I Can See For – Ah, Screw It: Ultimate Spider-Man #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. For example, Miles Morales is apparently Spider-Man now. And by the way, the spoilers start IMMEDIATELY.

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If you’re anything like me, the first thing you did after seeing the last page of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is hit Google and see if spiders can, in fact, camoflage into their backgrounds. I did this even though I am petrified of spiders. Petrified to the point that season three of Buffy The Vampire Slayer is my favorite; not because of the plot, characters or theme, but because it was the first season without that everfucking scuttling tarantula in the opening credits.

Turns out, as I suspected, that any Web site touting the camoflagability of spiders will, by nature, include large, full-color close-up photographs of spiders in order to prove that some spiders can, in fact, blend into their surroundings. Which proves two things:

1. Brian Michael Bendis has done his spider research for this new iteration of Spider-Man, and:
2. If you are an arachnophobe, Brian Michael Bendis is a Goddamned douchebag.

Bad Spread: An Open Plea to Brian Michael Bendis

I will be reviewing the new Ultimate Spider-Man #1 later on today, but before I do, I’d like to address something that has nothing to do with the quality of the story or art in the new Ultimate Spider-Man, but is instead a humble entreaty to writer Brian Michael Bendis:

For the unholy love of jabbering FUCK, would you PLEASE stop writing two-page paneled story spreads?

If you’ve read pretty much any Bendis book ever in the past ten years, you know what I’m talking about: other than widescreen splash pages, most comic stories unfold one page at a time. You look at the left-hand page, read to the right-hand edge of that page, then down. When you reach the bottom, you then jump to the top of the right hand page, repeat, then turn page. It’s the common language of reading comic books. Hell, it’s the common language of reading ANYTHING published in the ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD, from Dick and Jane to Jane and Dick: An Erotic Adventure.