Ultimate Spider-man #3 (2024) Review
Summary: With great art, a great story, and Peter’s growing… Parker-nish, Spider-man is quickly becoming who he was meant to be all those years ago. PICK THIS UP!
4
Best of 3!
Background – Family bonding and a mystery is solved… sort of.
Writing – While Richard may seem to take after Mary Jane, May definitely takes after Peter. While I can’t say for certain, I like to think this is reality catching up to itself considering in another world, she becomes Spider-girl (or woman). Peter’s still the worst liar ever, but the big difference between this and the main universe: MARY JANE trusts Peter. If this was the main universe, Peter’s attempt at a little white lie would have sent Mary Jane into a tailspin that would have probably broken them up (OK… so maybe not that bad but considering Marvel’s refusal to let Peter be happy, that statements not so far-fetched). It’s because of this shared comic history that it’s also fitting that May helps him design his Spider-man uniform. It’s great to see a family be a family.
Over in Uncle Ben land, He and Jonah are looking for office space and have found what could be described as a fixer upper. Peter brings them a plant and discovers that the two of them have been tracking Wilson Fisk’s dealings with the Green Goblin. Peter mentions how the Bugle insists on tracking Spider-man’s activities rather than the Goblin’s and Fisk’s and Ben unknowingly gives Peter the idea that maybe somebody should be looking at the two of them more.s
On the super heroics side, we see Green Goblin’s first encounter with what seems to be Bullseye (he’s not named, but I mean, who else could this possibly be?) Peter intervenes and helps subdue him, and then we watch as Peter meets Harry Osborn for the first time. Yes, the Goblin is Harry Osborn. While it was pretty obvious from the start that’s who they were going with, I was kind of hoping for a curveball in the vein of Gwen Stacy. I know she’s getting added to the book soon, but I guess this is just history reasserting itself. This re-occurrence of history is not nearly as annoying as the Ultimate Black Panther’s book insistence on having a hidden Wakanda sitting on a mass of Vibranium. The issue ends with Peter being unmasked by Harry (Oscorp apparently made Peters suit so Harry can override it) and Harry asking Peter to go get coffee.
Oh! I’m fairly certain Bullseye is Gambit… or Gambit is Bullseye.
Artwork – The art is still highly consistent. The standout stuff in this issue has got to be Peter’s cycling through costumes. The suit morphs from a deep black and white (this almost looks like a photo negative) , to a variant on the Scarlet Spider uniform, to what I think is the uniform he wears on Earth X, to his all blue Fantastic Four uniform, until we get to a gorgeous splash page of Peter web-slinging through the city in his familiar colors with his ecstatic daughter on his back. A minor nitpick: while this does look like a very nice shot, it really could have been a two-pager. It called out for it. Bullseye’s new design is great. He looks like a cross between himself and The Vigilante from DC.
Final Thoughts – With great art, a great story, and Peter’s growing… Parker-nish, Spider-man is quickly becoming who he was meant to be all those years ago. The new dynamic between Harry and Peter opens a lot of possibilities… although we probably can see where the story is going to end up. This is still the highlight of Marvel every month and the winner out of the 3 Ultimate books. PICK THIS UP!
Comic Details
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Color Artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Genre: Superhero
Format: Monthly
Release Date: 03/27/2024
About the Author
Matt Fischer Lover of all things nerdy. Reader of Comics for over 25 years. DC encyclopedia. X-Men historian. Spider-Man and Marvel lover. Indie side guy.
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