Ultimate Comics Avengers vs. New Ultimates: Death of Spider-Man
Or, “Ultimate Comics Avengers vol. 4” if you’re inclined like me. I’m assuming that the “Death of Spider-Man” subtitle was added on to the original “Avengers vs. New Ultimates” title from the mini-series for purposes of cashing in on the event. That’s because while there is a definite connection to the “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” story, it’s by no means the central story being told here and except for one moment mostly occupies the background when writer Mark Millar tries to give this story some emotional resonance that he can’t provide on his own. Yes, this is the last title I’m planning to read from him for the forseeable future as I’ve had just about all I can take of his tone-deaf dialogue and pointless attitude. I will give him credit for crafting a story that actually has enough plot to sustain the six issues collected here, but aside from some great art this is only marginally better than the last two volumes.
In the wake of the vampire attack on the Triskelion, and its subsequent teleportation to Iran, it’s revealed that someone has been stealing the U.S.’s superhuman secrets and selling them to foreign nations. The Ultimates, led by Carol Danvers, find out that it’s Nick Fury and start making plans to bring him in. At the same time Fury’s team of Avengers learns that Danvers is the traitor and proceed to do the same. Someone here is clearly wrong, and it’s going to take a showdown between the two teams in New York and massive superhuman sponsored pro-democracy uprisings all over the world before the truth comes out.
After two arcs that could’ve been told in half the space they were allotted, Millar finally gives us a story that has enough action to last for the full six issues. Seeing the conflict build and finally erupt between the two teams was reasonably engaging, and things don’t go completely off the rails once the bad guy reveals himself and his master plan comes into action. However, the story is filled with significant moments that fall completely flat and unsatisfying payoffs to threads introduced in the first “Ultimate Avengers” volume. The villain’s reveal is the biggest such moment, as though it does answer my question as to why this character was created in the first place he has remained such a cipher that it’s hard to care about his betrayal in the first place. To be perfectly honest, you could’ve swapped out just about any character in for this guy and still achieved the same desired effect. Yes, the nature of his comeuppance does set up a rift between Tony Stark and Thor, but even that falls flat as the former should be more upset about how he chose to phrase things in a critical moment.
You’ve also got how “The Spider,” the Tao-alike introduced in the first volume, is revealed to have had a purpose that bears little connection at all to his introduction and also fulfills a role that could’ve been done by just about anyone else. As for the much-vaunted tie in to “The Death of Spider-Man,” that’s something I’ll have to come back to when I read the story myself. Based on how it’s presented here, his death comes off as particularly ignominious as he didn’t take a bullet so that Captain America could live, but rather so that the character could continue to go through life with both kneecaps intact. In light of this, the reference to his death towards the end of the collection feels like a cheap, pandering ploy to give this story a sense of tragedy and importance that it doesn’t earn on its own.
At least it looks great thanks to Lenil Yu, with an impressively indistinguishable assist from Stephen Segovia. He comes out of the gate swinging with his large-scale depiction of the fallout from the previous arc and the Ultimate’s assault on a train in snowy Bulgaria. Things only get more epic from there, culminating in a massive superhero free-for-all in Pyongyang, North Korea. Yu is on fine form throughout, and the level of detail is impressively consistent in comparison to his previous work on vol. 2. Though I couldn’t pick out any particular scenes, I’m guessing that’s down to Segovia’s seamless contributions.
Millar has stated that he’s done writing superhero comics for Marvel and is now going to focus exclusively on writing creator-owned titles for himself and other artists. Some of these titles like “Supercrooks,” “The Secret Service,” and “Jupiter’s Children” sound like they have interesting premises, but I just know that they’re not going to live up to their potential based on the writer’s patented execution. The man has a talent for hyping his own projects that boggles the mind, but he really hasn’t done anything to evolve as a writer since he struck it big with “The Authority” over a decade ago. Seeing how his stock has risen astronomically in comics, Hollywood, and even the Scottish political arena I doubt he sees any reason to fix what’s broken. Until he does, I’ll be staying away.