As we have tangentially seen, there is a thing called Marvel Knights. I imagine I talked about it when we looked at DD, Vol. 2 #8. Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti were given a bunch of lesser characters and a budget to hire people to revamp them, and a lot of those books were hits. Daredevil, Black Panther, Inhumans, etc. Once the line was a success, the many “street level” heroes were banded together into a sort of “non-team” called the Marvel Knights. DD, Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, Punisher, Dr. Strange, I forget who all. Now it seems we’re getting the Ultimate version. I vaguely remember this, but my memories of this and the previously seen Warriors arc kind of blend together. Same creatives as last month. To open, Damage Control, aka the Ultimate Wrecking Crew, are working on Aunt May’s house, courtesy of Nick Fury, and giving Peter trouble for trying to go in and get his stuff. When he finally goes in, Thunderball tries to hit on the waiting MJ til he finds out she’s 15.
Why do you do this, B? I just don’t get it. Why not just make him Jewish!? Was that a bridge too far in the 2000s? Comics still too racist/gutless to let Spider-Man be Jewish? No one would bat an eyelash now. But either make him Jewish or stop making him talk like he’s Jewish, you know?
I like May coming around to this slowly. I like how Bendis has done this so differently from JMS. The TV is saying Spider-Man has unseated Captain America at the top of a poll of New Yorkers’ favorite heroes (Over footage of him fighting the Hulk in UMTU 2 & 3, for some reason. Maybe Bags wanted to draw the Hulk). Kingpin is watching this broadcast. He’s being told by his lackeys that, through a series of mergers and acquisitions, he owns the rights to Spider-Man. That they bought the company that owns the wrestling promotion that Spider-Man debuted in, and therefore, they own him. With his newfound popularity, they thought Fisk would want to know. He instructs them to take every license they can and run Spider-Man into the ground.
Peter’s off to the Bugle to see if he still has a job. And he doesn’t, because it’s been so long since he went to work. But when he explains where he’s been, he is unfired. I mean… c’mon. Shouldn’t these investigative journalists have noticed one of their coworkers was in the middle of this big event? It was on the news.
Better hope Ben doesn’t dig too deep! Meanwhile, a guy in a powersuit who lokos more like Shocker than Ultimate Shocker wants to try out for Kingpin’s new assassin, but is quickly sussed out as an undercover and attacked by a small army of goons, then unmasked.
“The media calls me ‘Daredevil.’” Is it because of the DD on your chest? Kind of a silly line. Own it, Matthew! Back at the Baxter Building, MJ has been given a clean bill of health, but Peter insists she mention her nightmares and hallucination. They tell her it’s PTSD. The Thing volunteers that he suffers from it, too. They tell her she should see a therapist, but she can’t due to the whole superhero of it all, or at least feels she can’t.
Uh-oh! That sure sounds like something Spider-Man wouldn’t condone! And something the regular DD wouldn’t do. Making this DD a lot more willing to bend the rules and using his double life to his advantage is interesting. In the school, high school senior Jessica Jones (haha) is trying to sell Peter’s class on a project as he and MJ exchange notes about what just happened. Then MJ wants to know if he’s called Kitty yet, and he has not. Come on, dude. And THEN the principle comes in to tell them they have a new student. Someone well known who is willing to talk to the class about any questions her presence may surface.
That last line is so funny. Like it totally works as something a school admin would say here, but it’s also very funny. Very clever. Well! Things are sort of normal now. Time to get back to somewhat less gut wrenchingly personal superheroics as Bagley’s final arc swings into motion.