Posts Tagged ‘spider-man’

I've loved Spider-Man for over 40 years, but nothing in all that run entertained me as much as the "Ultimate Spider-Man" series by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley.

A reinvented Spider-Man, with all the humor and relationships and twisty plots that I loved from my childhood but with relevance to today, an incredible ear for teenage language, and a fresh new look at the same old characters. Through all of the occasionally questionable decisions Marvel has made with their major books the last few years, "Ultimate Spider-man" has remained my always-buy favorite. This is a great way to get started with this amazing series.

Here are the first 5 hardcover collections, pulling together issues #1 – 59, plus extras, interviews, sketches and more. All of them are first printing and in excellent condition. Bought, read once, shelved.

Vol. 1: Collects #1-13 and Amazing Fantasy #15. Out of print.
Vol. 2: Collects #14-27. Out of print.
Vol. 3: Collects #28-39, plus the hard-to-find Ultimate Spider-Man 1/2. Out of print.
Vol. 4: Collects #40-45, and 47-53.
Vol. 5: Collects Ultimate Spider-Man #46, Ultimate Six #1-7, and Ultimate Spider-Man #54-59.

Auction's over tomorrow night, so don't delay!

That was pretty much my reaction just now. Even though I write about geek issues I don't read all the trades, and somehow I completely failed to find out ahead of time that Ultimate Spider-Man #133 was the last one in the series, to be followed by two one-shot comics this summer and then a new relaunch into Ultimate Comics Spider-Man.

Usually, avoiding spoilers works in my favor. I can be surprised, the dramatic and comedic beats hit as they're supposed to without any anticipation from me so their impact is all the harder. In this case, it was a loud "WTF?!?" followed by some frantic Googling to discover what, indeed, was the F.

Major spoilers coming. If you'd rather skip that, here's the short version: I was disappointed in every way imaginable, and I have to assume that Brian Michael Bendis had a gun held to his head.

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