Ultimate Spiderman Vol 3: Double Trouble Review - Doc Ock and Kraven the Hunter!
Written: Jul 29 '09 (Updated Jul 29 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good artwork/story
Cons: tries to do too much, weaker compared to other volumes
The Bottom Line: Not the best of the series- you can certainly pass on this volume if you want.
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| t13monkeys's Full Review: Brian Michael Bendis - Double Trouble: Ultimate Sp... |
Collecting issues #14-21 of the series, Ultimate Spiderman has had a great run so far with Brian Michael Bendis at the helm and Mark Bagley for the pencils. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and the series is going to run into some mediocrity with the introduction of Kraven and Doc Ock. It follows the Spiderman 3 movie problem, throw in too many villains, spread your plot thin and end up with a storyline that is tolerable, but shallow and lacking.
Spiderman after his shocking revelation to MJ from the 2nd volume strangely kind of gets to sidestep the consequences as he faces off against Doc Ock who’s trying to get revenge on the people who allowed his body to be fused to the metal instruments that are now his arms while evading capture from the reality show Crocodile Dundee-like Kraven the Hunter. It is a bit of a downer that Kraven ended up a truly 2-d character this time around, with another detriment also being Doc Ock’s lack of back story, which offers little more than the typical revenge plot.
Even despite the introduction of a key character: Gwen Stacy, there just isn’t too much that Spiderman has to struggle with. Gwen is no longer the other nerdy girl next door that has captured Parker’s heart. Bendis recreates her as a rock punker chick, and with Bagley doing the drawing, the fashion is a bit ludicrous. As most fans probably know, Bagley’s major fault is that he draws high schoolers like they are from the 80s, and the star/stud embroidered shirt that Gwen sports plus the leather frills around her pants just would never pass in any high school in 2000. It’s a shame because despite his art really starting to mesh well with the Spiderman look, the fashion problems throughout detract from the book’s appeal.
So despite some nitpicks on the story, while Ultimate Spiderman Vol 3 isn’t a great story, it’s not a bad one either, and worth reading just to get the details of Spidey’s life up to this point. Had Bendis balanced the book more, rather than making it a Parker-centric story early on and then switching to a Spidey-centric story for the latter half of the arc, it might have been more interesting, but because of the way he sets things up, it ends up having slight drama and then your typical kick/smash slugfest. Borrow it if you can, but not a must-own story for Spiderman fans.
Recommended:
No
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t13monkeys
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