Death of Spider-Man Crossover

Marvel’s next huge crossover is finally here the Death of Spiderman. This crossover takes place in the Ultimates universe, and as you can imagine the end result of this story will be the end of one of our favorite superheroes, the Amazing Spider-Man.

This is a six-month cross over event beginning this week and spanning all the way until August. Although it may seem like an extremely long time, Ultimates fan’s will rejoice to know that they will now be able to read some of their favorite titles monthly instead of bi-monthly, which is a definite plus. The crossover involves two titles, Ultimate Spider-Man and a new mini series created for this crossover entitled Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates.

For this crossover, Marvel has enlisted many of its heavy hitters both in writing and art for the two stories involved. Like always, Ultimate Spider-Man is written by fan favorite Brian Michael Bendis, with art done by the team of Sara Pichello, David Lafuente, Lan Medina, and Ed Tadeo, and the best is still to come. Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates is written by the legendary Mark Millar, and penciled by equally as legendary Lenil Yu. Marvel decided to jump-start this cross over with the release of two of the installments this week.

The Death of Spider-Man promotional postcard that was released a few weeks ago solicits that you should read Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates to start off the crossover, but after reading the two, it really doesn’t matter which you read first. So lets start with Ultimate Spider-Man. This issue is a prelude to the Death of Spider-Man cross over. Two storylines are taking place in this issue, which end up intertwining by the end. First off, Spider-Man is being training by Tony Stark in order to become a better super-hero. The second story line that is occurring is that the Black Cat has had a weapon of ultimate power come into her hands. Mysterio is now harassing her, due to the fact that he wants that power for himself and he is willing to do anything to trick her into giving it to him.

Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes

About two weeks ago now I watched this show for the first time on TV. I was scared when first turning it on, wondering how they were going to butcher some of my favorite heroes from my childhood, and wondering how far from the truth the show was going to deter from the books. To my surprise, the show was nothing like I thought it was going to be and neither was the comic adaptation.

While watching the show I was wondering how and why the story and dialogue was so well done, and why I was enjoying it so much. All of that credit is owed to the fact that Chris Yost is the writer of the episodes and in charge of all of the stories, which to my blissful realization was the case with the comic adaptation as well.

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #1

When I first saw that this maxi-series was being released I found myself saying, “Another Avengers title?!” and almost decided not to buy the book. The main thing that intrigued me is that the story revolves around the Young Avengers, a team that has played an integral role in the Marvel universe for all the major events for the last 4 years or so. They are also a team who seems to be written well, the characters work great together, and their series never seem to be disappointing. Therefore, I decided to pick up the title.

After cracking the book open and reading about a third of the story, you learn that the agenda of the story is figuring out if Wiccan and Speed are the children of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. The Avengers are led to believe this after an incident occurs during a battle the Young Avengers were having with a terrorist organization, which led Wiccan to discover powers he had far beyond the norm. This causes great distress in both the Avengers and Young Avengers teams, almost labeling Wiccan as an outcast.

The story continues and has many interesting twists, and actually ends up providing a large amount of information, which was especially surprising because this series is going to be a nine issue Maxi. It will be interesting to see if the remaining eight issues will be as information packed and interesting as the first.

What stands out the most in this issue is the art of artist Jim Cheung (New Avengers: Illuminati, Young Avengers), I have always been a fan of Cheung, his art is so clean and in the middle of the book he features a two page spread that is describing the history of the Scarlett Witch which is excellent. It was also nice to see that the writer was Alex Heinberg, the original writer of the Young Avengers title was writing this series, which meant that this book had its original creative team, which really added to the story if you ask me.

This issue was far beyond what I originally thought it was going to be, and I am excited to see what is going to happen to this team as the series continues. Maybe the Marvel universe will even be re-introduced to the Scarlett Witch. Only time will tell!

8 out of 10


Originally posted on the Chris' Comics Official Website

Cornbread's Favorite Comic of the Week - 5/19

Well, since this week was a really small week I didn't really have a comic that was my least favorite. So I decided that I would just write a review of what I thought was the best of the week.

Favorite Comic: Joe the Barbarian #5

Joe the Barbarian has been a really solid series for the last 5 months, each issue bringing more to the table and leaving me eager to read for the release of the next issue. Although I really enjoy the series, I am extremely glad that it is just an 8 issue maxi series, because although the series is so interesting, I feel as though it would lose a lot of its luster and interest if it tried to stretch it out anymore.

There was not doubt in my mind that Grant Morrisson was a great writer, but after reading this and having it not be about super heroes and such it makes me enjoy his writing even more; I cant wait for Devin to read this and then start suggesting stuff. I am really enjoying Sean Murphy and his style of art, its spectacular and I think it is the main reason why this comic is so great. His style fits this fantasy world perfectly, and the way he depicts not only the characters, but their surroundings. Especially his splash pages.

Like I said before, every issue has been spectacular, but issue 5 really takes the cake, even beating issue one and all its amazingness. In this issue, Morrisson kicks that action up a notch, really pushes the storyline, and is finally developing what exactly is going on in the real world in addition to whats going on in Joe's head. He also has made it so the main characters are now split up, leaving it open for there to be two storylines for the next three issues which could be interesting. There is an extremely good action scene at the end of the book, which leaves the reader with a very interesting cliff hanger that will really drive the next three issue, depending on what happens.
If you haven't been reading this series, you really are missing out. But since its only three months till the end of the series then it should only be about 6 for the trade, so keep your chin up! Regardless, I am eagerly awaiting what is going to happen in the rest of this series, and if these next issues are as good as this one, I really cannot wait.

9.5 out of 10



Now, I was going to write a negative review about Avengers #1 but I feel I couldn't really justify doing so, since the storyline really isn't that bad, I mean its not great and it could become really bad, but its not bad yet. My only problem is JRJR's art, it is awful, characters don't look like themselves, women look awful. I mean some of the art is pretty good, but 1 or two panels are not redeeming for a 40 page comic. But yeah, Im not gonna give it a series review because really, Bendis's writing is great.


......5.5 out of 10