About Heroes

This Review was Submitted by Knightwingbk

Writer: Bendis
Artists: Mark Bagley & Scott Hanna

I just beat the Ultimate Spiderman Videogame yesterday (I'm slow getting it ok? Go get it, its cool!) and I got reinterested in the Ultimate versions of Venom and Carnage, so here's part 1, Carnage. Though really if you haven't read the Ultimate Venom storyline you might be a little lost reading this one, although there is no direct correlation to one another.

I like this trade, i read it relatively quick though, in about 30 minutes, prolly cuz I've read it before. The story deals with Peter, Dr Curt Conners, and gene splicing. The long short of it is this. Dr. Conners, after stitching up Peter splices his blood with his own and uses Peter's father's gene work to make it stronger, inadvertantly creating an organism that feeds off people. This creates some tragic consequences for Peter. Bendis is in his full swing with this arc, 60 issues into Ultimate Spiderman. He has a feel for the characters, and his "less is less, more is more" dialogue style suits teenagers. Because really, thats how we talk. OK, I'm 19 going on 20 (August 6, send me a card!) so I'm not really a teenager, but I'm pretty damn close. That's how we talked, and for a 35-40 year old man, Bendis is in touch with his inner teenager. Maybe its the fanboy in him. One thing I've really loved about Bendis is his Ultimate Spiderman work, and okay, the Spiderman quips in new Avengers ("oh yeah? I've got clones" or "Have you ever smelled Doctor Doom?"). I think he writes those beautifully. His Ultimate Spiderman is full of them, and with its happy-go-lucky tone, it fits very well. Is Bendis someone to write Batman, Spawn, Moon Knight, or the Punisher regularly? Hell no. Those dark characters would not fit Bendis best (if only I could've used more alliteration there, lol). But Bendis writing young Spiderman? Yes! His decompressed writing is less evident here, probably because the trade omits the obvious issue breaks by putting the covers in the back. This makes the trade seem like a one-shot, and it reads as such. Reading the issues month to month I might not have been impressed, but here I quite liked the outcome.

Back to the plot. After Peter defeats some wayward villians, he fights Carnage (whom is never named such, here its just the storyarc title). Peter fights Carnage (in a flashback sequence for some reason...) and disposes of him fairly quickly, leaving almost no room for a return or more development. Its like Bendis realized that like the "616" version (I hate using that euphamism for "regular Marvel universe" its lame, wtf is 616 anyway?) the Ultimate Carnage can be limited to only so many stories, in this case, one. And perhaps, that is what served this story best, the fact that the "villain" was there to set up some emotional reaction to Peter, and not to be a Batman type villain hijacking the book, or movie in Batman's case. This sets Peter up to become more of the "tragic hero". Like Odysseus, Peter Parker is defined as a hero by the tragic events in his life. Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, etc. What did not service the story was Bendis' two page spreads. He has 4 or 5 of these in the trade, and because of the trade setup, some of the smaller panels and dialougue that lie close to the middle end up getting lost to the reader. You have to pry open the book and ruin the spine to read them. There is a two page spread that contains a touching and pivotal conversation between Gwen and Mary Jane, and 3 panels and 2 balloons are lost due to the spine. I blame this on Bendis b/c i think he thumbnails all of his books. If its Bagley's fault, shame on him too, because I can't see some more of his beautiful artwork.

Which brings me to Bagley. I think he is fantastic. In terms of facial expressions, there might be no one better. In all of the Ultimate Spiderman trades I have, I love reading them because Bagley can do Bendis' "talking heads" thing, as well as the action scenes kinetically. Any shot of anger, sadness, sympathy, or happiness is fully realized in a way i don't think any other comic artist today can do (Honorable Mention to Jim Lee in that last All Star Batman issue for Robin's expressions). As a standalone trade this one may lose some people who haven't been reading Ultimate Spiderman, but as another chapter in the Ultimate Spiderman saga, I rate it a C+, for its set-up, emotional depth, and characterization.