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

Ultimate Spider-Man #131

In Ultimate Spider-Man #131, Brian Michael Bendis delivers a great tie-in issue to the Ultimatum storyline (which I haven't read yet). To get a solid stand-alone that works with the overarching plot, Bendis treats Ultimatum as a really good disaster movie - you don't have to worry about exactly what Magneto's doing or what's happening elsewhere, all you know is that New York has been hit by a giant tidal wave. Large parts of the city have been destroyed and people are in danger everywhere, but Spider-Man is still muddling through. Bendis gives us the little character moments we love without having to worry about the backstory happening in other books.

The most beautiful character moment in this issue is a paradigm shift for J. Jonah Jameson. In a gorgeous two-page spread by Stuart Immonen, Jameson stares out of the Bugle office at the city underwater and sees Spider-Man diving down to save someone. He finally realizes that Spider-Man isn't a self-serving menace in tights, but a true hero even in the face of disaster. As the newspaper staff scramble to make some sense of what's happening, JJJ sits down to write his first ever pro-Spider-Man editorial.

If Ultimatum is suppose to redefine the Ultimate universe as distinct from #616, this could be a fantastic opportunity. I've seen JJJ scale back his Spidey hate in the interest of not losing Spider-Man fans as readers, but I haven't seen him actually believe in the good Spider-Man does. It would be great to see Bendis explore this new attitude and see what that does for Jameson's character.

[At this time, I would like to note that an editorial shift in the paper of record could have significant impact on how the public feels about Spider-Man and the positive effects on Peter Parker's life, but my brilliant fiance didn't even consider those things, just that Jameson as a supporting cast member has had a change of mind. So there you go. - RD]

There are several other beautiful two-page spreads throughout the issue, contributing further to the epic movie feel - the art is great, since it's Immonen, and, since it's Bendis, the pages are all focused on something about the people in the shot. We get more crossover components with the Hulk appearing briefly and Peter finding a way to make him part of the solution rather than the problem. Aunt May's first (of many, we hope) encounter with Spider-Woman is also a treat.

And chillingly, Ultimate Daredevil's death, though it may be a large part of other books, is seen from this angle as a throwaway scene. It's a sign that this disaster is so huge that heroes are dying off-camera, and the ones left behind can't spare the time to honor them - there's still too much work to do.

- JC