This confused the hell out of me. The banner at the top, where we expect the title to be, says Ultimate Death of Spider-Man; at the bottom it says Avengers vs New Ultimates 1. Fortunately I didn’t have to work out what it was, since it’s by Mark Millar so an automatic buy for me. It’s a good thing that that was my reason, since there is no detectable connection to the upcoming death of Spider-Man.
Like the first issue of Avengers vs New Ultimates, this has a Death of Spider-Man banner; at least this comic has Spider-Man in it, and I suppose this story actually is the lead-in towards that death. Certainly the threat level is vast enough, since it involves some artefact with wishing powers, with no implied limits on it – maybe that level of danger will in due course drag in the big teams.
I’ve enjoyed this series. I said in a recent Shazam! review that I think writers taking on existing characters need to think about what makes them special, what their particular requirements and opportunities are. I know Mark has created most of these, but clearly the Ultimate characters are variations on established stars.
This seemed a good randomish pick this week: I like most of the Ultimate line, and Aaron seems to be building a reputation, so I’d meant to try him. He confuses the hell out of me, to be honest.
The most annoying thing about this is that it is not genuinely the start of a four-part mini-series. Well, it is, but it isn’t the start of a story: it’s a continuation of Ultimate Mystery.
