Never Judge A Book: Ultimate Spider-Man #7 Review

We’re now seven issues into Brian Michael Bendis’s new Ultimate Spider-Man, and Miles Morales is in his costume, Peter Parker is in his heaven, and there is finally superhero action in this superhero action comic book. Man, I’m liking this book a lot more now that something’s actually happening in it. Who woulda thunk it?

However, the book gets a rough start thanks to Kaare Andrews cover. Sure, it’s beautifully rendered with pseudo 3D / photorealistic backgrounds, and unlike the cover in the last issue we reviewed here, it doesn’t look like Spider-Man’s so excited to have superpowers that he’s double-ejaculating like some kind of pornographic Chow Yun Fat while busily sucking his own dick. No, in this cover, Spider-Man is overlooking the city, demurely and quietly squatting… and apparently crapping a giant golden dook. Right on top of the American flag. Look, I really like Kaare Andrews work – his stuff on Spider-Man: Reign was excellent – but the man draws these Ultimate Spider-Man covers like he’s trying to see what weird shit he can sneak into them. I’m guessing that either we’re two issues away from a cover where Spider-Man sprays webs onto Black Cat’s upper lip, or that I just have a filthy, dirty (sanchez) mind and should stop reading perversion into these covers.

Things, however, are a little more plain vanilla between the covers (Ha! Get it?).

I recently reread the first eighteen or so issues of the original Ultimate Spider-Man, and like with that earlier series, we have finally reached a tipping point where this book is now safe to buy on a month-to-month basis. We have passed the slowest-of-slow-burn openings to finally get Miles in his costume regularly, which means that superhero action has become a common occurance, which is good for a superhero comic. Additionally, we’re early enough in Miles’s career that we’re still also getting a sense of the pure, experimental joy that Miles feels learning his powers. He does what any one of us would do if we woke up with Spider-Man’s powers: see how high you can climb. Practice your moves in your bedroom. Try to suck your own dick (Sorry, that was the cover a couple issues ago).

On top of seeing Miles in actual action, we also get the return of Miles’s uncle, the master cat burglar who accidentally stole the spider that gave Miles powers, all while avoiding the obvious things like getting spider powers himself, or seeing the spider and screaming like a woman before pissing his cat burglar tights (I am obviously not cat burglar material). And we learn that Dear Old Uncle isn’t that nice of a fella… and unfortunately, given his non-powered second story work, his dark version of Spider-Man’s mask, and his new knowledge that Norman Osborn had at least 41 other potentially power-bestowing spiders, I’m thinking we can say hello to Uncy Arch Nemesis by the eighteenth issue.

The interior art by Chris Samnee is very different from Sara Pichelli’s from the first few issues. His stuff is a bit stylized and abstract; longer shots of people tend to be simple and minimally-lined, while closer-up shots are detailed but in no way photorealistic. It actually reminds me of Keith Giffen when Giffen’s not aping Jack Kirby like he does in O.M.A.C. – think, if you can remember, Giffen’s pencils on the early Justice League International annuals: simple lines, but effective in showing the action, with just enough in the way of facial expression to communicate emotion while still not approaching photorealism. It’s not a style that’s going to work for everyone, and for those who think Ultimate Spider-Man and imagine the clean, sharp pencils of Mark Bagley, it’s going to be a bit jarring and perhaps offputting. But Samnee’s art tell story well, and it generally eschews the dumbass, poorly-communicated double-page layouts that plague Pichelli’s early issues on this book.

Regardless, the exciting thing about this issue is that things are actually happening. This book is following the same slow build that the original Ultimate Spider-Man did – Bendis took his time putting Peter Parker in costume, which was frustrating as all hell… but once he did, he put together a run of Spider-Man stories that were among the best ever, and certainly the best of the 2000s. While it’s too early to tell, the new series is moving back in the right direction. Ultimate Spider-Man is finally moving back into a area where it’s worth buying on a month-to-month basis again.

Check it out… and tune in next month when Kaare Andrews draws a cover where Spider-Man messily sprays webbing at Silver Sable, who is hiding under a glass coffee table. Relax; I’m just kidding. I hope.