While the entire Ultimate Spiderman Series is great, and has a nice sequence of how Peter Parker is growing as Spiderman, I am only writing reviews for Issues that I really enjoyed and have something unique that I haven’t seen in any of the movies or animated series.
Let’s dive in. This one has a fun Flashback.
The comic starts with J Jonah Jameson ranting about The Daily Bugle’s terrible headline. Jameson wants to know more about the webhead, his origins, his name, ethnicity, etc. And that's when he makes a jab at Superman when he asks his team if Spiderman had rocketed to Earth from some doomed planet. Now since Superman is from DC Comics, how is it widespread knowledge in this universe, since Spiderman is clearly from Marvel? Was DC okay with this one-liner?
The next tit-bit I liked was the mention of Matt Murdock and Kingpin. Now it’s pretty well-known that Spiderman and Daredevil work in neighboring localities, and Kingpin is one villain that is common between them, so this tit-bit makes way for Daredevil and Spiderman to cross paths with each other in the future issues.
Now this Spiderman doesn’t have natural webbing shooting out of his wrists like the Tobey Maguire Spiderman does. So, we see Peter Parker successfully invent his web-fluid and create his web-shooters by building up on his father’s formula for a molecular adhesive and some homemade engineering. Peter tests the strength of his newly invented webs in his basement. But the one thing no one has talked about Spiderman’s webs for so many years is that the ends of his webs are quite sticky, while the sides are not sticky. This is just too convenient, but I’m guessing there are materials in our world that function this way. And it was amazing that this concept about Spiderman’s webs was discussed in this issue. Peter also questions himself about how long the web lasts. I know that answer from 'Spiderman The Animated Series' – It dissolves in 2-3 hours. Peter also wonders if he could become rich with the help of his invention, or if this adhesive material has any other practical use than to swing around as a vigilante superhero.
It is amazing that this Comic Series captures the essence of a teenager very nicely. I’ll admit a lot of the time Peter Parker acts extremely wise, kind, and humble for a 15-year-old, but many a time he acts exactly like a teenager, reckless and foolish. This one incident just makes so much sense. While Peter is fooling around with his newly discovered web-fluid and webbing, he doesn’t sleep on time, despite his Aunt warning him that he’d be sleepy at school the next morning. And guess what, that’s exactly what happens, Peter sleeps in class and breaks another desk. His second desk to be precise.
In this Issue, Peter quits the basketball team and one of his teammates is aggravated. The Peter in this series explains ‘it wasn’t me’ meaning he didn’t see himself as a basketball player, it wasn’t his calling or desire in life. And he tries to explain, but his team-mate is too much of a jerk to understand and Peter has no patience to explain. What do you expect from 15-year-olds? They aren’t the types who have rational arguments anyway. Although, I like Tom Holland’s answer from Civil War better. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker mentions he couldn’t play football before his powers, so why should he play football now? He should continue being himself, which is being a nerd, that’s who he really is. And these powers he has are not for personal gain. Peter could have easily used his powers to get fame, get rich, or get girls, but he instead chose to help others. Keeping his identity and powers a secret was an act of survival, but taking the responsibility of helping people in need despite that shows true altruism and kindness.
Now Issues 04 and 05 also cover the origin of the Green Goblin. How Norman Osborn tries to mutate himself with the Oz formula along with his own DNA to make himself an enhanced version of himself. The human testing goes horribly wrong causing some explosion which engulfs Harry as well. The Green Goblin is later shown burning Harry’s home, which kills his mom. So I think these events lead to Harry being shown completely depressed and lonely in Issue 06. He returns to school after a few weeks but is completely detached from his friends and the world. It’s a little difficult to understand Harry’s emotions at this point because as a reader we are more focused on what’s happening with Peter and MJ. I mean I pieced it together after going through these 3 issues back and forth, but a little more explanation was needed in issue 06 regarding Harry’s feelings.
And before Harry’s feelings and state of mind were properly explored the school was hit by some kind of tremor. At this point, Peter hasn’t discovered his Spidey-sense. He gets his warnings and reacts to them instinctively, but hasn’t pieced it together that that Spidey-sense alert means danger. I told you right, Peter is shown to be a clueless teenager most of the time, dealing with a lot of changes all at once.
Now Harry knows it’s the Green Goblin by instinct and that the Goblin is here to get him. But in Issue 05 it was shown that the Green Goblin is actually interested in Peter Parker, and as Norman Osborn knew Peter is Spiderman, The Green Goblin also knew. Although this version of the Green Goblin seems like something akin to Hulk than any other iteration.
Now to the best part of Issue 06. When this tremor hits the school Peter is inside the school. But when all the kids and staff run out, Peter is left inside and we see Spiderman enter the school from the outside. Now we know Peter must have gotten out of the school discreetly, changed into his superhero uniform, and entered back through the front gates. But how did he pull that off? To know that we have a Flashback moment here. I love Flashbacks, they have such a fun element of surprise.
During the Flashback, Peter covertly escapes amidst all the commotion and goes to the washroom first and starts changing into his superhero uniform only to realize that he can’t just show up in the school. How on earth can he explain being present in the school? Plus he remembers his entire classroom has seen him get bitten by a spider, it’s a simple conclusion after that. So what does Peter do in this situation? You are right, he first escapes the school by jumping out the window as Peter Parker, changes into his superhero uniform behind some bushes, and then makes his big entrance in front of the crowd, showing everyone that he was an outsider who arrived at the school after a while. It was quite clever of Peter to have realized this in the heat of the battle. And I loved Peter’s remark – This can’t be how Captain America does it. I mean how he changes into his Superhero uniform…
This issue is really fun and has plenty of important and beautiful moments. I would highly recommend reading the whole series, but if you can’t you can always read the ones I’m writing reviews for.
