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ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #25
Recommended (8/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
Colors: Transparency Digital
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Price: $2.25 US/$3.75 CAN |
I honestly don't know what to think.
This issue boasts some of Bendis's most interesting super-hero writing to date, as he delves into the perceptions of a madman, making his paranoia, determination and irrational behavior make much more sense. In other words, he once again humanizes a fantastic figure in comics. Bagley does an excellent job in giving those ideas form here as well. But then I hit the ending, and I honestly don't know if I liked this comic book or not. And I won't know until I read the next issue. This has the potential be one of the best issues of the series to date, or one of the most disappointing.
The same confrontation between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin that we saw before plays out once again, but this time, we see it through the eyes of the latter player. Instead of a young man standing up for himself and protecting the ones he loves, we see a monster that needs to be controlled. We see a man who's determined to succeed and who's been twisted by circumstance. And as for what Peter Parker sees... well, he sees his worst nightmare come to life.
The Bagley/Thibert art and the colors by Transparency Digital combine to deliver a thoroughly creepy look into the mind of the Goblin. The various artists manage to convey the distortions of his perceptions quite well. Bagley maintains a facade of control on the character's face, but the insanity he sees around him belies his actual lack of control. The scattered placement of word balloons reinforces those jumbled, insane messages that perplex the monstrous character.
Bendis's exploration of an impossibly twisted mind is surprisingly convincing, but then, I should be used to being surprised by Bendis by now. While the artists use shape and color to convey Osborn's insanity, Bendis uses his greatest weapon: his words. The dialogue is as twisted as the visions of "plasmids" that surround the villain, but there's also a determination and intellect behind them as well. It's that combination of intelligence and insanity that makes the Goblin so dangerous.
Bendis brings the character's twisted nature and Spider-Man's youth and vulnerability to life with his thoroughly modern sensibilities and ear for dialogue. But then, in with those new methods, Bendis brings the reader face-to-face with the title character's history, and I honestly don't know how to react to it. My initial feeling was one of disappointment. I thought that this was something we've seen before, in the past and all too recently as well. I turn to Bendis for new intepretations of this classic character and his circumstances, and this didn't come off as new.
But then again, thanks to the cliffhanger, we don't know exactly what he's done here yet. Like I said before, Bendis often surprises me, and I'm curious -- and a bit nervous -- about what this actually means, and what he has planned next. And maybe that's the point.
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