As a fan, you think, “Bagley’s back!” but as a human being with compassion, you think, “All that poor man wants to do is not draw Spider-Man for awhile…” A funny thing is happening here. A very funny thing. Ya see, at this point, Bags has gone so far to avoid drawing Spider-Man that he is working exclusively for DC, and has been since the previous year. Exclusive means exclusive. But here he is. At the time, Bendis told everyone that Bags’ contributions to two issues of Spider-Man were stuff they worked on “a while ago” that “didn’t see the light of day.” That just happens to fit the narrative of his post-Ultimatum book 2 years after Bags left Marvel. I don’t think anyone bought that. It’s more like they were closing down this momentous title Bags co-created, and the workhorse cranked out this material under cover of darkness between pages of Trinity so they could say he did it before his exclusive contract and he could be a part of it. I think that’s funny. Well, anyway, the 3 remaining Ultimate titles got a “Requiem” thing in the wake of Ultimatum. Strangely, FF is 2 issues, Spider-Man is 2 issues, X-Men is just one. Presumably because so very many of them are dead? They need less space. But we only care about this one. Bagley is inked by Scott Hanna. Immonen is inked by Wade Von Grawbadger. The book is colored by Pete Pantazis ,Justin Ponsor and Edgar Delgado. Which I find mildly interesting, because I believe that’s Bendis 2 favorite colorists to work with in this era, and also someone else. Bit awkward.
It is always funny to me that the Daily Bugle staff is just these 3 guys. Here, in the “grounded, realistic” Ultimate U, written by a guy who worked for a newspaper, even. 3 guys. It’s like the 60s Spider-Man cartoon where the Bugle is just Peter, JJJ and Betty.
Immonen still crushing it. As the fellows enter the Bugle, they find the generator still running. JJJ looks out the window from that famous 2-page splash and flashes back to it, then sees a “Spider-Man MENACE” headline on the wall and is sad.
Jonah brings up a valid point. When the Ultimate U relaunches after this… how does New York just go back to normal? In the mainline continuity, we’re long past the point when the average New Yorker quite literally lives through an alien, demon, vampire, or other kind of invasion 2-4 times a year, it is absolutely ludicrous and silly. But this is the more “grounded” world, and there’s no way a large majority of New York City didn’t just die. You don’t come back from that in a couple weeks, or whatever. I don’t recall what the tone is like after this. Well, anyway, Ben has given us our marching orders. We’re doing flashbacks. The first one doesn’t initially make sense, and is a bit of a cheat. It begins with Mary Jane Watson, fledgling photojournalist, who has managed, through extreme tenacity, to score an interview with Tony Stark. She is asking Tony Stark why he’s public with his identity when most heroes are not. He says to show terrorists and people who want to rule by fear that he’s not afraid. She points out that he makes weapons, and asks why we need them.
Tony’s definition of “good guys” would be hopelessly naive if spelled out, so I’m glad we didn’t quite go there. A whole army of armored HYDRA goons busts through the window, tasing Tony, led by Viper. Ultimate Viper, here, now, of all times. We quickly learn he refused to give them weapons so she’s here to take them.
So that’s how it gets to be Ben’s story. Back at the hostage situation, Tony is refusing to do as Viper says, but says to let the girl go, and they can talk. Viper is not into that. However, this is a Spider-Man comic, so…
So here’s the thing. Back when we were looking at The Pulse (Were we ever so young?), I lavished praise on Bagley for the fact that his Ultimate Spider-Man and his Original Recipe Spider-Man were visibly different. Well… not anymore. He’s been away for almost exactly 2 years, and it’s not quite the same, is it? And that is the Original Recipe Spider-Man. It’s a bit disappointing, but perhaps not too surprising. Anyway, there’s more verbal sparring between Tony and Viper for 2 more pages, but it’s interrupted by the increasingly loud sounds of a scuffle outside the room.
Another thing about the whole “Bags did this awhile ago, WINK” thing is, these pages look very rushed. Bagley is a machine, a crazy person, but even he only has so many hours in the day, and DC was putting him to work. His first gig over there was a weekly series that went on for a year! It was wrapping up as he worked on this. Or, you know, as they “found this in a drawer” or whatever. So it’s understandable that this is kinda rough. Iron Man bursts in, and it is absolutely not Ultimate Iron Man. It’s regular ol’ Iron Man. He yells at Spider-Man to hit the ceiling, then zaps the entire enemy mob with a single, room-wide zap.
The only thing that lends credence to the notion that the Bags portions of this were done in the past is how this doesn’t seem like the story you’d do as a sort of eulogy for Spider-Man. But we got a whole ‘nother issue of this, so…