Ultimate Spider-Man #131 Review

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Inker: Wade Von Grawbadger
Colorist: Justin Ponsor
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit

J. Jonah Jameson, clearly shaken from the onslaught of Magneto’s tidal wave, walks through the busy newsroom. Robbie stops him to see if he’s all right. Jameson tells him he witnessed Spider-Man selflessly diving in after that woman and other drowning citizens with little regard for his own safety…and realizes he’s been wrong about him all along. Now convinced that Robbie was right about the wall-crawler, and sits at the nearest computer and starts to type out a complete retraction of his anti-Spider-Man claims and full endorsement of who he sees now as a true hero.
In Queens, Spider-Woman swings Aunt May away from the police precinct and drops her off at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.  She manages to avoid the awkward questioning on May’s part as to why Jessica referred to her as “Aunt May”, but listened to May in regards to finding Peter.
Elsewhere, Spider-Man tries to reason with the monosyllabic, grey-skinned Hulk. Convinced he had nothing to do with what happened to the city, Peter encourages the Hulk to believe he’s his friend and to give him a hand in helping the survivors. Together they manage to get a group of people off of a rooftop and – courtesy of the Hulk’s thunder clap – douse a fire atop another building that’s been christened with a subway car. Peter is trying to reign in his frantic mind, and the Hulk’s imposing strength isn’t helping. Together they come across the buried corpse of Daredevil. At that point, the Hulk has calmed enough to transform back into Bruce Banner, who recognizes the unmasked hero as his former lawyer Matt Murdock. However, he quickly comes to believe that he is responsible for the complete destruction of the city. Peter tries to reassure him he’s not the cause, but the resulting stress causes Banner to Hulk out and beyond Spidey’s ability to calm him down. He lashes out at Spider-Man for no reason and gives chase. The pursuit ends at the Sanctum Sanctorum, whose roof has been damaged by a car during the flood. The result? The psychic barriers holding in interdimensional demons has been breached and ungodly creatures explode from the building. The city’s problem just became infinitely bigger…
TO BE CONTINUED

Likes:

• Spidey-Hulk team-up
• Jameson finally wising up
• Awkward first meeting between May and Spider-Woman

Dislikes:

• Holes in the plot regarding Peter and Murdock
• No MJ or Gwen or Kitty in this issue
• Missed revelation of Peter’s ID to Bruce Banner
• Sanctum Sanctorum breach

Additional Notes:

Brian Michael Bendis once again breaks away from the social conventions of the Spider-Mythos. And it’s not in the destruction of the city, Spidey and the Hulk, or even Spider-Woman being Peter’s female clone. It’s J. Jonah Jameson, the biggest blowhard in the history of comic books, FINALLY seeing the light. Only in regular continuity would the writers find some UNREALISTIC way that Jonah would find fault with Spider-Man’s feat. “Aw the web-head wanted those morons to THINK he was helping when he was just COVERING his tracks! HE’S behind this devastation!” That’s the Jonah we all know and loathe. But THIS version of Jonah works in that he’s more level headed and less of…well…a caricature of a journalist. He has semi-legitamite reasons for distrusting Spider-Man, which would identify with any regular joe on the street. It’s the mask; the mask in itself represents a symbol of distrust and concealment. A deliberate attempt at secrety and decieving the public at large. It could very well be an ex-con under the mask running a scam on New York in order to divert attention from his true agenda.  With that much of a possibility in mind, with only this masked man’s word in opposition against it, how can we let down our guard? Those are legitimate reasons, and those are the reasons turning away within those wheels in Ultimate JJ’s mind. However, he has just witnessed the truth and Bendis has demonstrated that THIS Jonah is capable of seeing the truth and recognizing it for what it is. Spider-Man is a hero. End of story. Whether or not this new  leaf lasts, we’ll have to wait and see in the new series. For me the money shot in this sequence was the double-page spread of Spidey making the save as depicted in last issue, with the revelation that Jonah had witnessed it behind the glass windows of the Bugle building like an aquarium. Great work, Stuart.
Now on to the Parker family. The meeting between Spider-Woman and Aunt May HAD to happen sooner or later. Here we have a teenage girl with the life experiences and memories of a teenage boy who recognizes this woman as her mother. With that much backstory in her mind, it was inevitable that she’d make a slip and call her Aunt May. In fact, I think this is the mistake that Peter might have made had he, as Spidey, encountered Aunt May before he revealed his true identity to her. Jessica IS still Peter. She genuinely cares about her, and that’s probably why she refused to tell her the truth about her real origins. To be honest, how can ANYONE understand the truth? It will be interesting if these two meet again.
The Spidey-Hulk dynamic was fun. Last time these two tangled was in the first few issues of ULTIMATE MARVEL TEAM-UP. That was entirely a different Hulk. I like how this time around, Spidey is trying to understand and communicate with this creature. It’s like trying to reason with an infant because that’s what the Hulk is deep down; beneath the rage and power, he’s a child yearning for acceptance and a sense of belonging. In a way, Spidey stepped into Rick Jones’ role from regular Marvel continuity; for a time he DID rein the Hulk in and put his power to good use. With Bruce Banner, however, I feel the ball was severely dropped. Now granted I know there was no way you could provide an even balance between Hulk and Bruce in this issue in light of how much was going on. Yes he was STILL a man incapable of coping with stressful situations, but in terms of plot, I feel Bendis should have touched on the Banner-Parker connection ever so slightly (see ULTIMATE ORIGINS for my meaning). However you got to see both sides of the Hulk in this issue, which was good. You saw him in a calm state and in an irrational state, and Spidey’s reactions were realistic and at times hilarious as he should be. Stu did a great job in his design of the Hulk and the action in general.
However, there is one SEVERE hole in the plot. If you guys can recall in the final Bagley issues, Matt Murdock revealed his true identity to Peter Parker when he visited him at Midtown during the Warriors storyline. And yet, when Peter’s observing his battered body and unmasks him, he thinks to himself “I don’t even know his name.” Uhm was there a One More Day in the Ultimate universe and I didn’t notice it? Sorry, but I don’t think the name of a blind lawyer who moonlights as a vigilante courtesy of heightened senses is THAT forgettable! I know Brian’s taxed for time but it’s too bad he didn’t catch himself on this one.  Dude if you’re reading this, there’s still time to make that correction before it hits TPB’s and HC’s.
Lastly, the new crisis of the Sanctum Sanctorum really doesn’t fit into the overall dystopian nightmare. This is Dr. Strange territory. I know he’s made a few appearances in the book but throwing this latest development in seems very last minute and out of Spidey’s area. Still, maybe that’s the reason why he did so. Make an impossible situation all the more impossible. Time will tell (aka next issue) if this works. Still it’s an awesome visual of seeing the demons escape. It reminds me of the Doctor Strange Animated DVD when the same thing happened.
All in all, this was a really good issue. A little anticlimactic in regards to not as much Hulk devastation, but great in terms of characterization and plot development. Can’t wait to see you two tie it all off guys!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Webs.

Favorite Quote:
Hulk: RAAAAAARGH!
Spidey: Hulk! Friend!
Hulk: HULK! SMASH!

Cover: 5 out of 5 Webs
This cover WORKS because it carries over from the very last double-page spread of last issue. The idea of concealing the Hulk’s face in shadows save for his red eyes gave him the right amount of danger to validate the threat to Spidey’s person. And again if you know the backstory this meeting has a lot of significance. But even if you don’t, you take one look at it and the phrase that comes out in your mind is “Oh, crap!” SCORE!!!