Top 5 Marvel Marriages

Marriage is awesome. Even in the Marvel universe, however tragically unhip Quesada will claim it makes a person. To prove this fact, and to celebrate RD's and my impending nuptials this Saturday, I give you:

5. Jessica Jones & Luke Cage: What do Marvel's premiere interracial couple have to say about black men and white women? I have no idea, and honestly, I don't really care. What matters to me is everything they say about men and women, full stop. Bendis writes them as a beautifully normal couple in a crazy world. Their conversations about diaper changes, grocery runs, and raised toilet seats help make the the New Avengers matter. We know these people, and what they're fighting for.

Top mush moment: Jessica's speech at their wedding, from New Avengers Annual #1 (Bendis).

"This world is a scary place. You being an Avenger--it's so... scary. Every day there's some idiot in our face trying to ruin it. And ever since we got together, I just haven't cared. And no goon attacked us at our wedding, so I'm going to take that as a good sign. And even if the worst happens... It's a weird feeling--But I know we can deal with it. Look at that kid over there. Look at her. We made her. And I love watching you be a father. So much so that I'd wear this big poofed-out dress. I just wanted to let you know in my words. This is why I said yes to all this crazy. That's why."

Sorry. Bendis likes to make with the yak-yak. But all that stuff, that's how I feel about RD. I mean, not the stuff about her being an Avenger (that'd rock) or making babies (just yet) or goons attacking (I hope they don't, but we'll deal). But the world-is-crazy-but-who-cares-cause-she's-there? Absolutely.

4. Reed (Mr. Fantastic) Richards & Sue (Invisible Woman) Storm: Do these guys need an explanation?

Top mush moment: Ultimate Fantastic Four #7 (Warren Ellis). In the Ultimate universe, Reed and Sue are in their early twenties, and they've only just acquired their powers. Sue's a genius biologist to match Reed's head for physics. She drags him out of his lab, insisting he let her run some tests on his new physiology...

Reed: "Can we make out afterwards? Only I think I'm getting good at it."
Sue (kissing him): "You started out good at it. You're getting fantastic."

Yes, I realize they're not actually married in the Ultimate universe. But the fact is--and I realize how lame I'm about to sound, but hey, what's the internet for, if not for embarrassing personal admissions (and porn)--the first time I got to make out with RD, I showed her this scene afterwards. Because it was the first time I'd made out with anyone, and RD, kind and compassionate soul that she is, had said something to me not unlike Sue's line above, so I just had to share.

I'm that colossal a dork, and she's marrying me anyway.

3. Bobbi (Mockingbird) Morse & Clint (Ronin nee Hawkeye) Barton: Eight months ago, I barely knew who Mockingbird was. Now, she and Ronin are #3 on this list. See previous posts re: New Avengers: Reunion (Jim McCann) for why.

Top mush: New Avengers: Reunion #4. Once married, now technically divorced, Clint & Bobbi decide to try dating for the first time.

2. Peter (Spider-Man) Parker & Mary Jane Watson: Still married in my mind--not to mention Stan Lee's hi-larious newspaper strip.

Top mush: Honorable mention to Peter & MJ's wedding in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (Jim Shooter & David Michelinie), but I'm actually going to go with Amazing Spider-Man #491 (J. Michael Straczynski). Pete and Mary Jane have been separated for a time (don't ask), Peter just helped Captain America take down Doctor Doom in the middle of a crowded airport (like ya do), and now he's finally got a chance to tell her...

"I can do 'all these things' because you believe in me. Because you give me the strength and will to get them done. Everything's easier when you're there and harder when you're not. Without you, nothing works the way it should. But when you're there, in my life, I feel like I can do anything, MJ. Anything."

I'm mozzarella, I know, but again--approaching the big day that I am, this is how I feel. It's amazing (no pun intended) how one person can turn every problem and struggle on its head, with nothing but their presence.

And the #1 marriage in Marvel comics...

1. Scott (Cyclops) Summers and Jean (Insert Codename Here) Grey!*

It's trendy among some X-writers these days to say that "all Jean ever did was die on Scott," and I think that spectacularly misses the point of this couple. The reason Jean & Scott are the greatest pair in comics, the reason their love story is one of my favorites in all of fiction, is precisely because of all the dying, and replacement by dopplegangers, and alternate-possible-future children showing up, and everything else they've endured. Luke & Jessica, Peter & MJ... they talk about getting through the crazy together, and they live in the Marvel universe too, so they're certainly not exaggerating. But Scott & Jean have been through more than all the other couples on this list combined. Their honeymoon was 12 years long, wandering across an Apocalyptic future Earth, while they raised Scott's son Nathan (The Man Who Would Be Cable) and started a revolution. The mess that is the post-Morrison X-verse is just one more temporary setback. Love like this is unstoppable.

Top mush moment: from Uncanny X-Men #296 (Scott Lobdell), the panel below. Flying and kicking ass together towards the end of the "X-Cutioner's Song" 1993 mega-crossover.



"As opposed to Cyclops, Jean Grey has always embraced her mutant abilities. Blessed with the natural talents of telepathy and telekinetics, she felt she couldn't be any happier with her mutant gifts. That was before Scott Summers. Before she'd sacrificed her life on his behalf--only to learn there are greater powers than death in the universe... and the greatest of these is love."


*****


So clearly, committed partnerships rule. I couldn't be happier to be getting a ring if it was green and turned willpower into solid light holograms.**


- JC

*Surprised readers raise their hands. Anyone? No?

**Was that a bit much, honey? [This is why we're not having a ceremony. He would have wanted to write his own vows, and I don't think he could have gotten this post down to 2 minutes. - RD]

details, details

Another reason I don't read a lot of comics is that I don't have the required capacity for minutiae. Now I'm no dummy; I love me some crossword puzzles, and I'd go head-to-head with any other Jeopardy! viewer at 7:30 weekdays (oh, Trebek), but the sheer amount of detail needed to comprehend the vast universes and the characters living therein frankly blows my mind.

Take a look at the X-Men. You've got Uncanny X-Men, Ultimate X-Men, X-Men First Class, Uncanny X-Men First Class, Unspammy X-Spam First Spam, and so on and so forth. Most of those books are in slightly different universes. If you want to read any of the others, you have to separate out which is canon in which book, and then there are the other X-teams and the Canadian teams and the Wolverine teams (that guy is the town bicycle, am I right?) and books with writers who don't write the book anymore but they begged to finish their own damn storylines and they've been going for like 40 years and they've only aged about 10 and GOOD GOD EMMA FROST PUT SOME CLOTHES ON. NO ONE NEEDS TO SEE THAT. EVER.

Just now, I was telling JC how much I like the way he looks in his purple shirt. We're getting married in 3 days, I can do sappy shit like that. He says,

"I don't have a purple shirt."

"Wait, what?" says I.

"I've never had a purple shirt," he says confidently.

Dear readers, I bought JC a purple shirt and two new pairs of pants no more than a month ago, and he wore the purple shirt twice. He agreed that he looks very fine in it. Now he's forgotten it ever existed. (Edit: He found the shirt on the shelf with the tags still on it. We were both wrong.)

AND YET. Mention just a few words to this same man - "House of M" or "Chris Claremont" or, god forbid, "Spider-Man reboot" - and he'll expound for hours, discussing not only the main storyline but all adjoining storylines and interviews with the writers and artists and editors and why he doesn't care for Joe Quesada. (Neither do I, for the record, but only because I blame him for every sucky script I read.) I think that without the capacity to hold these details in his head, he'd simply be flipping the pages for the pretty pictures, so I appreciate the enormous brain power that goes into his comic habit.

It's not easy to be the partner of a comic fan. Every night at the dinner table is an adventure in the vast network of connections between comics, books, TV, and movies that is JC's beautiful mind. I can usually remember my to-do list from one day to the next, but his fully coherent stream of consciousness astounds me. When he starts talking, all I can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. It might not be so frustrating if the babble didn't contain its own inertia, if I could easily redirect him by asking about his day at work or telling a funny story of my own; more often than not, he'll listen more-or-less patiently while I talk, and then pick up where he left off, always adding, "Just one more thing, just let me say this one thing." And then, because I love him, I sigh and let him keep talking. I've learned more about the Marvel Universe in the past two years than I ever thought it was possible for a non-comic-reader to know. And I've loved every minute of it.

He'd better wear that purple shirt tomorrow.

- RD

hey look at that! a post on the very day a comic came out!

SARA PICHELLI WHAT THE HELL.

Oh hi. I just read Runaways #12, titled "Homeschooling: Part Two - Functions and Relations." It made me sort of angry.

I'm not sure why Kathryn Immonen decided to vague things up at the beginning. Who is making this speech? I thought Karolina, JC thought Nico. Either way, it's a great emo introduction to the issue, but there's nothing to really tie it in. Is this meant to express the group's feelings about losing their home (again) and their friend (also again)? Or just explain why Karolina is so ridiculously thin (anorexia caused by test anxiety)?

The conversation between the teens is less hip but more stilted even than in the last issue. Maybe it's because I'm a Bendis girl (and JC writes the same way, with as many words per panel as humanly possible), but when a four-panel page includes two largely identical shots and one close-up with only 10-20 words per panel? Too slow. By the time Karolina responds to Victor, I've forgotten what he said or why she's making a snide (vaguely racist against Cyborg Americans) comment.

However, Molly busting out the BSG reference? Never not hilarious.

More troubling is the way the teens are acting towards each other. Though they've argued before, I can't recall an entire issue in which NOTHING HAPPENED. A few arcs ago, they were affected by Nico's Scatter spell, after which they realized that their strength as a team was in sticking together. Now, Klara has been randomly plot-bunnied into a completely unexpected mental breakdown (...seriously?) and the rest of them are fussing about what to do.

Look, Immonen. The point of the Runaways is that they've gotten past the normal teenage shit. Well, not the prom and the crushes and the not infrequent stupid decisions, but the indecisive irresponsibility. These kids have taken the weight on their shoulders because of their evil parents. They grew the fuck UP. I get that you want them to be carefree teens thrust into a world of pain and danger and high stakes, but they've been there and done that. They know that above all, they have to DEAL WITH IT.

[I think the opening monologue is more of the same, here. The blank page is Nico's metaphor for how she feels when she's trying to come up with a spell to fix whatever the team's gotten itself into now. It's the pressure she's under as both a leader and a literal miracle-worker, every time she has to step up to the plate. But while that's an interesting pressure to explore, like RD says, but the execution is just not Runaways. They are NOT freaking Hamlet. They act first and angst later. Runaways are dynamic by definition. - JC]

For that matter, why the hell has Nico suddenly decided to not be the leader? In the past, Karolina has been the nurturing earth mother flower child while Nico puts on her stompy boots and makes a plan. Apparently Nico forgot to wear her big girl panties (did she lose them along with the rest of her outfit and her fashion sense?) and is just cuddling Klara while the others bicker and stall until Chase's uncle shows up. I'm pretty stoked about that - JC says Chase mentioned that he murdered a carjacker during Vaughn's run - and the military guys are usually fun, so I'm not done reading yet.

And back to my first point, SARA PICHELLI WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON WITH THOSE SLUTTY FAIRIES. Are we supposed to assume that Nico generated them on purpose? Somewhere in her subconcious she thinks that fairies are wee, buxom, naked lasses? Aside from what that says about Nico's character, did YOU really think that the exaggerated proportions and maximum skin showing was absolutely necessary in this comic? I AM SO TIRED OF THAT.

And... I sort of hate to bring it up, because I'm not an artist so it's not like I could do it better, but I get the feeling that Chase's facial expression on the last page was meant to be very important. However, and this is a big however, I can't tell what the f#$% it's supposed to be. At first I thought it was a sneer, then I thought it was disgust, then I thought maybe Chase smelled something nasty or he had to pee really badly. Maybe next time just go for "stone faced" if you can't pick out a clear expression.

Enough from me. I'm going to go take the cat for a walk.

- RD

Runaways #11

If Runaways #11 were a beer commercial, the slogan would be, "Tastes hip! Less filling!"

Brian K. Vaughan's original Runaways stories were a soap-operatic teenage roller coaster. After Joss Whedon sent Nico, Karolina, Victor, Chase, Molly, Xavin, and Old Lace on a time travelling vacation, Terry Moore attempted to give the teens a little grounding, setting them up in a malibu mansion abandoned by Chase's parents. From there they fought aliens and zombies, and started to rediscover their super-heroic ambitions.

New writer Kathryn Immonen and new artist Sara Pichelli, in their first issue, blow the Runaways' cozy home life to smithereens again. Literally. It's a crystal-clear statement of their intentions: to make Marvel's premier youth-rebellion book feel edgy again. But as the same clarity isn't always evident in the execution, the results are decidedly mixed.

Immonen works a little too hard to remind us that the Runaways are adolescents, flighty and hormonal. At the risk of sounding like an old man at 28, the fast-paced, jargon heavy dialogue, with internet-speak every other word, wants to be more charming than it is. And some important bits of characterization get muddled in the sound bytes.

For example, a few issues back, Xavin left the Runaways to take Karolina's place on trial on the alien world of her birth. Now Karolina is angsting (and flirting with Chase). Will she ever see her lover again? Does she have to start over as a single girl? So Nico sits her down and tells her: "I don't think it's the last thing Xavin will ever do, but it is the last thing she did for you. So just honor it... and yourself. Okay?"

Is Nico telling her friend:

a) "Don't worry about it, buddy, Xavin'll be back in no time!"

b) "Go on with your life, Xavin would want you to be happy! But don't settle for a dirty boy like Chase."
c) "You're gay, remember? And I'm curious. Let's make the 1950s weep!"

Each of these could be variously interpreted to fit with Nico's character [whether her character this week is "inspiring optimist" or "slutbomb" - RD], but it's not really clear what she actually means to say.

I was glad to see Klara finally getting some character time, but disappointed that she felt so inconsistent with the Klara of the past 10 issues. Terry Moore never seemed to know what to do with Klara, so he treated her like Molly's sidekick and exposition-companion. It was cute, but it ignored what really makes the character fascinating and unique: she's a girl from the 1910s stuck in the modern world. Now Immonen seems to have turned Klara into a chronic couch potato. The concept has potential; of course the boob tube would be fascinating to a kid who grew up in a time before them. But Klara's been around TV for a while now, and she's never been this addicted. Nico's suddenly worried that Klara's going to develop a "Vitamin-D deficiency," after several issues of Klara running around outside with Molly. If Klara's withdrawing into herself and becoming a TV zombie, this might be a perfectly natural reaction for a girl out of time; it might even be a perfectly natural delayed reaction. But it seems more like Immonen wasn't sure what else to do with her and wanted to shove her out of the way.

I also would really like to have seen a little more development of Klara's relationship with Old Lace, considering her intense reaction to the dinosaur's death. She spends the early part of the issue cuddling with Old Lace in front of the television, only to demand that the others "get that dead thing away from me!" after OL dies saving her life. The line isn't consistent with her character (what there is of it), nor is it a particularly natural thing for a traumatized kid to say. [Considering that as a resident of the early 20th century, she would have had a lot closer relationship with death than most people today, I would have expected sorrow or indifference, but not repugnance. - RD]

I really haven't decided yet how I feel about Sara Pichelli's art. I love some of the little details, like Victor reminding us he's a 'bot by plugging a modem directly into a port on his own arm. I love the playfulness when Chase and Victor are dancing. The shots of Chase on the ground feeling Old Lace's passing through their psychic bond were truly heartbreaking, and easily the best scene in the issue.

I like some of Pichelli's dynamic poses (when the older girls aren't breaking their backs) and exaggerated facial expressions, but these dance right on the knife's edge between expressive and unnatural. Witness Nico squinting at her fruit salad.

Closing one eye and screwing your mouth up like that, they're pieces of two different expressions. They're both in the pensive family, sure, but... Go try and make this face in the mirror. Feels weird, doesn't it?

Then there's Nico's new wardrobe and body-type. RD soap-boxed about this some in her review of issue 10 (speaking of gender), but what struck me is that this is another case of previously strong characterization getting muddled. The artists of Runaways have always taken Nico's clothes right off of HotTopic.com, but Nico's choices in the past have been definitively goth-prep, giving her some of the coolest costumes in comics. Now, suddenly, she's goth-punk. Those are two distinct styles, and different enough that I believe the change would warrant some dialogue.

Also, I'm a bit confused by those dirty little scratches everyone has on their noses and under their eyes. Judging from the coloring, they're all taking lessons in being a drunk from W.C. Fields. Also not an atypical part of the teenage experience, I guess. More worrying is the way they all seem to have developed a bad case of vampirism, and not the cool kind. The least bit of overhead light, and even Latino Victor and California girl Karolina are sparkling like Robert Pattinson.

Oh, and late in the issue, the sound from the TV indicates Klara is now watching an infomercial for a fitness machine, yet the screen still shows the soap opera from earlier. Whoops.

- JC

[I'd like to note that because I don't pay very close attention and because they traded hairstyles, I spent the entire issue thinking Chase was Victor and vice versa. That's not entirely abnormal for me; I got Victor and Xavin confused in earlier issues when Xavin was in human-boy mode. But there really should have been some defining character moment (aside from the plugging into the arm thing, which I completely missed) so I could tell them apart. So I count it as a double fail. - RD]

Magneto Testament

Magneto Testament (Greg Pak) is the first Marvel hardcover I've seen to include a Teacher's Guide in the back. That fact alone says much about the story. It's not just the origin of the X-Men's greatest foe, but a serious holocaust drama, closely modeled on real history and real human lives. And the real beauty, and tragedy, of Testament is that it never needs to be a superhero story at all.

If a person were to pick up this story without ever having read an X-Men story (or having seen the films), they would never guess the protagonist was a mutant. Max Eisenhardt's journey takes him from schooldays in 1930s Nazi Germany, to the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, and eventually to the infamous concentration camp of Auschwitz. Every horror that befalls Max and his family, every neighbor's sacrifice that sustains them, and every cruelty that dooms them all ring true because of the painstaking work of Testament's creative team.

The tale is deeply grounded in research; Pak's extensive endnotes in the collected edition excavate the story page by page, revealing the actual historical people and events from which even seemingly minor details were drawn. (We all hated compiling bibliographies for our papers in school; who'da thunk they could make a comic book more impressive?) The script is excellent. Pak sketches in the broad strokes of history for context, then pulls his focus in tight the on small and human moments, brought to gut-wrenching life by artist Carmine Di Giandomenico. The whole epic is near-perfectly paced, and deftly balanced between grinding heartbreak and slivers of hope. And for those of us who do know the man Max Eisenhardt will one day become, there's a second story hiding in plain sight.

Pak and Di Giandomenico evoke Max's future with a perfectly simple recurring visual trick: a glint of light reflecting off metal. It's there when Max hurls a heavy javelin in school games, and when he's scrounging for coins in the gutter. It's there on the knife in Max's hand as he watches two Nazis beating a man in an alleyway, as his uncle stops him from getting involved, getting himself killed. Those of us who know his power and his future can't help wonder - perhaps he could have killed those soldiers, perhaps he could've saved that man? And it makes the tale of Max's impotence in that terrible time and place only more potent.

As the background for a loathed and beloved comic book villain, it makes Magneto's place in the X-Men universe all the greater. The horrors he experiences in these pages haunt every Magneto story to come (even the hokey ones), for this is the world he always fears might return, if he can do nothing to stop it. And that fear, in turn, drives him to inflict his own terrors on others. Yet in his long history in the X-Men universe, Magneto has also enjoyed the occasional stint as a hero. Horrid 1980s purple costumes aside, I hope he may yet again and for good. After spending these five issues with young Max, I find myself hoping that Magneto's story might somehow yet wind up in the light. I want his story to find, if not a happy ending, then at least a measure of peace.

Still, it's just as important that Testament can be read as if Max were just an ordinary man, with no special abilities or destiny. The power of any story, no matter how fanciful, comes from our ability to believe. We will believe a man can fly because deep down, we all know what flying feels like, or what it should feel like. We will let a fictional character break our hearts because we've been broken, and we've watched others be broken. We know fictions, even science-fictions, are made for us because someone in the world has felt this way. But there is a special double-edge to a story like Magneto Testament, enriching the fictional life of a comic book villain, even as it pays homage to the struggles of millions of survivors and victims of a real-world genocide.

- JC

Uncanny X-Men First Class #1

Scott Gray's new Uncanny X-Men First Class is perfectly uncanny so far, but could still use some more of that First Class magic.

This new take on an old series brings the fan-favorite 70s X-Men line-up back to the funnybooks: Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Banshee. Phoenix is featured on the rocking cover, but so far has only merited one tiny cameo scene. The first issue taps all the classic Claremontian story beats: hateful-fearful mobs of New Yorkers forcing an X-Man to question the mission; giant robot fights in the Danger Room; cheesy boastful mid-action dialogue; Wolverine picking a fight; Colossus being all sensitive and noble and stuff; random men hitting on Storm.

It also has a solid story of its own to tell about Nightcrawler visiting Attilan, city of the Inhumans, a place where nearly everyone is just as unique in appearance as himself and no one gets called a freak. Of course he begins to wonder - would he be happier here? Is he really obligated to put up with the world's crap? But there may be a serpent in this garden, because he finds that children are being mutated against their will!

Well, not really. Most anyone who's read an Inhumans story before will be aware that the ceremony Nightcrawler interrupts is a perfectly natural part of Attilan culture. Human-looking children walk into the Terrigen Mists when they come of age, and they come out with funky new powers and often with a wild new alien appearance. If you go in a cute blonde and walk out a tall purple baldie with fewer fingers than you started with, well, them's the breaks. I think it's supposed to be a puberty-sucks-sometimes metaphor. That Stan Lee, such a subtle guy.

Actually, Nightcrawler kind of has a point. It IS pretty creepy. But I'm not expecting Marvel to let one X-Man overturn the crux of Inhumans culture; it wouldn't really be PC to their fictional society. Also, the series is set in the past. But we'll see how that plays out next issue.

The problem with UXFC #1 is that it's all a bit po-faced. That's also true of the original Uncanny era during which this book is set, of course; when I read the old 70s X-Men comics, most of the humour I find now is probably not of the intentional variety. The fact that everyone takes everything so seriously is what makes it hilarious. (That, and the way they all spend nine-tenths of their day expositing madly in their head.) But I've been spoiled by Jeff Parker's original X-Men: First Class, Bendis' New Avengers, and Brian Vaughan's and Joss Whedon's Runaways. When I read a modern team-book, I want more banter, playfulness, and just plain off-the-wall wackiness. I want the characters to take each other just as seriously, to treat each other just as politely, as my friends and co-workers treat each other.

I've said it before; I think the First Class line works best by having fun with the X-Men characters in a way most of the other mutant books haven't allowed for many an emo year. And I believe Scott Gray is capable of bringing the comedy; his Wolverine short in the Uncanny X-Men First Class Giant-Size was great. Hopefully as UXFC goes on, he'll find more of a balance.

- JC

Farscape: D'Argo's Lament #3

The third issue of Farscape: D'Argo's Lament (Keith R.A. DeCandido) is a tragic squandering of fannish potential. Much of the issue is spent in flashback, as Ka D'Argo tells a shipmate the epic tale of his youth, signing up for the Luxan army, his first experiences in war and how he met his doomed love, Lo'laan. At last, an official Farscape story fleshes out the hints and teases the series' fans picked up over the show's four years on TV.

Only it isn't epic, and it doesn't flesh anything out. The plot and dialogue are bland and spare, adding little information and no emotion at all to the character's known backstory. And Neil Edwards' sketchy, underdeveloped art compounds the problem. Time and again in this issue, he's given great material to draw; however flawed the script, a strong artist could still have turned the basic set-ups into something truly special. Yet instead he turns an intergalactic war into a pedestrian affair. A two-page spread is wasted on a boxy spaceship, some warriors standing around with their hands at their side, and some faces squinting in close-up. D'Argo and his fellow Luxans, brought so fantastically to life on television by the Jim Henson Company, all look the same. The greatest tragedy in this book is that it marks the first appearance of the dreaded Scorvians, who are mentioned a few times in the TV series but kept off-camera. Edwards gets to design a classic Farscape baddie for the first time, and what he gives us are four green dudes with Bart Simpson heads in featureless black unitards. It's unitarded.*

With the infinite budget of comic books, DeCandido and Edwards somehow manage to confine D'Argo's Lament to a soundstage Doctor Who would've laughed at in the '70s.

- JC

[*Direct all complaints to me. JC asked me to take it out but I was laughing too hard to find the delete key. - RD]

Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem Part 1

[When he emailed me this post, JC was careful to say, "Don't read this until you read the comic!" I think he's learned something about how much I hate spoilers. Pardon me while I go read Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem Part 1. - RD]

[Okay, I'm back. That was rad. - RD]

Spider-Man: Requiem Part 1 of 2 (Brian Michael Bendis) serves both as an epilogue to the disaster-movie "Ultimatum" storyline that ended the first volume of Ultimate Spider-Man and a love letter to the series as a whole.

Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson has returned to the shattered ruins of New York, along with editor Robbie Robertson and reporter Ben Urich. Jameson, as we saw in "Ultimatum," has accepted at last that Spider-Man was a hero all along. This is a different Jonah than we've seen in any Spider-Man before. He's mature. He's quiet. And it lends a special poignancy to the issue, that what may be Spider-Man's last story will be told not by Aunt May or Mary Jane, not by someone who loved him from the start, but instead by this man. Watching Jameson sit there in the wreck that was his office, finally trying to understand the young man he so loudly and incessantly judged, allows the story to be both epic and intimate all at once.

As Jonah works, digging through old pro-Spider-Man stories he'd never allowed Urich to share, we're treated to a flashback, an untold adventure of Spider-Man and Iron Man. It's a nice nod to Bendis and Spidey's brief but glorious Ultimate Marvel Team-Up spin-off series. We see Tony Stark interviewed by Mary Jane, grappling with big questions of heroism, terrorism, and what it means to be a violent role model in the world. It's the kind of philosophical dialogue at which Bendis really shines, bringing to the surface questions that have always been implicit in the superhero genre. And Tony's particular perspective seats him neatly in the Arthurian tradition, a man who believes that as human nature will always beget violence, so there must always be those willing to defend those who can't defend themselves. This is how Iron Man has always worked best: a modern knight, Round Table style; a noble man and a nobleman.

It's also great to have both of Ultimate Spider-Man's regular artists sharing this issue, with the modern-day segments drawn by Stuart Immonen and the flashbacks by original series artist Mark Bagley. Their styles are very different, yet both pack so much life and motion into their lines, and its a treat to see them side by side. Bagley's softer, more rounded characters evoke the innocence of younger days, an effective contrast against Immonen's sharper, wearier newspapermen of the present.

- JC