A surprisingly specific cover for the period. Cover date for this one is September 2002. UMTU is way behind. But UMTU 11 couldn’t happen til after Gwen Stacy was introduced, and none of the ones after it could happen til after Peter was ungrounded, and now he’s doing this. You would expect tighter continuity between 2 books written by the same person, but then, history has shown that’s not always the case. Not everyone is 80s Gerry Conway. Page 1 this month replays the final page of last month, but curiously not with the same art. Then we get to see who or what Peter saw, and it’s…
Nick Fury! Now rendered to match his appearance in The Ultimates, but Bags has more class than to just trace pictures of Samuel L. Jackson (Without his permission or knowledge, no less!).
Fury proceeds to explain that Oz originated as Norman’s bid for a new Super Soldier Serum. That Norman’s project was sloppy and clearly didn’t work, and that Fury personally severed ties with Oscorp. So, having bet his company on a now canceled project, then Osborn pivoted to telling the press he had accidentally stumbled on something that would change the world without explaining what it is (And, if that sounds far fetched, you must not have been there at the turn of the century, when this exact thing happened and the miracle product that would change our lives forever turned out to be… the Segway). But Fury says he was 7 years away from real results, and then Peter’s accident happened, and now Norman’s driven himself insane and turned himself into a monster, and he blames Fury for everything. Fury explains that he is not legally allowed to go after Norman despite knowing all this, and casually lets Peter know Norman did all this to himself trying to recreate what happened to him, triggering Ye Olde Parker Guilt, and finally gets around to telling Peter he is on his own.
Some might question that panel of Peter looking out the window, but I love it. Just a brief reminder for him of what normal life is supposed to be like.
If they ever told us the origin of Fury’s eye injury in the Ultimate universe, I don’t remember it. I’m not sure I remember it in the regular one. But that’s a great bit. So, Peter is released back into the wild, and seeing Harry & MJ in the hall at school, he just runs away, because he is understandably freaking out. And when he gets home, Osborn’s assistant is back with the limo, to take both Peter & May to dinner with Osborn. Peter pulls May aside and explains as best he can that he doesn’t want to do this, that he worries Osborn is a bad person. May says Uncle Ben used to say “Never met a man with money who hadn’t stepped on someone to get it,” and she is now in lockstep with her nephew. She tells Ms. Brooke they can’t make it. She says Osborn was looking forward to meeting her, but they both say another time. When the limo is gone, May asks Peter what they’re going to do tonight, and in what has to be a reference to the 1989 Batman, Peter says, “I gotta go to work.” So, that night, Spider-Man is swinging through the city, thinking to himself that this is it. That May was being loaded into Osborn’s limo and where was Nick Fury? He says he’ll go to the cops, the FBI, take off his mask and tell the world what’s going on no matter the consequences before he’ll let May be hurt. And then he sees…
Well, obviously, everyone in the audience is now immediately thinking about ASM 121, and about how the Ultimate U is different and anything can happen, and that 30 day wait for the next issue, that is really, really hard. Man, it was fun reading comics back then.