Revolutionary War - Alpha 1, Cataclysm - Ultimates' Last Stand 3, Cataclysm - Ultimate Spider-Man 3

Revolutionary War - Alpha 1
Lanning and Cowsill (w) and Elson (a) and Fabela (c)

Geez that's a long post title with just a whole bunch of hyphens. Anyway, Marvel UK is back on the map with REVOLUTIONARY WAR and this is our opening shot to the series. Of course, plenty of these characters haven't been seen for a while so we're due for a bit of recap and character summarization which the writers provide in excruciating detail. On top of that, we learn a bit about our plot; there had been an organization of techno-wizards (it's always wizards in Britain) from around 1000 AD who had made a deal with Mephisto to grant them immortality. Somewhat recently, though, they had established a corporation called Mys-Tech and fed Mephisto more and more souls in exchange for keeping their own alive. Of course, they got to a point where they wanted to stay immortal but break from their contract. To do so, they found a great deal of artifacts and alien tech to help them and realized that they could get out of their contract if they sacrificed Great Britain's entire population to Mephisto. They tried and everyone fought at the Battle of London Bridge (covered up, of course, by MI-13). Plenty of heroes died in the battle but Mys-Tech was stopped. OR SO IT SEEMED. Colonel Tigon Liger (yes, that's a real Marvel UK hero's name. I know, I rolled my eyes too) has been a drunk since the battle, where he was forced to make the decision to close Mys-Tech's portal to hell before they could bring hell to Earth even though several of their fighters were on the other side. Now they're all coming back to make the world burn.

There's an interesting story in here but I'm a little nervous about the writing of this first issue alone. There is a lot of ground to cover to establish our characters and our history here, which is undoubtedly why the first heroes we see and the ones who we spend the most time with in this issue are our biggest current UK characters in Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom. Conveniently, Wisdom wasn't around for the Battle of London Bridge so he needs as much catching up as we do. I watched the first 15 minutes or so of the pilot for CBS' new drama Intelligence the other day and had to shut it off because it was very clear that the series wasn't really aiming for subtext anywhere (I have plenty of problems with CBS and this is definitely a recurring one). Characters were constantly fully defining other characters so we didn't actually have to learn about a character, we could just be told ("you DO need a handler even though you're a great asset! I know you need a handler because your last mission was to find the location of the nukes in Mongolia, and you went off mission looking for her. I know you don't want to hear this again but your wife, Amelia, is dead. She was captured long ago and we lost contact with her and she's definitely dead" is pretty much the gist of it). That's a little how this issue feels and it's not how you want to dive into a book, with all of this unnatural exposition and dialogue. I'm hoping that now the first issue is out of the way things start to feel a little more natural but we'll see. The story seems good enough to hold up the series, let's just hope it has the chance to.

Cataclysm - Ultimates' Last Stand 3
Bendis (w) and Bagley and Hennessy (a) and Keith (c)

Under Tony Stark's instruction (and armed with one of his repulsors), Spider-Man is going into the 616 with Reed Richards to ensure that he stays on mission and comes home with the right answer to stop Galactus. Despite protests from Sue and others, Reed and Miles set off and quickly make it to the 616's Baxter Building. They break in with relative ease (you'd think Reed would program in security to stop alternate dimension F4s from getting in, considering how frequently it comes up, but apparently not) and download the data on Galactus without being spotted. However, Valeria shows up as they're about to leave and recognizes that Reed isn't her Reed and the security turns on them. Reed, who had copied two different flash drives with Galactus info and given one to Miles and kept one in case they got separated, tells Miles to go and to get back and deliver the information. He does, ditching the security robots on the other Spider-Man who happens to be swinging by (don't TOTALLY understand how that works, their costumes aren't that similar and there are pretty obvious size differences), and he makes it back to the Ultimate Universe to deliver the info. Before they can question him too long about Reed, Reed makes his way back through the portal. He apologizes to Sue for ruining their life, now that he's seen what they could have had and how beautiful the world really is.

Really cheesy ending and I guess I don't totally buy it? I don't know. This Reed is very strange and it's hard to pin down his personality, exactly. Sometimes he's an aloof psychotic genius and sometimes he's just a psychotic 616 Reed. Look, either way he's pretty psychotic. I get that seeing the way things turned out for an alternate dimension you would change things, potentially, and even meeting your potential daughter could change things but this seems like an abrupt turnaround. Of course, it could all be a lie and he could be playing them but who knows. Anyway, this is a super weird event for me. It's interesting enough and all the books are focusing on interesting parts of the event but I've never had an event that is so hard to distinguish book from book. Characters appear in several books at once, plot seems to move in every book but it's hard to tell which plot is the main plot, etc. I know some of those issues may seem petty, but it's been a little weird to read an issue then see it advertise the next issue of CATACLYSM (the main series) and be surprised that that wasn't what I was reading. It's melding together, which is kind of a good thing but also kind of weird to actually see happen. I guess we'll just have to wait for this one to end before I can tell if the layout worked for me.

Cataclysm - Ultimate Spider-Man 3
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Ponsor (c)

A plane from Great Britain didn't understand in time not to go to Newark because there is no more Newark (I get that no one is anticipating anything like Galactus but I imagine pilots are pretty well-trained to go to a different airport if the tower is telling them to go to a different airport) and, as a result, flies directly at Galactus. It comes crashing down in pieces including right at the foot of the Morales' apartment while Jefferson yells at Miles for being Spider-Man, who Jefferson decides is responsible for the deaths of both his brother and his wife. He says a lot of horrible things and is generally horrible until Miles has to leave him to go help with the plane wreckage, asking him to wait until he can come back and save him. With the help of Spider-Woman, Cloak and Dagger, and Bombshell, they manage to save the survivors (including a very strange J. Jonah Jameson) and teleport them to a Pittsburgh hospital. Miles returns home to find that Jefferson has left as Cap calls him in to help with the Galactus business (as seen in CATACLYSM - ULTIMATES' LAST STAND).

That Jefferson guy is a real jerk. There's a sense, as there has been throughout Miles' story, that we're supposed to find Jefferson as aggressive and quick-to-anger and particularly against Spider-Man, obviously unjustly but with limited information that we can all supposedly understand. It doesn't always read that way, though, and this is no exception. Not to say that he wouldn't act this way in this moment but I can never get a real feel for the character. Sometimes he seems tolerant and like love of his family conquers all (particularly love and pride in his son) and sometimes it seems like he's just gone crazy. I had problems with him earlier in this series too, as he suddenly became a freedom fighter or something. That was pretty weird. Anyway, nice little team-up for the five teenage superheroes we've seen dominating this book recently and presumably a turnaround on this Spider-Man from J. Jonah Jameson (all it takes is for every Ultimate Spider-Man to save his life individually, it seems). More good Marquez art and solid Ponsor colors help the story along.

Superior Spider-Man 21, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 5, Cataclysm - Ultimate Spider-Man 1

Superior Spider-Man 21
Slott (w) and Camuncoli and Dell (a) and Fabela (c)

Old Doc Ock girlfriend Stunner, previously thought dead, is back and on the prowl, hunting down the man who she believes killed her old boyfriend. The woman who was Stunner, Angelina Brancale, is in a near vegetative state but she's been able to construct a virtual reality sort of mechanism that allows her avatar (still Stunner) to search the streets. Doc has no time for this, as shocked as he is to see Stunner alive again. He's busy plotting revenge on Lamaze, who had the gall to suggest he stole his work from Otto Octavius. He can't ignore Stunner, though, and manages to have his spider-bots trace the signal back to the real Angelina, who he confronts. He uses her own equipment to present himself as Otto to her and tell her that he still loves her but he's found someone new and that they both need to move on and hey, don't be mad at Spider-Man, maybe? She agrees to this and he uses the equipment again to have Otto pay a visit to Lamaze, where he convinces the professor that Peter was Otto's assistant and all of the ideas that Otto came up with were actually Peter's, but that Lamaze shouldn't tell anyone. Lamaze rescinds his complaint to the board and Peter is all but certain to be made a doctor. Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper goes to "Doc Ock's" grave and places flowers, swearing to the grave that she'll make sure everything is put right. Unfortunately, before she can do that, she falls into the empty grave (there's no body!) and she's secreted away by the Goblins, who find her journal as well.

I've been reading a lot of compliments of this issue on Twitter (granted, they're posted and retweeted by Dan Slott) and I have to say that I don't really see it. I don't think this issue was bad, per se, I just don't think it was particularly earth-shattering. The Carlie stuff seems to be going on forever, the Stunner stuff seemed less of a threat than a means to an end (letting Peter use the equipment to solve his problems), there was more relationship stuff with Anna Maria (how everyone in the world doesn't realize that Peter Parker is Spider-Man is the biggest example of suspension of disbelief in a comic where someone was bitten by a radioactive spider, granted spider powers, mind-swapped, and killed) but it just kind of solidifies what we've already seen plenty of, and the Lamaze threatening to derail the doctor stuff was kind of already a weak premise (would it really have held up that Peter had "stolen" his data from unpublished works?). That leaves the biggest exciting plot point the fact that there's no body in the grave, I suppose, but it's hard to even see that as a big moment as that could be indicative of just about anything. Not my favorite issue of the series; Slott said on his Twitter that the "cracks are starting to show" for Doc Ock but I'm not even sure I feel that particularly from this. He nearly indicates to Stunner that he's Doc Ock in order to save his life and presumably because he still feels something for her, but how often are ex-girlfriends of Doc liable to show up? We've already seen Aunt May so, you know, that should about cover it all. Next issue will invoke the other spiders (Venom and Kaine, or at least Venom to start) so I'm pretty excited about that, hoping for a stand-out issue.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man 5
Spencer (w) and Lieber (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Boomerang is leading his crew on an attack of Owl's hideout, a risky attack at best and one that hasn't been thought out particularly thoroughly, at least not by Boomerang. Beetle is still harboring resentment about the coup on her leadership and drew up plans for everyone for the attack, but Boomerang refuses to use them. Eventually he has to refer back to them, though, as he almost instantly gets lost. His team goes on ahead of him while he covers their rear before discovering that a service elevator they previously thought out of service to be working. His team continues to fight their way, tooth and nail, through a gauntlet of challenges while Boomerang leisurely makes his way to the basement, securing "the most valuable and sought after piece of art on this Earth - - 'The True Face of Victor Von Doom.'" A painting, not the head of Silvermane, which Boomerang asserts does not actually exist. Meanwhile, city workers dig the car Boomerang sent into a lake out of said lake, allowing Shocker to break free again. He runs into a child and his dog at the junkyard he ends up at and, lo and behold, it's the same child from the story Boomerang told in SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN 3, a child who has befriended the head of Silvermane. Shocker grabs the head and runs off.

If you clicked that link above, you won't find my description of the story with the child in the summary; rather you'll find it in the analysis where I complain about how long it took to relate, particularly as it seemed to have no bearing on the plot. Okay, whatever, APPARENTLY it has some bearing on the plot after all and I maybe should have gone into it a little more. The last thing I need is comics telling me I don't summarize enough on this blog. Anyway, this issue has a nice feel to it. I think either this comic has pretty firmly found its footing or, as the audience, I've come to understand the feel better. Either way, the comic is working well and it has a sense of fun and a sense of story that I think matches the art and the tone it's striving for extremely well. Where the plot is going is another question entirely but there are certainly things to be intrigued by, including the near-continual breakdown of the team, Shocker's re-emergence, and Boomerang's insistence on being leader though he's not qualified for it. Fun writing, fun layout, fun art, just an overall pretty fun book.

Cataclysm - Ultimate Spider-Man 1
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Ponsor w/ Mounts (c)

Cataclysm has fully hit the Ultimate Universe and it promises to bring destruction with it, possibly ending in the demise of the Ultimate Universe as a whole. Among those in its way are the characters of Spider-Man land, including Miles himself, Jessica Drew, Cloak and Dagger, and Lana Baumgartner (Bombshell). This issue shows exactly what all of them are up to in the moments before Galactus' appearance. Miles is dozing off in class before going out on patrol, where he's greeted extremely favorably by cops. Jessica is presenting her case for not being fired to Monica Chang and the Ultimates, who are unaware of what happened and her background but are fully on her side when they hear. Cloak and Dagger try to return to Dagger's home only to find that her family moved away, leaving them both with their lasting anger. Lana meets with her parole officer who informs her that her latest antics (covered by local newspapers) can get her arrested for using her powers again. Then Galactus shows up.

There is kind of a feeling to this issue that Bendis wishes he had another one before entering into Cataclysm, one to set everything up a little more firmly. So instead, this is that issue. Galactus doesn't appear until the very last page and everything else that's happening, while important to these characters, is nearly unrelated to the actual event, or so it seems. Of course, it does ensure that we see all of these characters, recently teamed in their fight against Roxxon, in the battle against Galactus in the coming issues of CATACLYSM - ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN and it gives us a little idea of where they landed after the fact. The most important part, then, seems to be that everyone has found reasons to fight. Jessica obviously was already fighting but she informs the Ultimates that Miles is back and looking good, Miles is encouraged by the positive reception he gets, Ty and Tandy are pushed by their anger, and Lana is beginning to feel like she was meant to be a superhero and that doing the right thing is worthwhile in and of itself. So there's enough happening here that the story moves pretty well, particularly as a sort of cool-down from the last few issues and a link between those and the next few but it comes at something of a strange time. I do think the book doesn't hurt from the cool-down (though we already had several issues in a row just before this last arc that showed Miles dealing with internal struggles that could serve as something of a cool-down) but to place a relax issue at the start of an event is an odd decision. It feels like either Bendis had too little time for his last arc or has too much or the next one. Neither option is particularly thrilling.