Ultimate Spider-Man #57
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #57 REVIEW
Review by: Blake M. Petit Blake@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Hollywood Part Four
Spider-Man is caught in the clutches of Doctor Octopus.
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Scott Hanna
Colors: J.D. Smith
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Cover Art: Mark Bagley
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Review: Let’s look at that teaser for a second: “Spider-Man is caught in the clutches of Doctor Octopus.” It may sound to you, reading this, that it is a statement of being as opposed to description of action. There is a reason for this. It is because, until the last five pages of this issue, nothing happens.
Brian Michael Bendis is usually one of the best writers in comics, and he has one of the freshest takes on Spider-Man in decades. In fact, the only criticism that ever seems to stick to him is the snail’s pace his books sometimes crawl at. This issue is perhaps the greatest example of that problem I’ve ever seen. At the end of last issue Ock had beaten Spidey into submission and, at the end of the issue, the webslinger woke up to find himself bound and on a plane to who-knows-where. This issue we are treated to what amounts to 17 pages of Dr. Octopus making ominous-sounding statements, descending even further into insanity and giving us a wholly unnecessary flashback to what happened between the time Spider-Man was knocked out and he woke up last issue. (Not to spoil too much, but Dr. Octopus acted like a looney and hijacked a plane.) There’s a little exposition with Ock talking about links between the respective pasts of our two characters, but nothing that progresses the plot and couldn’t have been included elsewhere.
What saves this issue are, in fact, the last few pages. The good doctor gets a nice surprise before we steer into a three-page sequence picking up on a subplot that started over the last few issues and which, after last month, is not at all surprising, but nonetheless is one of the best twists Bendis has put in this book since day one and promises that the future of this Spider-Man will be very different from his mainstream Marvel Universe counterpart.
Artwise, this issue delivers as always. Mark Bagley and Scott Hanna do a nice job in the flashback sequence showing our villain hurling cars around like they were Hot Wheels, and the talking heads scenes in the plane are very tight and claustrophobic, perfect for the sequence. The only misstep in the art is that many pages in the middle, for no apparent reason, switch to double-page spreads. I don’t have any problem with this in theory, but when you do too many of them in an issue it gets a little repetitive. Furthermore, those double-page spreads are almost always difficult to read in the inevitable trade paperback edition, as was proven repeatedly in several CrossGen trade paperbacks like Ruse or The Path.
Beautiful artwork and a great twist at the end rescue this issue from oblivion, but none of that changes the fact that if you cut all but the last five pages of this issue from the collected edition, chances are no one would be able to tell the difference.
Rating: 6/10
Review by: Blake M. Petit Blake@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Hollywood Part Four
Spider-Man is caught in the clutches of Doctor Octopus.
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Scott Hanna
Colors: J.D. Smith
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Cover Art: Mark Bagley
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Review: Let’s look at that teaser for a second: “Spider-Man is caught in the clutches of Doctor Octopus.” It may sound to you, reading this, that it is a statement of being as opposed to description of action. There is a reason for this. It is because, until the last five pages of this issue, nothing happens.
Brian Michael Bendis is usually one of the best writers in comics, and he has one of the freshest takes on Spider-Man in decades. In fact, the only criticism that ever seems to stick to him is the snail’s pace his books sometimes crawl at. This issue is perhaps the greatest example of that problem I’ve ever seen. At the end of last issue Ock had beaten Spidey into submission and, at the end of the issue, the webslinger woke up to find himself bound and on a plane to who-knows-where. This issue we are treated to what amounts to 17 pages of Dr. Octopus making ominous-sounding statements, descending even further into insanity and giving us a wholly unnecessary flashback to what happened between the time Spider-Man was knocked out and he woke up last issue. (Not to spoil too much, but Dr. Octopus acted like a looney and hijacked a plane.) There’s a little exposition with Ock talking about links between the respective pasts of our two characters, but nothing that progresses the plot and couldn’t have been included elsewhere.
What saves this issue are, in fact, the last few pages. The good doctor gets a nice surprise before we steer into a three-page sequence picking up on a subplot that started over the last few issues and which, after last month, is not at all surprising, but nonetheless is one of the best twists Bendis has put in this book since day one and promises that the future of this Spider-Man will be very different from his mainstream Marvel Universe counterpart.
Artwise, this issue delivers as always. Mark Bagley and Scott Hanna do a nice job in the flashback sequence showing our villain hurling cars around like they were Hot Wheels, and the talking heads scenes in the plane are very tight and claustrophobic, perfect for the sequence. The only misstep in the art is that many pages in the middle, for no apparent reason, switch to double-page spreads. I don’t have any problem with this in theory, but when you do too many of them in an issue it gets a little repetitive. Furthermore, those double-page spreads are almost always difficult to read in the inevitable trade paperback edition, as was proven repeatedly in several CrossGen trade paperbacks like Ruse or The Path.
Beautiful artwork and a great twist at the end rescue this issue from oblivion, but none of that changes the fact that if you cut all but the last five pages of this issue from the collected edition, chances are no one would be able to tell the difference.
Rating: 6/10