally lets the suit bond with him, turning him into a monster. Eddie later purposefully let the suit bond with him, and he fights Peter.
Volume 7: Irresponsible: Peter meets a youth with the power to make things explode named Geldoff who doesn't have the sense of personal responsibility that Peter does. Also, Peter meets the female X-Men, including future girlfriend Kitty Pryde. Also, Peter and Mary reconnect.
Volume 8: Cats & Kings: Peter meets a cute older woman named the Black Cat who just so happens to be a thief. And she's trying to take down the Kingpin. Like, obsessively.
Volume 9: Ultimate Six: Norman Osborn and Otto Octavius break out of SHIELD custody with three other villains Spider-Man has apprehended. They go ahead and kidnap Peter, try to kill the President, and fight The Ultimates.
Volume 10: Hollywood: Peter and Otto Octavius have similar reactions to the fact that Sam Raimi is making a movie about Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. The difference, is, of course, that Otto tries to kill everyone while Peter is forced to save them. They end up fighting in Brazil and somebody else finds out Peter's identity.
Volume 11: Carnage: Doctor Curt Conners - a good man who once turned himself into the monstrous Lizard and who also knows Peter's identity - approaches Peter to get his permission to use his blood to finish Peter's father's work and maybe cure cancer. Peter agrees. Conners makes a cloned creature that goes insane and kills lots of people, including one of Peter's closest friends.
Volume 12: Superstars: Peter teams up with the Human Torch, Doctor Strange, The Ultimates, and switches bodies with Wolverine.
Volume 13: Hobgoblin: Harry Osborn returns and finds out just how bad a father Norman really was. This features the point where Peter and SHIELD officially break their professional relationship and the second time where Peter and Mary end their personal relationship.
Volume 14: Warriors: A new crime boss is trying to make a move on the Kingpin's territory as new and old heroes end up finding their way to a giant confrontation. Featuring Iron Fist, Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Black Cat, Elektra, Hammerhead, and Spider-Man in the middle of it all. This is one of my absolute favorite arcs.
Volume 15: Silver Sable: First, Peter and Kitty Pryde go on a date. Then, Peter is surprised to find that he has accidentally found himself constantly protecting a corporation known as Roxxon. He discovers this after Roxxon hires Silver Sable and the Wild Pack to kidnap him and find out why he's protecting Roxxon. Also featuring the first appearance of The Vulture.
Volume 16: Deadpool/Morbius: Peter and the X-Men get kidnapped and put on a TV show where Deadpool and his cybernetic minions, The Reavers, try to kill them for being disgraces to God. Then, Peter fights vampires! And finally, another crime boss tries to take down the Kingpin, leading to a confrontation between Spidey, Moon Knight, The Punisher, and Daredevil.
Volume 17: Clone Saga: Peter is stunned when a costumed lunatic ends up having his face. This is just the tip of the clone iceberg as Peter meets a girl version of himself, a demented mastermind version of himself who kidnaps Mary, meets his supposedly dead father, and discovers that Gwen Stacy is alive. Also, SHIELD arrests him, May discovers Peter's secret and has a heart attack, and he fights his greatest battle against Doctor Octopus. The best arc of the entire run of the book, it shows just how great a hero Spider-Man is. It also features Peter and Mary getting back together without Peter telling Kitty, showing how schmucky Peter can be.
Volume 18: Ultimate Knights: Daredevil gets a group together to take down the Kingpin and Spidey is the key to the whole thing. Things go terribly wrong. Big surprise. Also, Peter and May have The Talk albout him being Spider-Man. This is Mark Bagley's last arc on art.
Volume 19: Death of a Goblin: Stuart Immonen's (NEXTWAVE) first arc is our current story. Norman Osborn gets out again and uses his intelligence to make himself look like a good guy. Promised developments include Peter and Kitty fighting side by side again, a fight between Peter, Norman, and Harry, and the titular Death.
Additionally, the Ultimate Marvel Team-Up series featured Spider-Man interacting with newly introduced Ultimate versions of Marvel characters. Characters introduced in this series include the Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow, Curt Conners/The Lizard, Man Thing, Daredevil, the Punisher, Shang Chi, Elektra, and Doctor Strange. The Fantastic Four appeared once in a non-continuity story and then again in an in-continuity story, but their part has since been retconned out. Additionally, a conversation where the Human Torch gave Peter an inspirational talk about being a hero in this appearance was reversed in the Superstars arc where Peter gave the same speech to Johnny.
Common Misspellings
One thing that dives me nuts because I'm such a geek is the common misspellings that occur when people talk Spidey. I'm going to clarify those because I can.
Spider-Man: It is not "Spiderman" or "Spider-man." It has a hyphen and a capital M.
Osborn: Norman's last name is not "Osborne" or "Osbourne." He is not Ozzy.
Mary Jane: Not "Mary-Jane." There is no hyphen.
Bagley: Artist Mark Bagley's last name.
Immonen: Continuing the tough last names for artists, this is new artist Stuart Immonen's last name.
Deadpool: Is not spelled "disappointing."
And I think that's about it. God, i hope that's about it. In any event, I'm stopping there.
It was a project destined to be a complete failure that would keep Marvel as the industry laughingstock they'd been for a number of years.
But there was a problem with that. When the first issue hit and people had a chance to read this disaster, Ultimate Spider-Man turned out to be really, really good.
The Background
During the 90s, as the speculator boom started to crash in comics, Marvel went bankrupt and very nearly lost its entire business. Just as bad, they were putting out a lot of really crappy comics. There were a few bright spots here and there, but Marvel was in serious trouble. Eventually they got a new Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada (who had already done his part with starting the Marvel Knights imprint, making freaking Daredevil a top-seller with Kevin Smith), and a new Publisher, Bill Jemas. They took a fairly radical approach to trying to make Marvel profitable again, including destroying intra-company continuity in order to focus on making the individual books work better on their own, getting Grant Morrison to do a complete overhaul on the X-Men, and most drastically, starting up a new line called Ground Zero comics.
Ground Zero comics was a new reality, separate from the previous forty years of continuity. Here Peter Parker could be in high school again without contradicting anything else. The X-Men could ignore the complete mess that had become of their team between the years of unresolved subplots and confusing storylines. The Avengers could be completely badass. Fortunately they rethought the name "Ground Zero" and changed it to "Ultimate Marvel" because the real world would have intruded a year later.
Anyway, Marvel knew that their best chance of success would be to launch a Spider-Man book first. He was, after all, their most popular character and easily one of the top three comic characters in the world. So they got a good but largely unheard of writer from the world of independent comics to come in and give it a shot. Seven years later, Bendis is probably their #1 writer, and this is where everything started.
The Beginning
Bendis made three controversial moves storywise right off the bat. First, he tied Spider-Man's origin directly to the man who would become his greatest enemy, Norman Osborn. Peter was bitten by the GENETICALLY ALTERED (not radioactive since we now know that radiation doesn't work like that) spider in Osborn's lab. Since Osborn wasn't an idiot, he watched Peter and made note of when he started to experience strange side effects from the bite. Like superpowers. He therefore knew from the beginning who Spider-Man was, tying them together more closely than they were in the original Marvel continuity until Norman killed that Peter's girlfriend.
The second change was to expand that origin story. Instead of just getting it all out in fifteen pages, Bendis took a double-sized first isssue to set up how Peter was a loser, establish his supporting characters, have him bitten by the spider, make a few attempts on his life, and finally watch Peter truly discover his powers. The next couple issues showed Peter to be a real teenager as he starts to use his new abilities to win a fight with a bully, get on the basketball team, show off to girls, and start a career as a professional wrestler. He reacted to his new situation in a jerkish but sympathetic way. Eventually he ran away from home, leaving his aunt and uncle in the cold because they simply couldn't understand what he was going through, he felt. It should be noted that this extra time also gave plenty more opportunities to grow to like Peter's Aunt May and Uncle Ben so that when the inevitable happened in issue #4, when Ben was killed by a burglar that Peter let get away from him earlier out of indifference, Peter's pain was felt that much more.
The third change was that Mary Jane Watson was the love interest from the start. While this may sound like a no brainer to people who aren't completely familiar with the original Spidey stories and only know that Peter and MJ have been married since the 80s and that she was the girl next door in the movies, this was a huge change. In the original book, not only did Peter have two serious girlfriends before meeting MJ, he didn't even meet her until he was in college. The changes involving Norman and Mary Jane were practically unthinkable before USM, but they were later worked into the movie version of the story, which shows how influential this book is.
The Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: The star of the book. He starts off as a broody little geek, became a wacky costumed crimefighter, and eventually developed into a true hero despite all the tragedy in his life.
Mary Jane Watson: The girl next door. Smart but popular, Mary was one of Peter's two friends at the beginning of the series. Nobody could understand why she hung around the dork, but they'd been friends forever and had a mutual crush. Aww. Peter's double life was screwing up the early stages of a romance between them, so Peter cut the crap and told her that he was Spider-Man very early on. They've broken up a few times but keep ending up back together. She is no longer completely normal.
Aunt May: Peter's sole living relative. May has lost her entire family and is now a single parent trying to raise a teenage boy who has a habit of lying to her, sneaking out at night, defying her authority, and so on, and so forth. She is understandably tightly wound. Recent issues have shown Peter revealing his secret identity to her, thus explaining large parts of the hell that their lives have been for the past year.
Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin: A corporate shark who started the series trying to recreate the supersoldier serum that created Captain America for SHIELD. Norman is a terrible father with personality issues to begin with. When he sees the result his experiments had on Peter - his accidental test subject - Norman decided that he needed to take the next step in his experiments. He had seen what his "Oz" formula would do to a human when filtered through an animal, so he decided to see what it would do to him unfiltered. The answer is that it turned him into a giant, hulking monster who could throw fireballs and was completely insane. He has coordinated two escapes from SHIELD custody, tried to assassinate the President, and thinks of Peter as the son he never had.
Harry Osborn/The Hobgoblin: The son Norman had. Understandably messed up thanks to his father, Harry went from a popular kid who liked but used Peter to a shell of his former self after he found out what kind of a monster Norman was. Little did he know that Norman was turning him into a monster, too. He is currently in SHIELD custody.
Nick Fury and SHIELD: SHIELD is a US military organization that handles superheroes, supervillains, and other genetic mishaps. General Fury runs SHIELD. He's more than a touch Machiavellian and is always preparing for the next genetic disaster. As revealed at the end of Clone Saga, Fury long suspected that Peter was primed to be the next great supervillain, on the lines of Magneto or Norman Osborn. After all, what kind of person could live through all the crap he had gone through without snapping? In a weird way, Fury is a kind of father figure for Peter.
Gwen Stacy: Unlike the goody goody in regular Marvel continuity, Gwen is a troubled young woman who came to Peter's school and ended up in detention a lot. While there was the chance for something of a romantic relationship with Peter early on, after her father died (killed by a criminal dressed like Spider-Man) she moved into the Parker house and became something of a surrogate sister to him. So, of course, she was killed by a deranged monster partially cloned from Peter. Her story doesn't completely end there...
Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus: Introduced as the big, scary scientist on Osborn's Oz team, Octavius was wounded in the explosion that turned Osborn into the Green Goblin. He had these metal arms fused to his body that he could control with his mind, severe eye damage was done so he always has to wear shades, and he went kind of nuts. At first, he went ahead and tried to kill everyone who he thought was responsible for his condition, but he was eventually stopped by Spider-Man during his first real win against a supervillain. He has since joined Osborn in a strike against the President, kidnapped Peter to Brazil only to get his ass kicked there, and cloned Peter to create supersoldiers for the CIA.
Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin: Arguably the overarching villain of the piece, even moreso than Osborn, Fisk is the top crime boss in New York. Peter discovered that the man who killed Uncle Ben was a lowlife thief who worked for a man who worked for Fisk. Peter decided to go after the big fish in the pond. It didn't work out very well to begin with, but Peter eventually nailed Fisk by giving video proof of him committing murder to the media. After fleeing the country, Fisk of course weaseled his way out of trouble, setting up a chess game between Spider-Man and himself. Peter found himself frequently getting into Fisk's business, eventually making himself such a nuisance that Fisk did the only thing he could: he used a lucky break that resulted in his gaining rights to Spider-Man's likeness to flood the market with Spider-Man goods. The more popular Spidey became, the richer Fisk would be. It's the bastard move of the century. But he's in jail now, thanks to a double crossing gone wrong for him.
Logan/Wolverine: X-Man. He and Peter really kind of hate each other.
Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat: After breaking up with Mary Jane because she kept getting herself almost killed by Peter's villains, Peter hooked up with a girl who was really tough to hurt: Kitty Pryde, an X-Man who was the power to phase through objects. They were adorable, but Clone Saga made it clear to Peter that MJ was the one for him... just in time for Kitty to leave the X-Men and end up going to school with Peter and MJ.
J. Jonah Jameson: Publisher of the Daily Bugle, the newspaper where Peter works as a web designer. He latched onto Spider-Man relatively early on, realizing that this clown was going to sell newspapers. He is the biggest hardass boss ever. He does have some depth that isn't obvious at first and actually likes Peter quite a bit.
Ben Urich: Peter's mentor in the newspaper world. He's the Bugle's best reporter, is cool, and nearly became a vampire one time.
Herman Schulz/The Shocker: A total chump of a criminal with amazing "vibro-shock" weaponry. Spider-Man has put him in jail six times.
AND MANY MORE
Criticism and Records
Bendis and Bagley were the creative team for the first 111 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, setting a Marvel record for the longest consecutive run on a comic over Lee/Kirby on Fantastic Four. Even more impressive is that they did it in roughly half the time it took Lee and Kirby, often putting 18-22 issues out in a year. This during an era where most of the big name artists have trouble getting a full twelve issues out in a year.
The early buzz of the series was overwhelmingly positive, as would be expected with a surprise hit featuring an up-and-coming writer and a solid artist. Of course, around the thirtieth issue or so, near the beginning of the Venom arc, the internet started to turn. Bendis was now popular enough that he started to get hate for no particular reason, which is common enough among comic fans. Many people will cite it being in a slump during various points starting roughly then, with the main culprits being the Hollywood arc (wherein Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire make a Spider-Man movie and Doctor Octopus kidnaps Peter to Brazil), Carnage (wherein Gwen Stacy is suddenly and brutally murdered), and Deadpool (which... okay, this one sucked really bad).
For the most part, though, this is still considered Bendis's best title even among the people who tend to hate Bendis. It is also often considered to be the best Spider-Man book on the market. Personally, I think it's the best Spider-Man book ever, period.
Storylines
Each storyline is what we call "written for the trade," basically a full story broken up into 6-7 parts. Bendis is one of the people who does this well, though. So each of the following storyarcs are conveniently found in trade paperback and doubled up in oversized hardcovers.
Volume 1: Power and Responsibility: Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and gets powers, becomes a jerk, snaps out of it, loses his uncle, devotes himself to fighting crime, and fights the Green Goblin.
Volume 2: Learning Curve: Spider-Man decides to go after the Kingpin of Crime, leading him into fights with The Enforcers and the electric-powered Electro. Spidey fights the Kingpin with fat jokes. Also, Peter and Mary Jane truly start their relationship.
Volume 3: Double Trouble: Doctor Octopus wakes up out of a coma and goes on a killing spree that only Spider-Man can stop. Meanwhile, TV show host Kraven the Hunter goes after the biggest game of all: Spider-Man. Also, Gwen Stacy shows up.
Volume 4: Legacy: Norman Osborn returns and scares the crap out of Peter, placing him into a game of chess between himself and Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. Mary Jane gets thrown off a bridge and Peter discovers that Fury plans on bringing Peter into SHIELD when he turns 18 whether he wants to or not.
Volume 5: Public Scrutiny: Gwen Stacy's father, Police Captain John Stacy, dies because of a Spider-Man impersonator. Spider-Man is now a wanted criminal and must clear his name. Also, two firsts: the first time Peter and Mary break up and the first time Peter is shot.
Volume 6: Venom: Peter discovers some information about the project his father was working on at the time of his death, a biological suit called "Venom" that could potentially cure cancer. He takes this time to reconnect with his childhood friend (and son of Peter's father's partner in the Venom Project), Eddie Brock, who was trying to finish their fathers' work. Peter accidentally lets the suit bond with him, turning him into a monster. Eddie later purposefully let the suit bond with him, and he fights Peter.
Volume 7: Irresponsible: Peter meets a youth with the power to make things explode named Geldoff who doesn't have the sense of personal responsibility that Peter does. Also, Peter meets the female X-Men, including future girlfriend Kitty Pryde. Also, Peter and Mary reconnect.
Volume 8: Cats & Kings: Peter meets a cute older woman named the Black Cat who just so happens to be a thief. And she's trying to take down the Kingpin. Like, obsessively.
Volume 9: Ultimate Six: Norman Osborn and Otto Octavius break out of SHIELD custody with three other villains Spider-Man has apprehended. They go ahead and kidnap Peter, try to kill the President, and fight The Ultimates.
Volume 10: Hollywood: Peter and Otto Octavius have similar reactions to the fact that Sam Raimi is making a movie about Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. The difference, is, of course, that Otto tries to kill everyone while Peter is forced to save them. They end up fighting in Brazil and somebody else finds out Peter's identity.
Volume 11: Carnage: Doctor Curt Conners - a good man who once turned himself into the monstrous Lizard and who also knows Peter's identity - approaches Peter to get his permission to use his blood to finish Peter's father's work and maybe cure cancer. Peter agrees. Conners makes a cloned creature that goes insane and kills lots of people, including one of Peter's closest friends.
Volume 12: Superstars: Peter teams up with the Human Torch, Doctor Strange, The Ultimates, and switches bodies with Wolverine.
Volume 13: Hobgoblin: Harry Osborn returns and finds out just how bad a father Norman really was. This features the point where Peter and SHIELD officially break their professional relationship and the second time where Peter and Mary end their personal relationship.
Volume 14: Warriors: A new crime boss is trying to make a move on the Kingpin's territory as new and old heroes end up finding their way to a giant confrontation. Featuring Iron Fist, Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Black Cat, Elektra, Hammerhead, and Spider-Man in the middle of it all. This is one of my absolute favorite arcs.
Volume 15: Silver Sable: First, Peter and Kitty Pryde go on a date. Then, Peter is surprised to find that he has accidentally found himself constantly protecting a corporation known as Roxxon. He discovers this after Roxxon hires Silver Sable and the Wild Pack to kidnap him and find out why he's protecting Roxxon. Also featuring the first appearance of The Vulture.
Volume 16: Deadpool/Morbius: Peter and the X-Men get kidnapped and put on a TV show where Deadpool and his cybernetic minions, The Reavers, try to kill them for being disgraces to God. Then, Peter fights vampires! And finally, another crime boss tries to take down the Kingpin, leading to a confrontation between Spidey, Moon Knight, The Punisher, and Daredevil.
Volume 17: Clone Saga: Peter is stunned when a costumed lunatic ends up having his face. This is just the tip of the clone iceberg as Peter meets a girl version of himself, a demented mastermind version of himself who kidnaps Mary, meets his supposedly dead father, and discovers that Gwen Stacy is alive. Also, SHIELD arrests him, May discovers Peter's secret and has a heart attack, and he fights his greatest battle against Doctor Octopus. The best arc of the entire run of the book, it shows just how great a hero Spider-Man is. It also features Peter and Mary getting back together without Peter telling Kitty, showing how schmucky Peter can be.
Volume 18: Ultimate Knights: Daredevil gets a group together to take down the Kingpin and Spidey is the key to the whole thing. Things go terribly wrong. Big surprise. Also, Peter and May have The Talk albout him being Spider-Man. This is Mark Bagley's last arc on art.
Volume 19: Death of a Goblin: Stuart Immonen's (NEXTWAVE) first arc is our current story. Norman Osborn gets out again and uses his intelligence to make himself look like a good guy. Promised developments include Peter and Kitty fighting side by side again, a fight between Peter, Norman, and Harry, and the titular Death.
Additionally, the Ultimate Marvel Team-Up series featured Spider-Man interacting with newly introduced Ultimate versions of Marvel characters. Characters introduced in this series include the Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow, Curt Conners/The Lizard, Man Thing, Daredevil, the Punisher, Shang Chi, Elektra, and Doctor Strange. The Fantastic Four appeared once in a non-continuity story and then again in an in-continuity story, but their part has since been retconned out. Additionally, a conversation where the Human Torch gave Peter an inspirational talk about being a hero in this appearance was reversed in the Superstars arc where Peter gave the same speech to Johnny.
Common Misspellings
One thing that dives me nuts because I'm such a geek is the common misspellings that occur when people talk Spidey. I'm going to clarify those because I can.
Spider-Man: It is not "Spiderman" or "Spider-man." It has a hyphen and a capital M.
Osborn: Norman's last name is not "Osborne" or "Osbourne." He is not Ozzy.
Mary Jane: Not "Mary-Jane." There is no hyphen.
Bagley: Artist Mark Bagley's last name.
Immonen: Continuing the tough last names for artists, this is new artist Stuart Immonen's last name.
Deadpool: Is not spelled "disappointing."
And I think that's about it. God, i hope that's about it. In any event, I'm stopping there.
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Look at Ultimate Longshot. He's actually badass! And nuts, but badass!
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I still like it when I turn him into Peter Spiderman, of the Queens Spiderman family.
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