Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Review)

 

This is about to go live on MouthLondon but you get a first look at the full, unedited version. Oh lucky, lucky you.

Comics and Cartoons – Serious Business!

That’s Peter Parker in the picture above. I doubt anybody reading this will be unfamiliar with that name, even before Hollywood deigned him worthy of making them millions upon millions of dollars, everyone in the world knew him as the Amazing Spider-Man. Everyone can name him, everyone can tell you the classic secret identity of Batman, Superman, Iron Man and a fair few could probably tell you the names of a handful of X-Men. What about Daredevil though? Who wears the cape and cowl of Batman these days? What’s odd about Spider-Man’s marriage? How did the Punisher die and what happened to him afterwards? If you can answer all those questions congratulations! First and foremost you are a nerd! But secondly you’ve experienced a wealth of deep and engaging story-telling that a vast swath of the adult population has not and probably never will. Everyone knows the basics because of their childhoods, Saturday morning cartoons and the modern movies cashing in on your nostalgia but that’s where it ends for most isn’t it? Childhood. Comics and cartoons are a thing of the past, something to be boxed away or foisted on other kids at criminally low prices at car boot sales. It leaves the lonely few who still carry on feel like we’re speaking an alien and less sophisticated language like Peter up there who manages to so accurately, like he’s done since the early sixties, connect to the reader’s way of thinking. Spider-Man is an everyman, just an everyman who can lift cars and swing around the New York skyline. The fact that so many of us stop thinking that’s totally frigging awesome is truly lamentable.