“Okay, who stole New York City?”
Marvel Universe: Ultimate Spider-Man #1
Marvel Comics (June, 2012)
Because I don’t have enough anthologies in my reading schedule apparently, this has four stories, two of which are one-page “Marvel Mash-Up” gag pages where they rewrite a comic page into something out of the MST3K comic. I won’t be reviewing those (especially the second one that gives Peter diarrhea) but I’m going to review each full story individually because at least it’s ONLY two stories I need to review. By the way, this is not based on the Ultimate Spider-Man comics but the Disney XD TV show that is nothing like the Ultimate comics Universe. Check here for my review of the first episode, and I have watched the occasional episode since so I have some idea what the show is like.
“How To Defeat Shocker”
WRITER: Dan Slott
ARTIST: Nuno Plati
LETTERER: Joe Carmagna
EDITOR: Steven Wacker
Peter wants to order his late uncle’s favorite cake for him and Aunt May to celebrate his birthday. Unfortunately the Shocker shows up in the area, and the bakery closes before he can place the order…except the owner saw everything and she found it so thrilling that she allows Spider-Man to place the order “for his friend”. Slott lays a bit too hard on the show’s gimmick of stopping the story so Spidey can do these gag thought exposition bits with chibi versions of himself, and either I missed something in my limited viewing or Slott is under the impression that Peter does these in real time and not reel time, so Shocker keeps wondering what’s he’s yammering about–which includes mentioning his secret identity!–and why he lacks focus. That’s not how the joke worked in my limited experience and it makes Pete look coocoo for Cocoa Puffs. It ruins an acceptable story that is a prequel to events in an early episode. Possibly the first. It’s been a while and the show wasn’t that great.
“Ultimate Peter Parker”
WRITERS: Ty Templeton & Dan Slott
ARTIST: Ty Templeton
COLORIST: Wil Quintana
LETTERER: Clayton Cowles
EDITOR: Stephen Wacker
I did not have high hopes going into this plot, where Agent Colson substitutes a “Mandroid” of Peter so Spider-Man can sneak off to protect Nick Fury. The robot replacement thing has only been done right once in stories I’ve seen and not everybody can be The Last Starfighter. This also has Peter lousy at hiding his presence. I know he’s a rookie in this story but no version of Peter has been this bad at hiding. Peter’s also “comedically” distracted worried about all the sci-fi malfunctioning robot tropes because Mandroid Peter made a joke about it. That’s not how Peter’s schtick works and if that IS accurate to the show then they got wrong, but someone messed this up, which too many writers do. And Fury was counting on Spider-Man sucking at hiding since he used another Mandroid (what happened to the “Life Model Decoys”? Mandroids are supposed to be body armor or something, aren’t they?) to draw out Madame Hydra. Except she gets a hold of Fury’s Mandroid and uses it to send a self-destruct to blow them all up, with Spidey racing back to school before his doppleganger blows up his friends. So “ultimately” this mission was worthless. Way to go, Nick. Now how much did you cost the taxpayers to endanger a bunch of teenagers?
The problems with the early seasons of the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, which again bears no resemblance to the Ultimate Universe in the comics, are actually worse in this issue. If you didn’t like the show you’re going to hate this comic and if you liked the show this may or may not work for you.
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