We’re back to the Ultimate Universe! For an issue that’s mostly an epilogue to our previous block, but which also directly sets up the first major story of this one, so I kept it til now. Another cover that got a lot of use in other things.
Our old pal Ultimate Sharon Carter. Certainly not to be confused with regulation Sharon Carter, with her red hair instead of blonde and that wicked scar. I don’t think they ever told us where she got that. She recaps the Doc Ock adventure over a splash of Spider-Man winning that fight. Sharon’s team was to bring Ock in quietly, and here he was doing his 2nd televised event. Fury was mad. Then she recaps her arrival on the scene, and Bagley redraws a single panel from USM 21 (The memorable “You lost your feed” panel), the rest are all from new camera angles, because he’s a consummate pro. Then we get what happened with Sharon after…
Inside, they found 3 nerds too scared to go outside. When told they’re under arrest, one of them said he was not leaving his experiment.
Hey, Ultimate Sandman! I wondered if he came back when we saw him back in this period, I did not remember. Really cool visuals on him, too, much cooler than the usual regular stuff. Sandy escaped, killing one of Sharon’s guys. Then we get a page of his profile from Hammer’s system, Sharon telling us he’s a career criminal loser who was doing 55 years in Rykers for a badly botched robbery, and no one knows how Hammer came to be in possession of him, but he turned him into a Sandman, and now he was on the loose. That’s where this get a little harder to swallow.
I mean, the fact that this happened during USM 21, but we didn’t see it is not impossible, but it’s somewhat implausible. It’s more than a little weird to me how B insisted on Peter constantly referencing Jewish culture, Jewish brands, speaking Yiddish, while insisting Peter was not Jewish. I dunno, maybe Marvel wasn’t willing to confirm a religion and/or ethnicity for Peter. Stan Lee was a shrewd businessman in making none of his characters espouse a particular religion or political side, so all readers could presume their heroes agree with them. But I mean, it’s 2003, Spider-Man can be Jewish (You can have your cake and eat it, too, make the mainline Peter a Christian and Ultimate Jewish). But if he’s NOT Jewish… he sure is into Jewish stuff, is all. At any rate, regardless of his ethnicity, Spidey is swatted away by a giant sand-hand and taken out of the fight for a bit. Sharon then shot Sandy in the head, and he spit out the bullet so hard it shot one of her guys. But then…
Very post-9/11 imagery. So, that stopped Sandman long enough for Spider-Man to ask Sharon if she was ok, but then a raging Mudman came at them. Spider-Man was cut off in the middle of a bad joke as he’s buried in sand, unable to breathe, the situation turning dire instantly.
Really wish this issue wasn’t 95% 2-page spreads, but I better get used to that. At one point, Bendis mentioned that he figured out that he could control ad placement and therefore not have the flow of his story broken up if he did this. Makes total sense. Makes my job harder, tho.
No respect!
Ultimate Six, you say? That’s a loaded number around these parts! I am once again relieved to be back in the pages of USM. For awhile there, I was enjoying both lines so much it was hard to make the switch, but after the nonstop crapfest of the previous block, I am thrilled to be here. Even… even if it means revisiting Ultimate Six…