The Daily Review: Ultimate Spider-Man #9 by Brian Michael Bendis

Reviews

Since the relaunch, Ultimate Spider-Man has been a lighthearted Spider-Man and his amazing friends book. There are moments of seriousness, but Bendis has kept the tone light and the humor coming fast. To this point in the series Aunt May has become caretaker for not only Peter’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, but also The Human Torch, Iceman and Kitty Pryde.

Summary: The Human Torch and the mysterious new Spider-Woman, really Peter’s female clone, stop a robbery by the mother-daughter duo that’s been running around for several issues. Torch follows and asks Spider-Woman on a date. Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde, Mary Jane and Gwen ambush Peter and give him a haircut, loved by Aunt May until the Torch bursts in claiming to have made out with Spider-Woman. Peter freaks out, fights some crime, and is in school the next day brooding when the anti-mutant people come to take Kitty away. She refuses to move, and Peter demands she run as the issue ends.

Thoughts: This is everything I want from a Spider-Man book. We have action at the start and the great silent action panels when Peter is upset about Torch making out with his clone. There’s a ton of good character interaction that moves quickly without brooding on any one scene. The humor is light and ever-present even in the serious scene at the end (Kitty says if they shoot at her, she’ll go intangible and it’ll hit the guy behind her- the look on the guy behind her’s face is awesome). I’ll never understand why we needed Brand New Day when we had this..

Rating: 8/10 – This is as good as teen Spider-Man gets without a seriously historic story, 9’s are reserved for “Issue of the Year” contenders, and while this was great, it falls short of truly memorable. 10’s? Those… we’ll see.

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter for updates at twitter.com/hbk826 and check back later today for The Reviewer’s Guide, as well as the Weekend Trade Review.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.