An almost Mike Mignola feel to “Hobgoblin’s“ face there. It’s hard to think of mutated Harry as Hobgoblin. You know, he only appeared the once so far, and he wasn’t exactly supervillaining it up. Suddenly, Peter Parker is waking up in his disheveled living room. He remembers that Norman powered up and sucker punched him after seeing the TV last issue. He also somehow remembers the Goblin fleeing the house and the SHIELD van following, but shouldn’t he had been unconscious by then? At any rate, Spider-Man is on the case.
The assembled SHIELD folks start blastin’, and someone zaps Norman in the face, making him drop out of the sky for a sec. Carol is imploring someone to get Harry below decks when Norman recovers. He says he wants to have a word with his son. As the SHIELD agents light him up again, Harry monsters up, himself.
Bagley’s Hobgoblin looked real weird. I think on purpose, I think he wanted it to look sympathetic. Immonen has upgraded him for fightin’.
Harry jumps back in for some monster fightin’, and then Carol has the SHIELD guys open fire, blasting Noeman into some jets, where they explode on him. Also Spider-Man yells “Manishevitz” because this is a Bendis comic. Spidey checks in on Harry, who’s not doing too well, but then the Goblin comes stalking out of the fire, all cool and bad guy-ish.
Spider-Man is blown clear off the deck of the helicarrier. Harry leaps onto his dad for more monster fightin’. Norman is in a full on rage and begins pummeling his son. But then he hears a “crunch” and looks up.
Grim. Also a bit lame that Spider-Man wasn’t even there for the climax but if he was, it couldn’t have ended that way, so I get it. Can either of these guys stay dead? I mean, it’s Ultimate comics, it’s more likely than in other places, but come on.
And thus, Stuart Immonen’s first story comes to a close. With some very powerful work on the girls there. Bags could be confident this book was in good hands. But that doesn’t mean other Ultimate titles will be so lucky…