Back in July 2005, at the San Diego Comic-Con, Joe Quesada said that, if the classic Marvel Universe ever crossed over with the Ultimate Marvel Universe, it would mean that Marvel was “officially out of ideas.” It is now June 2012, and by Joey Q’s own metrics, Marvel is officially out of ideas. Say hello to Spider-Men #1.

This is the first time that the 616 has mixed with the Ultimate Universe (Think a Resse’s, your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter deal except ram-fed full of anticipated marketing dollars), but it’s not the first time that the Ultimate Universe has crossed over, even at the hands of Spider-Men writer Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis was one of the writers of Ultimate Power, which crossed the Ultimate world with Marvel’s other alternate world of Squadron Supreme, back in late 2006, or about four months after Quesada announced that such a crossover would equal an utter dearth of ideas. That crossover event led to Nick Fury leading Squadron Supreme, that book eventually quietly disappearing, the Ultimate Universe being almost destroyed by Magneto, the reboot of the Ultimate Universe (But, but Marvel doesn’t reboot! And their crossovers are always well-conceived and executed!), and, ultimately (get it?), the death of the original Ultimate Spider-Man.

My point is, when it comes to Ultimate universe crossovers, Spider-Men is facing a bar that is comfortably low. So the big question is: does Spider-Men make it over that bar? Well, considering this is the first issue of a Bendis miniseries, the answer must be: how the fuck should I know? Almost nothing happens in this comic. This issue is all set-up.