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Hello there! Padawan J here, the resident Star Wars expert from the ODPH! And this week I’m going to be reviewing the 7th issue in the Ultimate Spider-Man series from Marvel & Jonathan Hickman!
This whole series is probably the one I look forward to the most every month, yes more than the various Star Wars comics. The original Ultimate Spider-Man comics from Brian Michael Bendis and Marvel were the comics that really got me into reading a whole series of comics, and not just an individual issue here or there. I would seek out the trade paperbacks at my local library eveytime I went, and I’d re-read them so many times. And the series also spawned one of my favorite video games of the PlayStation 2 era! So to see the concept get picked back up has me very excited! With that said, let’s jump into it!
Ultimate Spider-Man #7 by Jonathan Hickman (writer), Marco Checchetto (artist), Matthew Wilson (color artist), VC’s Cory Petit (letterer), Marco Checchetto & Matthew Wilson (cover artists) is a very interesting read that doesn’t have a ton of action, and that’s not a bad thing. The story that’s told in this issue is an interesting one, and I really have to question the judgement of one of the characters (you can take a guess who) because I do NOT agree with what they decide to do.
The main focus of the issue is with Harry Osborn (aka The Green Goblin), Peter Parker and Otto Octavius. They’re at an Oscorp lab inspecting the Stark suit Harry has been using. Otto is impressed by the tech and even goes so far as to call it, “the perfect war machine”. Their main focus is turning the suits (both Harry’s and Peter’s) on. They’re both incredibly built and have about every bell and whistle on them. The biggest feature is the A.I. on board. Otto tells them they can put anybody almost anyone as a “personality” into the AI. And without spoiling it I’ll say that Peter’s makes sense, and Harry’s I seriously question. Harry’s choice is not going to end well for him, and you can already see the seeds of that being planted here.
The other side stories in the issue are interesting to see play out down the road. MJ’s doesn’t really do anything for me to be 100% honest. Jonah, Ben & Robbie could be very interesting but time will tell. And the Fisk story is good, but this issue is just a slow burn. So we’ll see where that goes.
My favorite part of the issue is the back & forth Harry and Peter have. They’ve tried so hard of the years through various iterations to try to be friends, and every single time it falls apart after a while. It’s nice to see them working together right now, because I get the feeling it isn’t going to be lasting very long.
FINAL POINT: While the issue doesn’t have any major action sequences, it does have some fantastic story building moments. I get the feeling that Hickman is building to something big with the first series of issues and I know it isn’t going to disappoint. It’s a great read for any Spider-Man fans that you should absolutely pick up this week.
SCORE: 8.0 out of 10
Thanks for checking out my review on Nerd Initiative. For more of my content, check out ODPHpodcast.com, follow me on Twitter, and check out more of my reviews here on Nerd Initiative: https://nerdinitiative.com/author/padawanj/!
