Ultimate Spider-Man #79

The Writing: This one doesn't have a lot of action and it spends too many panels recapping events from the previous issue but it's still a good one. This is the first issue of a new future trade-paperback collection so the recap will be necessary for those who come into the series at this point. Bendis did a pretty good job of adding some new material to the bit but, as I said above, it could have been done in fewer panels.

This one is unofficially titled "Peter Parker No More" which gets points for riffing on the old-school plotlines.

The art: It's Bagley. He's done 79 issues of this book and they have all looked good. His style fits Bendis's writing and works perfectly with the story. His character design on Silvermane is a little weird but (for reasons which become apparent in the first few pages) we won't have to worry about that anymore. His design on Hammerhead is spot on. Nice work.

The Bad Guys: The various crime lords of Spider-Man's New York always interested me and I'm glad Bendis is spending some time developing them.

The Badass: Now for the thing that would have made me buy this issue even if I hadn't already bought all the ones leading up to this (or, more accurately, been given most of them by a generous benefactor): Ultimate Moon Knight!

Sorry if I spoiled that one for you. I knew about it well in advance from various ads and other releases so it's not like Marvel was trying to keep that a secret.

As I mentioned before, Moon Knight is El Badasso Grande. I'm interested to see if Ultimate Moon Knight keeps the faith. So far, he's off to a good start. The cover of #80 is lookin' a-pretty nice so I'm hopeful.



Besides, Bendis hasn't let me down (on this title) yet.