Crazy to me that I don’t remember who this is. I have a vague notion. Aging is such an experience. This month, we get rolling with this:
The manager guy runs away immediately and the goon guy continues to insist that MJ get in the car until the person place or thing on the cover drops onto the roof of the car and begins a thrilling 2-page action sequence that leads to the hooded individual getting shot point blank in the face. However…
Ok, yeah, I thought I kinda knew who it was, and I do now. Not as forgetful as I thought! Anyway, at the Parker home, Johnny and Peter are kinda recapping at each other why he is there and that he lives there now. Johnny announces his intention to dye his hair, adopt a fake name, and start attending Peter’s high school, and Peter is very skeptical of this obviously bad plan.
What a fun idea! What a different thing to do. The marketing slogan for the Ultimate Comics line was “There are no rules.” Having sort of moved beyond its purpose of making Marvel Comics both hip and continuity-free again, with the mainstream books regaining their popularity and the Ultimate line developing a lot of continuity, the focus shifted to doing stuff you couldn’t do in a mainline title. For things like Ultimate X, the book that paired perpetually late Jeph Loeb with perpetually late Art Adams and released 5 issues in a year and a half, or for Ultimate Comics Avengers, which saw the return of perpetually late Mark Millar to the Ultimate U, joined by Carlos Pacheco and releasing only 6 issues in a more reasonable 8 months, that meant doing crazy, insane things. For this book, it meant creating situations Original Recipe Peter Parker never experienced. As usual, this book was way better than the others. Anyway, our next scene is MJ approaching Peter at school to tell him about her encounter last night. She can’t tell if it was a girl trying to sound like a guy or vice versa, and didn’t get a good look at their powers, but feels sure they go to her school. Then she kind of has a little breakdown about almost getting kidnapped and blurts out that she never should have broken up with him. With Gwen in earshot and everything.
The way Bendis is using Flash in this era is pretty funny. He just pops up, acts like a jerk, and disappears. Cuz, I mean, what else is he good for? This book has enough characters already without trying to redeem him, and we’re firmly in “don’t do it like the original” times, anyway. Jessica Jones says the Hulk is trashing downtown and they have to go cover it and they’re going to win an award. Peter decides he needs to go, too, but not with them. Soon, Spider-Man is in the air, and eventually, he reaches probably the most over the top render of the Hulk I’ve ever seen:
Spidey begins to smell a rat, and the Hulk is quickly revealed to not be real, another illusion. But the damage from his attack is real, and Spider-Man finds himself surrounding by exploding cars, which is a bad place to be.
Blowed up! How’s our guy gonna get out of this one?