USM 50! Ultimate Black Cat! They got Bags out here producing 19 issues of USM a year, and then they say, “What if one of them was an oversized anniversary issue?”, and the man delivers. How does he do it? One way he’ll be doing it this month is working with colorist JD Smith, the first name of a single person to appear in the colorist box on this title in quite a long time. Big USM 50 gets rolling with two 2-page spreads showing the mysterious Black Cat approaching and casing a place, seemingly very interested in a computer she can see through the window, and waiting for the people inside to leave. She deploys a grappling gun and slides down the line to the building.
People say “tsk” a lot in these comics. Like the literal only application of this word I’ve ever heard is the phrase “tsk tsk,” but Bendis uses it like a sucking teeth sound. Meanwhile, much of this conversation, but especially “Up where?” “The roof.” “The roof?” is the kind of thing people latch onto and make fun of when deriding Bendis’ writing style, but it’s not really codified yet.
That guard finds the door shut behind him and calls the other one to come let him in. Now inside the building, Black Cat appears to make a cleaning lady have a bucket spill all over her with the same bad luck power that blew away that guy’s hat, and slips by her to disable some security cameras.
Well, that sure looks familiar. Kind of an odd wink considering it’s not at all Goblin-related. But ya know what’s in there?
A tablet! Spider-Men don’t wanna see a tablet. So we just did Sam Bullit, circa ASM 91-92, and now we’re back to ASM 68 in terms of source material. Just then, the guards come in. BC leaps up onto a wall, using her claws to hang on, and then one of the guards trips, his gun goes off, the ricochet hits a sprinkler, and it goes off as Black Cat makes her escape.
Hey, look, it’s our guy. Black Cat wordlessly flips over the side of the building, and Spider-Man gives chase. She’s visibly having fun as he races behind her, stopping to wave and everything, and then his webshooters malfunction. He finally catches up to her, rambling about almost dying in his usual style, and she keeps on going, so he leaps in front of her and gets a kick in the chest for his troubles.
Funk! Let’s funk it up! But, look, Ultimate Black Cat’s first words are the most predictable thing she could say.
And with that, she’s gone, on a page of Spider-Man watching the empty space behind her. Then there’s a voice over caption that says “What are you thinking?”
It feels like it’s been a bit since we got a nice little Peter & MJ scene, but that’s probably UXM and Ultimate Six being the last things I read in this Universe. Peter gets tired of talking Spider-Man and asks MJ how things are going with her dad. Peter asking about MJ’s life? That’s growth! Not a happy topic, tho. MJ says her mom caught her dad cheating, and they hate him, and she wishes he would just leave. Peter says he would never do that to her. She asks if he thinks they’ll get married someday, and he says yes, he thinks they will. They share a nice kiss, and then, inevitably…
Ultimate May still rules. And MJ’s dad looks a lot like the other MJ’s dad. Peter is left to brood about things. He realizes MJ must not have said anything about him being Spider-Man in her diary, or her dad would’ve been talking about that. He thinks about how much he hates lying to May, and how MJ is clearly more traumatized by the bridge thing than he knew, and she has no one to talk to. But then he sees the muted TV news doing something about Spider-Man and turns up the volume.
And there it goes. Not exactly the earthshaking moment that ASM 50 was, but at least it was a good issue of USM! I didn’t really remember much of what happened in this issue, but I did remember one thing:
The first-ever USM letter page has a message from me in it. And a bunch of other dorks from the message board, including my old pal Mike, who I met on a music forum and brought over to Bendis’. The letter pages in Bendis’ Image comic with Mike Oeming, Powers, were already (in)famous for being several pages long and wild rides, B getting really crazy letters and responding even crazier sometimes. This is quite a bit more tame. The wildest thing, in retrospect, is he kinda spoils a future thing pretty huge here, and none of us knew it at the time…