The character-driven focus is, not surprisingly, maintained here, and it continues to stand out as this book's greatest strength. Brian Michael Bendis has breathed new life into old characters and plots by more slowly exploring the title character's humanity and everyday qualities. He grants crediblity to the fantastic by spotlighting the mundane and the down-to-earth elements of Peter Parker's life. There are no good guys, no bad guys here. There are just people who make mistakes, and the story is about how they deal with those mistakes, not how a super-hero defeats the villain of the day.
Peter Parker, in his masked identity, finally comes face to face with the guy who's sullied Spider-Man's name with a series of bank robberies... and a murder. Meanwhile, May Parker learns to take Gwen Stacy at her word about her family, and she begins to consider how she can help the poor girl. Later, Peter and Mary Jane have a long overdue conversation, and Peter learns some things about his girlfriend about which he was sadly unaware. Yes, it's a tumultuous day in the life of a teenager living in Forest Hills, Queens.
Bagley has always excelled at conveying super-hero action, especially when it comes to Spider-Man. Here, he's able to convey how much confident the title character is with his abilities, and it adds an intensity to the scene. Fortunately, Bagley handles the emotional side of the script adeptly as well. Peter's rage and his confusion, Gwen's despair and Mary Jane's fear are all readily apparent. The one problem I had with the art was the splash page depicting the climactic point of Spidey's fight with his doppelganger. The digital reproduction is not a smooth one. The image is jarringly pixelated.
I'll mention it only briefly here, but it needs to be said (as it no doubt will be extensively in the days to come): Marvel's new super-floppy, slick format for the Ultimate line of comics stinks on ice. I don't know if it does anything for the artwork reproduction, but the flimsy feel of it makes the issues seem... disposable. Maybe Marvel is trying to drive some readers to the trade paperback format, I don't know. My initial reaction was that it was cheap and robbed the book itself -- not the storytelling -- of some measure of value. No wonder Marvel didn't include any of this week's three Ultimate titles in its First Look packages.
The whole point of Peter Parker is for the reader to identify with an Everyman who's been granted extraordinary gifts and responsibilities. In this issue, though, Bendis plays around with that element of empathy, making the protagonist -- and the reader -- identify with the bad guy. The phoney Spidey is not remarkable, even normal. He's not evil or warped. It's a nice twist on the title character's core appeal.
The closing scene is a powerful one. These two teens express themselves awkwardly, and it grants the exchange an even more genuine tone that it already boasts. Peter and Mary Jane's relationship is put to the test, not by something one or the other has done, but by who they are. It's not something either one can control or correct.
