{"id":23999,"date":"2024-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=23999"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:41:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:41:05","slug":"usm-014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/12\/07\/usm-014\/","title":{"rendered":"USM 014"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re back to the Ultimate Universe. Original recipe Marvel is in mid-2002 where we left it, and this brings us back to late 2001 in the Ultimate corner of publishing. And we\u2019ve left one Doc Ock for another. We saw him back in the first arc, we left him injured when Norman blew up his lab in USM 4<\/a>, and now it\u2019s time for him to shine. Staff on USM remains Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Art Thibert and Transparency Digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, we cut to some guys checking a seemingly comatose patient in a medical facility while also giving us their random thoughts on the movie industry because that\u2019s Bendis for you when their patient wants to know something:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gross! Grosser than it\u2019s ever been in the regular comics. But it always sort of seemed like he should have stayed fused to the arms. The business, like we just saw in ASM 43<\/a>, with him controlling them from a distance, even miles away sometimes, feels like a cheat. Back at the school, a pep rally is in progress, and Peter, MJ, Liz, Flash & Kong are discussing how it doesn\u2019t make anyone feel peppy. Talk turns to the assignment from earlier, and Liz reveals she may have a prejudice against mutants. Kong thinks the assignment sucks. The discussion about mutants gets heavier, and Kong asks if it\u2019s like the end of Ghostbusters, with the mutants and superheroes all popping up out of nowhere meaning something big is coming. MJ makes fun of that, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now that\u2019s an entrance! Yes, folks, we got an Ultimate Gwen Stacy, and she couldn\u2019t be much more different from the boring ol\u2019 whitebread original version. But the funny thing about introducing a Gwen Stacy is\u2026 and I certainly remember this being a topic of discussion at the time\u2026 is the clock ticking? What are Gwen Stacy most famous for? How different is Ultimate going to be? Her just showing up makes you think about all sorts of things. Playing with readers\u2019 expectations quickly becomes a hobby in the Ultimate office. We cut away to the unnamed facility Octavius is in, where he\u2019s been sedated so a Doctor Pym can come talk to him. He\u2019s been in a coma for 3 months. Pym wants to know if he remembers what happened, but it\u2019s cloudy. He explains that Ock has had some damage to his eyes, and he can\u2019t handle bright lights anymore. Octavius isn\u2019t handling it too well, and as he begins to notice he has some weird appendages, he demands to know what they\u2019ve done to him. But we cut back to the pep rally, where, as cheerleaders hype up the crowd, our newly minted young couple share a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cute! Back to the \u201cB\u201d plot, with Pym explaining to Otto that his arms have fused so completely with his body that it\u2019s \u201cas if the two have become one\u201d and that he\u2019s able to control them. Ock demands that they take the bandages off his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cDr. Reed\u2013\u201d doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s a really good angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I think this sequence partially inspired the VERY Sam Raimi stuff with Ock\u2019s arms in the hospital in Spider-Man 2. Well. Doctor Pym can\u2019t die because he\u2019s going to be a member of the Ultimates, like, real soon, but who knows what else could happen. Back in Queens, we find Kong laying in bed. He thinks about his superhero assignment. Then he thinks about Peter Parker comparing him to the Nazis. And then he starts thinking about Peter. About him breaking desks. About him getting bit by that spider. About a \u201cSpider-Man\u201d showing up immediately after. About Peter suddenly becoming a star athlete right before Spider-Man showed up at their school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whoa, indeed! Does Kong have it? It\u2019s the Ultimate Universe, anything can happen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back to the Ultimate Universe. Original recipe Marvel is in mid-2002 where we left it, and this brings us back to late 2001 in the Ultimate corner of publishing. And we\u2019ve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[498,1922,25,12,16,1925,172,339,21,2,1956,1923],"class_list":["post-23999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-art-thibert","tag-brian-michael-bendis","tag-doctor-octopus","tag-flash-thompson","tag-gwen-stacy","tag-kong","tag-liz-allen","tag-mark-bagley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-spider-man","tag-transparency-digital","tag-ultimate-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24000,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23999\/revisions\/24000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}