This review contains some spoilers for Ultimate Spider-Man #18, on sale now, from Marvel Comics
One of the things you’ve seen me repeatedly note about this series is that Jonathan Hickman has repeatedly found ways to surprise readers with twists and turns in these stories, but what was almost LESS of a twist in this issue was how straightforward he played most of this issue, but to be frank, that was almost a twist in of itself with how much we have come to expect Hickman to somehow zig when we are expecting him to zag. And yet, even with one of the most straightforward “superhero” issues of the series in quite some time, Hickman still found a way to come up with a nice twist at the end of the issue.
Ultimate Spider-Man #18 is from writer Jonathan Hickman, artist Marco Checchetto, guest colorist Erick Arciniega (unless I missed something, and perhaps Arciniega is joining the book as its new colorist) and letterer Cory Petit, and it picks up nicely from last issue’s cliffhangerwhere Harry Osborn decides that he needs his friend, Peter Parker, to help him take down the Kingpin of Crime (and through the Kingpin, strike a major blow against the Maker’s Council, the group of supervillains who have been running the planet in the absence of the Maker, the sadistic alternate reality version of Reed Richards who has been manipulating this planet for decades).
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What is Harry Osborn’s plan, and how does it involve Spider-Man?
Harry wants Peter to join him and Gwen Stacy, who is secretly part of a group known as Mysterio (there is actually technically a group known as Mysterio, as well as one specific person who is the “main” Mysterio at any given moment), to take down the Kingpin, so Harry brings out Ben Parker and J. Jonah Jameson to help protect Mary Jane, May, and Richard Parker, while Peter teams up with Harry.
It is very sweet to see Harry and Peter reunite. Harry is dealing with so much mental trauma (remember, Harry’s Green Goblin armor includes an A.I. of Harry’s father, Norman, that essentially belittles him non-stop) that it was hard to tell how much his friendship with Peter really meant to him because Harry always seemed so distant, but as we have learned in the last few issues is that his friendship with Peter REALLY means a lot to him, and at the same time, however distant Harry has seemed, his wife Gwen is obviously a lot more distant, as she has kept her secret life, well, you know, a secret (at the same time, even there, Gwen obviously cares a lot about Harry, as well. The main couples in this book REALLY care about each other).
Before Harry and Peter go to the next step of their plan against the Kingpin, however, they first take a break to fight crime, and man, I have to say, it really is fun to see this book take a break to just celebrate some outright superhero crimefighting in the book. Checchetto and Arciniega do a WONDERFUL job on the action sequences (really, I have to take a moment to spotlight just how good of a job Arciniega did on this issue. He is filling in for one of the very best colorists in comics in Matt Hollingsworth, and yet this book still looked AMAZING. Granted, I imagine when someone like Hollingsworth establishes a look, you have some sort of sense of how to follow his lead as a colorist, but, well, whatever, it looked great, and Arciniega should be very proud of this work).
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How does Richard Parker get himself into some trouble?
Of course, things can’t go smoothly (and, honestly, they SHOULDN’T), and so we get some major drama with Peter and Mary Jane’s son, Richard, who has become a quasi-Spider-Man himself using the original super-suit that Tony Stark had made for Peter (with an A.I. based on Peter’s own thoughts). It allows Richard to sort of fill-in for his father via the suit (which, of course, acts a lot like the Venom symbiote).
During his training mission as Spider-Man, Richard encountered Felicia Hardy, the daughter of one of the Kingpin’s top underbosses, the Black Cat, who was accidentally paralyzed in a battle with Spider-Man. The two have started texting each other, and have become sort of boyfriend/girlfriend. Well, in this issue, Felicia says that she needs Richard’s help, so he sneaks aboard the plane bringing Harry and Peter to New York, and he goes off to find Felicia.
He then finds that this is all a trap, and Felicia is still working for her dad’s boss, the Kingpin (her dad is there, too), who expects Richard to bring him Spider-Man. In an truly delightful bit, when a shocked Richard confronts Felicia about whether he meant anything to her, she explains that of course he did, but, well, this is simply just her nature (a reference to the classic fable, “The Scorpion and the Frog”).
That’s an absolutely outstanding ending. Things sure look bleak for the world of Spider-Men in this universe, and it will be interesting to see how Hickman will be able to follow up this cliffhanger while sticking to the “Each issue takes place in a different month” setup of the series, but I guess we’ll all find out next month. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be really clever, as that’s really the only thing I can always predict about this comic book, that it will always involve something clever in it.
Source: Marvel