Spider-Men #1-5

Spider-Men #1-5

Originally released in 2012

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Sara Pichelli

It's a little crazy to think that a character like Spider-Man, who was introduced in the final issue of a magazine (Amazing Fantasy) that was cancelled immediately afterwards, went on to become one of the biggest names in comics alongside Batman and Superman.  For his fiftieth anniversary, Marvel decided to do something that Joe Quesada infamously said that would only be done if Marvel "had officially run out of his ideas" - have a crossover between the mainline Marvel universe and the Ultimate Marvel universe.  Despite Quesada's disparaging remarks (and what does he know?  He's the guy who came up with One More Day!), Brian Michael Bendis's writing and Sara Pichelli's art (which includes plenty of double page spreads) sells this as a momentous occasion that helped to set the stage for Miles's huge surge in mainstream popularity through the animated Spider-Verse movies.

The plot kicks off with Spider-Man out on his usual patrol of New York when he sees a beam of light erupting from a warehouse.  Arriving on the scene, he discovers that Mysterio has built or found an interdimensional transporter.  One thing leads to another, and Spider-Man is knocked into it, winding up in the Ultimate universe.  My main gripe with the writing of this story is that Mysterio's newfound interdimensional transporter (which he has been using for a while now - the Ultimate universe's version of Mysterio is established to be a robot that's remotely controlled by the main universe's version of Mysterio) is completely unexplained.  There's not even a line about him posing as an intern at the Baxter Building; he just has a device that lets him hop between universes now with no explanation.

Mysterio isn't exactly a big climactic threat that requires two Spider-Men to defeat, but he's not the main focus here.  Peter has to deal with the changes between the Ultimate universe and his own (chief among them, that the Peter Parker of the Ultimate universe is dead and his secret identity is public knowledge, while the Gwen Stacy of the Ultimate universe is alive and living with Aunt May), while Miles has to deal with his insecurities about being Spider-Man when faced with a living version Peter. (it goes without saying that Peter is fine with Miles taking on the identity)

I've had a mixed reaction to the Ultimate universe - the issues of Ultimate Spider-Man that I've read were great, but the issues of the Ultimates (that universe's equivalent of the Avengers) were so bad that I stopped halfway through the storyline of Ultimates 1, which was supposed to be one of the highlights of that line.  As a result, I was a little unsure going into this storyline about how easy it would be to follow, but I enjoyed seeing Peter react to the differences between his own universe and this new one, along with various little touches. (like how every character speaks in all capitals when in the main universe, while they speak with capital and lowercase letters in the Ultimate universe)

Despite Quesada's original reaction to the idea, I thought the crossover between these two universes was handled well.  It was touching to see May and Gwen getting to see an adult version of Peter, and while I lacked the full context for Gwen's situation in the Ultimate universe, Peter's reaction to her survival and how she's living with Aunt May was still touching.  The story had some flaws (much like Kingpin in the movie "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", it seems to me like multiversal travel is well outside of Mysterio's normal capabilities, and unlike that movie, we don't even get an explanation for how he did it or a motive for why he did it), but it was still an enjoyable milestone celebration.