Customer Reviews

Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 9 (v. 9)

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The Clone Saga, from the Amazing Spider-Man books, remains at the top of the list of story arcs Marvel would rather forget. So I was amazed when it was announced that Bendis was going to tackle the epic story in the Ultimate universe. The difference, however, is that his story is thought-out, riveting, and concise. There's some pretty big and dramatic twists to the Spider-Man story collected here, and I'm not going to spoil them. It's a great read.

Ultimate Spider-man is a fantastic book series to begin with. Couple that with the fact that Bendis took one of the most notorious stories in comic book history and fixed it... well, you just need to read it. The volume contains what would take two trade paperbacks to hold and it looks good on a shelf. Of course it looks best next to the other eight volumes of the series, but you get what I mean.

This collects Ultimate Spider-Man issues 97-111. More of the same from Bendis and Bagley here - which is a very good thing. One of the most teen to adult accessible comics being written continues a stellar run. This marks the end of Bagley as artist, but Immonen comes in without missing a beat.

Two main arcs are portrayed in this collection. The first one has a rash of Spider-clones, of varying physical characteristics, tearing up Queens. It takes the assistance of the Fantastic Four and S.H.I.E.L.D. to put them down. Bendis continues to play with the 616 Universe mythos, altering the origins of the clone saga and even the powers of legendary villain Doctor Octopus. Throughout this struggle, Peter Parker remains a believable teenager dealing with crap he shouldn't have to. Some of the bits are predictable, such as the Richard Parker scenario, but others surprised me and will have long lasting effects - notably the Aunt May situation (will leave details out to avoid spoiling that).

The second arc deals with Daredevil recruiting various vigilante superheroes to bring down the Kingpin. The group is familiar to readers of the comic (DD, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, Shang Chi, Iron Fist) but how it all goes down will surprise you. The pacing of this arc is a bit too quick for me - once the mole is revealed, it resolves rapidly. The exposition on motive is also a bit short and doesn't quite hit home. The highlight is Spider-Man standing up to Daredevil and imposing the limits on the group.

Overall an excellent collection that any Spider-Man fan should enjoy - and I continue to recommend this entire series for any new reader to comics.

First off, LOVE all the Ultimate Spider Man books. Got em all, great stories by Bendis as well as great art... My only problem with this Volume is why did they release that skinny, smaller version a couple of months ago? I thought that it would be like a side story, then continue in Vol. 9. That sucks. So now I have all the Ultimate series on my shelf looking all prestine and sweet then I have this small, skinny SpiderMan and a couple Marvel Zombie books that weren't the same size.... I know, small gripe.

Overall though, this has got to be one of my favorite stories.

I pre-order this book a while back. The first book i got was defective due to excessive glue from the binding, which glued a couple of the pages together. Amazon sent a new copy before i had the chance before i sent back my old copy. that's just quality service.

beside that. i found that this 9th series of ultimate spider-man includes the clone series that was released a couple of months earlier. so you might want to save some money if you havent decided to purchase the clone series. i already purchased both, but i have no complaint since i love the artistry.