So, I’ve been reading Ultimate Spider-Man lately (bye-bye, decent exam-period meals), and at first I thought it would be boring to read a superhero comic with only one superhero. I imagined it would be far less interesting than the more group-oriented superhero comics I’ve read before, like Astonishing and Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, as there wouldn’t be as much character interaction. Man, was I wrong.

Thing is, obviously (hindsight is, and so on…), that the plethora of characters in especially Ultimate X-Men (the one I’ve read the most of) didn”t really facilitate character interaction at all. For that it was too action-y, but more importantly, each character required so much time to be established, there weren’t really any time for depth. It was all shallow width. The fact that it was (is; I always forget that the things isn’t closed down just yet) written by an almost as confusing plethora of writers, none of whom stayed with the comic for longer periods of time, and none of whom seemed to care too much about continuity, about taking into account previous plot and character arcs. They cared about it, sure, but not much. And so, you get stuff like several hardcover collections where nothing memorable really happens. The X-Men fight some generic Marvel bad guy, they have some minor internal drama, and that’s it. Minimal progress. Then, of course, there’s the abhorrent Beast incident. Sigh.

Ultimate Spider-Man, on the other hand, is written pretty much by the same guy. I seem to remember hearing or reading that Bendis left at one point, but he’s stayed on for the first seven trade paperbacks so far (that’s how far I’ve read), and I imagine he’ll be around for at least a couple more. So if we overlook some minor elements, like how Eddie Brock is a middle-aged journalist in the Doc Ock storyline, then becomes a young student and childhood friend of Peter Parker in the Venom arc, the continuity’s great. This is especially true for the character arcs, which soundly disproves my ridiculous fantasy about there being less character interaction in single-hero comis. There might not be more, but the limited population, so to speak, allows the writer to flesh out his characters, and thus create both proper background for real, touching character interaction, of a whole differne scope than in Ultimate X-Men, and to create scenes like the closing one in TPB #7, where Aunt May goes to see her therapist.

So, in conclusion, a big, hearty “thank you!” to Loki for getting me hooked on this stuff, and a mental memo to myself to remind myself to read Ultimate X-Men again this summer, as I feel like my presentation of the series here is a wee bit too harsh.

Well, I’m off to see how Spidey fares with Black Cat and Electra. Ciao! :D