"Ultimate Spider-Man: Hunted"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Ultimate Spider-Man: Hunted” as presented in Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection format.

            Accidentally bitten by a genetically altered spider, teenager Peter Parker now finds he had the proportionate abilities of a spider. This includes strength, agility, a spider-like sixth sense warning him of personal danger. And, most amazing of all-Peter can walk on walls. When Peter learns through the recent tragedy of his Uncle Ben’s death that with great power there must also come great responsibility, he fearlessly dons the costume of: Spider-Man. After two rousing trials by fire in the form of his first two conflicts as a real-life super hero, Spider-Man came out victorious over the misshapen monstrosity of the Goblin and the underworld overboss the Kingpin of Crime. Peter had many unanswered questions about his powers and how he got them. One thing he knew was that by running around as Spider-Man, he had been hurting the feelings of the only true friend he has, the beautiful Mary Jane Watson. After defeating the Kingpin, the first thing he did was call Mary Jane over for a serious talk-where he revealed his secret identity to her.

            In an effort to help the students study the environment around them from another perspective, Peter’s social studies teacher at Midtown High School assigned her class an oral presentation to come to class in character as a superhero and explain why they were the way they were and what their powers meant to them. This assignment caused great dissent among the students, who were unhappy with the prospect of coming to school in costume. Kenny “Kong” MacFarlane worried that the advent of the supers was the end of the normals, but new student Gwendolyn Stacy just shared her perspective that what everyone does best is their superpower. Doctor Otto Octavius awoke in a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility after being in a coma for three months following an explosion at Osborn Industries. His apparatus he wore for lab work, four mechanical arms, were now fused to his body, and he could control them telepathically. He had no memory of the accident. After a show of violence, Otto escaped the facility. He returned to his old home to find a new resident living there and took his anger out on her. Kong, who had been present when Peter was bitten by the spider that gave Peter spider powers, and had witnessed several changes in Peter’s reflexes, surmised that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. He shared his theory with Fred “Flash” Thompson and Liz Allan, who did not agree with Kong’s opinion. To try to prove his theory, Flash told Kong to attack Peter from behind, rationalizing that is Peter were Spider-Man, Peter would be able to prevent the assault. Although Peter’s spider sense warned him of Kong’s impending attack, Peter allowed Kong to get his attack in order to hide his identity. In anger of Peter being bullied, Gwen pulled a blade on Kong, threatening him should he ever bully Peter again. Gwen was pulled out of school. Gwen’s father, New York Police Department Captain John Stacy, was pulled off of a homicide case to deal with his daughter. Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich came to Editor in Chief J. Jonah Jameson with insider information about Otto Octavius. Though skeptical, Jameson told Urich to look into this story. Octavius mistakenly blamed Justin Hammer for the accident at Osborn Industries. Hammer was a businessman and rival to Norman Osborn, head of Osborn Industries, missing since the accident in the laboratory. Octavius swore revenge on Hammer for turning Octavius into a freak. Octavius broke into Hammer’s residence, but Hammer was no present at the time. Reality television star Kraven the Hunter announced he would be coming to New York City for his greatest hunt yet. Urich tipped Captain Stacy off to the possibility that Octavius was involved in the recent murder right before S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived to ask Stacy about the case. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents interrogated Hammer about his knowledge of Octavius, warning Hammer that Octavius was targeting Hammer. Kraven arrived in New York and announced that the creature he intended to hunt and kill in the City was Spider-Man. Hammer unveiled the Big Apple Energy Dome Project, a facility that would provide New York was an abundance of affordable and alternative energy sources as a distraction from the secret illegal genetic experiments he was performing in his laboratory. Octavius attacked the project. The Midtown High School student body was informed Kraven the Hunter would be filming a segment of his show at the High School, location of one of the first Spider-Man sightings. Peter heard the report of an attack on the Dome Project and swung in as Spider-Man. Octavius defeated Spider-Man and fled the scene, and Spider-Man was only able to escape S.H.I.E.L.D. agents by leaving behind a piece of Spider-Man’s costume. Mary Jane patched Peter up after Spider-Man’s beating and promised to help repair Peter’s costume. Peter barely managed to hide his injuries from his Aunt May. Peter went to school, where Gwen’s attention to Peter drew jealousy from Mary Jane. Mary Jane gave Peter Spider-Man’s costume piece replacement in time for Spider-Man to tail Hammer. Hammer received a summons from Octavius to Hammer’s laboratory, and Spider-Man rode on top of Hammer’s limo. Kraven received word of Spider-Man’s location and began his hunt. Octavius intended to expose Hammer’s illegal experiments. Spider-Man swung into action to protect Hammer and Hammer’s assistant. Spider-Man confronted both Otto Octavius and Kraven the Hunter but was unable to save the life of Justin Hammer. Peter returned home at three o’clock in the morning to find Aunt May awake waiting for Peter to return home. Peter was caught in a lie as to his whereabouts and was grounded. S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to obtain Spider-Man’s secret identity.

            Peter had to get swing time in as Spider-Man during the day due to being grounded, which made him late for school. Peter informed Mary Jane she would be unable to come over to the Parker residence. Harry Osborn returned to Midtown High School. Harry informed Peter that Norman Osborn wished to have dinner with Peter. Peter was surprised, as he believed the Goblin that attacked Midtown High School was Norman. Peter told Harry that Peter was grounded. Norman sent a limo to the Parker house, and Aunt May relented and allowed Peter to go to the Osborn residence. Norman met with Peter in private, where he induced a transformation into the Goblin and informed Peter that Spider-Man worked for Norman Osborn or else Peter’s friends and family would pay the price. Peter quickly fled the Osborn residence before dinner and returned home. Aunt May decided to lift Peter’s grounding. Peter tried to call Mary Jane to inform her about what happened, but the call was interrupted by the arrival of Gwen Stacy at the Parker residence. Gwen’s mother had run off to Chicago with a new boyfriend, and John was at work, and Gwen had been left home alone. Aunt May watched over Gwen until John was able to come pick Gwen up. The next day at school, Peter tried to tell Mary Jane about the previous night but was interrupted by both Gwen and a page by Doctor Bradley. Doctor Bradley was secretly an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Peter was introduced to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury, who informed Peter S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware Peter was Spider-Man and Norman was the Goblin. Fury told Peter that Osborn was going to have Peter kill Fury. Fury also informed Peter that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be unable to act against Osborn until Osborn actually did something illegal. Upon returning home, Peter found a limo waiting to take both Peter and Aunt May to the Osborn residence for dinner. Peter told Aunt May that Norman might be a criminal, and Aunt May turned down the dinner invitation. Spider-Man confronted the Goblin and told the Goblin that Spider-Man would not do the Goblin’s bidding. In retaliation, the Goblin abducted Mary Jane. The Goblin led Spider-Man to the Queensborough Bridge. The Goblin threw Mary Jane off of the Bridge. Spider-Man shot a web and caught her and returned to ground level, but Mary Jane was unresponsive. Now that Osborn had crossed the line, S.H.I.E.L.D. could act against Osborn. Peter’s rage against Osborn was now increased, and Spider-Man joined S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fight against the Goblin. Goblin tried to flee to the Osborn residence, where Goblin used code words Doctor Warren, the psychiatrist Norman hired in order to for Norman to control Harry, had programmed into Harry to render Harry unconscious. Goblin injected himself with more of the Goblin serum and Spider-Man faced the fury of a souped-up Goblin.

            Okay, now that we’ve got a rather lengthy summary out of the way, let’s move on to my perspective parts of this review. My previous readers know I always start with my own personal opinions on the book when I do a review, and I will do the same once again. I will say that I thoroughly loved this book. I’ve actually read the issues collected in this book both individually and in other collection formats many times before, and the original “Ultimate Spider-Man” is very much a favorite of mine. This series began right before I started regularly reading Marvel Comics, so this series was an entry point for me into Spider-Man comics as this was a new universe where all of Spider-Man history had never happened. I could really relate to fifteen-year-old Peter Parker, being thirteen years old myself at the time I started reading the series. This series also came out before the first “Spider-Man” movie, so there weren’t a lot of retellings of Spider-Man’s origin story available at the time. I have been a fan of Brian Michael Bendis’ work since “Ultimate Spider-Man,” I think he is a brilliant writer. I thought the stories in this book were phenomenal. I love Ultimate Gwen Stacy, I think she is absolutely a bad (word I’m not going to use on this blog). I loved how she stood up to Kong for bullying Peter, and then friction she caused between Peter and Mary Jane was great drama. I will also say I enjoyed that Bendis didn’t make Aunt May a sweet doting old lady like Stan Lee created, rather a strict woman who exerts authority. I enjoyed that change. Aunt May grounding Peter actually made the story more entertaining for me because it impacted Peter’s activities as Spider-Man and gave him limitations. I also liked Bendis’ interpretation of the Goblin, being an actual monstrosity who could fly and shoot energy blasts, rather than just being a man in a costume flying around on a glider throwing out weapons. I liked how Bendis made Kraven the Hunter a reality television star, but I will say that Kraven has never really been one of my favorite Spider-Man villains, and I will say I feel Bendis totally nerfed him. I think Doctor Octopus was done perfectly in this book. I enjoyed the amnesia and the derangement and the desire for revenge. And to top this off on things I liked about this book, Mark Bagley is my favorite comic book artist, I love his work, I think he has a fantastic artistic style and his work in this book was nothing short of amazing. If there is something I didn’t like about this book, it was that is didn’t include “Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special” #1, which concluded the story about the “be a superhero” assignment. The fact it was left out made the whole plotline feel like it was for no reason and that it went nowhere. I know the previous formats didn’t include it, and I was hoping the Ultimate Epic Collection might fix this, but alas, it didn’t, so I was slightly disappointed by that. I will also say I found the choice of title odd. None of the other formats have ever used the title “Hunted” before, so this kind of came out of left field. This book had fourteen issues in it, each with a different title, and the previous formats used two titles, and the choice they used was one that I don’t feel was ideal for this book. “Hunted” just doesn’t capture the essence of the book as a whole, in my opinion. I’m not going to speculate on what would have been the best title for this book as I think that very few of them would be perfect representations of the book as a whole, and I think they all have their flaws when it comes to being the ideal title for this particular collection. What I found very interesting was the cover. Usually, the cover of an Epic Collection is the cover of one of the issues contained in the book. This collection uses a panel from one page inside one of the issues as the cover. I actually approve of this choice. While, yes, there are covers inside this book that would have worked as a cover for this collection, I think this choice works perfectly. It was a bold choice, in my opinion, and they didn’t have to do it and there were plenty of other options to choose from, but I thought choosing a panel instead of an individual issue cover fits this book just fine. Overall, I found this book to be an enjoyable read and I loved experiencing it again.

            Next up on our list of topics to cover while doing this review, we’re going to discuss accessibility. If you’ve read more than one of my reviews before, you know exactly what’s coming next because I’ve been over this over seven dozen times already, but every time I write a review, I always have new readers who have never consumed a Tim Cubbin review before and might not know what I mean when I use the word “accessibility.” So, what I’m asking here is, is this book accessible? And what I mean is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about Spider-Man at all, or have no knowledge of the plotlines outside this book, decide to read this book and then completely understand the whole story in its entirety based solely on what is contained in this volume alone. I will tell you this book is relatively accessible. It does continue directly out of the previous volume, picking up on its stories and continuing where it left off, that is true, but to me, I don’t feel like having read the previous stories is an absolute necessity to read this volume. Having read the previous volume makes this volume fully accessible. This is marketed as Vol. 2, so there is a little bit of backstory. But the issues in this book are all consecutive issues of one series and don’t tie-into any other series or storylines or crossover or rely on knowledge of other series or characters outside of this volume. And the stories in this book don’t pick up from an unfinished ending of the previous volume and don’t leave an unresolved conclusion hanging directly into the next volume. Yes, it continues from the foundation of Vol. 1, but I don’t feel like reading it is absolutely essential to enjoying this volume.

            Moving on, we’re going to move on to the scoring. I know some people feel that a numeric score is the most important part of my reviews. I can’t completely agree with that. It’s beneficial for me to discuss the story as well, and talking about my personal opinions establishes a lot, even saying if the book is accessible helps, and it’s key to know if I’d give the book a personal recommendation, so I think each part of my reviews are important in their own way. But I will say that the score is a very essential point in my reviews. So obviously it would help if I explained my scoring system first. I know if you’ve read more than one of my reviews before, you know the gist of what I’m about to say, but again, I have the newbs who don’t know how this works, so I have to explain the system to benefit them. Well, my scoring system is extremely simple. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If I score the book at a one, that is the lowest score, and that means this book is absolute trash and not worth reading. However, if I score the book at a ten, that means the book is sheer perfection and one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life. Let us not forget that this is a graphic novel, so we have to take several things into consideration when scoring this book. Obviously we’re going for story, that’s a very key thing to look at when scoring, but we also have to take into consideration if the art is actually at peak, too; and on top of that, we have to look if the title lives up to what its name implies it will give us. And yes, I even look at the cover, if what it shows us on the front of this book is actually accurate to the essence of the book. I loved so much about this book, and while I would love to score it at a ten, I just can’t. The title just doesn’t feel right to me, and the exclusion of “Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special” #1 just makes the “be a superhero” assignment storyline feel like it goes nowhere and would make anyone who hasn’t read the “Super Special” wonder why these scenes are even included in this collection at all, so deduction on the score is imperative. However, I don’t feel like being harsh on this book either. So, when all is said and done and I give out my numeric score, the number we are looking at is… a nine! I feel like this book exceeded expectations and highly excelled and while it did have a few flaws, they were only minor. This book was close to perfection for me, and I really would love to have given it a ten, but there were just a few things holding me back, the title being one of the biggest ones. All-in-all though, I thought this was an excellent book.

            Continuing on with our agenda of topics to discuss, we’re going to do the recommendation segment. This segment answers two separate questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers, and if you are reading this review and are intrigued by what I’ve written, should you now try to obtain this book and read it as well, based solely on the words I’ve just spent the past several hours typing? The second question is regardless of the answer to my first question, and it is, whom do I think would be the best audiences for this book, besides the obvious answers of Spider-Man fans, Marvel fans, or fans of the creative team? I could probably skip the first question as it’s pretty obvious what I’m going to say, but the answer is yes, I recommend this book to anyone reading these words or who is unfortunate enough to find themselves caught up in a conversation about this graphic novel with me. If you’re interested in reading this book now just because of me, I’d highly recommend going to a bookstore, or your favorite comic book store, or your preferred online retailer, or your local library, or (if you’re lucky enough) from a Marvelite friend or relative, and get a copy as soon as you can. In answer to question number two, I feel like the best audience is teenagers who want to read a comic book as they will find the characters most relatable. I also feel like if you like soap operas and are interested in print medium, this book captures the essence of a daytime drama in an action and science fiction format.

            Well, we’re just about ready to part ways for this review. There are a few things I do have to say first before I hit publish. First off, I’ve been doing this blog for five and a half years now. I’ve published over 180 posts. A lot of them are reviews just like this. I’ve reviewed a lot of Marvel Epic Collections, particularly Modern Era Epic Collections, and right now, the main focus of this blog is reviewing Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. I have reviewed comic book events, prose novels, and manga as well. I’ve also posted short stories, poems, articles, essays, and editorials, so there’s plenty of other content to check out, so keep browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com for more of my work. If you liked this post and have some more free time, please check out my review of “Ultimate Spider-Man: Learning Curve” for more “Ultimate Spider-Man” content. My next post is going to be “Black Widow: Widowmaker” which will be posted within the next two months following this post, so keep checking back for it if you liked this post and want to continue reading my new works. I post on a very frequent basis as I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after its release and post a review on the earliest day I have free after I’ve finished reading the Epic Collection. I’m going to keep this blog going as long as I can, so you can expect to see this going on for a while as my doctor yesterday told me I’m healthier than she is. I love doing this blog and even though I don’t get paid for it, I still do it as professionally as I can. I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, so doing this blog puts me in the field, since my actual job is working in a grocery store. Anyway, if you read all the way to this point, you are THE BEST! I appreciate you. Feel free to like, share, retweet, comment, and tell your friends about me, and please keep coming back for more, as I’ll keep dishing out plenty more content on this blog. That’s all I have to say for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!