Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis/Bagley (2000). Opinions on?

[Batman Begins 2005]

The other day I realised Ultimate Spider-Man turns twenty(!) next year. To mark it, I wondered what you think Ultimate Spider-Man. Which arcs do you rate as the best and the worst?

[Batman Begins 2005]

I really like what I've read from the series. To me, the best thing about it was #13 when Peter Parker reveals to Mary Jane Watson his secret identity. The Death of Spider-Man brought about the end of Ultimate Spider-Man in a fitting fashion. Takes some doing to make 111 consecutive issues as Bendis/Bagley did.

[Snoop Dogg]

I can't really choose an especially godlike arc, I find the strength comes from the totality. Maybe Ultimate Six, but that's not Mark.

[K7P5V]

I really like what I've read from the series. To me, the best thing about it was #13 when Peter Parker reveals to Mary Jane Watson his secret identity. The Death of Spider-Man brought about the end of Ultimate Spider-Man in a fitting fashion. Takes some doing to make 111 consecutive issues as Bendis/Bagley did.

Agreed. "Death of Spider-Man" is an all-time favorite. Although, my all-time personal favorite is "The Clone Saga". Both Bendis & Bagley actually made me enjoy this storyline very much.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Agreed. "Death of Spider-Man" is an all-time favorite. Although, my all-time personal favorite is "The Clone Saga". Both Bendis & Bagley actually made me enjoy this storyline very much.

Thanks for agreeing. The Clone Saga I need to read as I've heard good stuff about it.

[Batman Begins 2005]

I can't really choose an especially godlike arc, I find the strength comes from the totality. Maybe Ultimate Six, but that's not Mark.

Cheers, totality of it is a good answer.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I have this sneaky suspicion that in 2025, when Ultimate Spider-Man turns 25 years old, Bendis-Bagley or Bendis-Pichelli will reunite for an anniversary mini-series. Ultimate Spider-Man is a high school spider-man story and no high school story is complete with a closing montage and epilogue caption telling us what the later lives turned out like.

Ultimate Spider-Man is the defining Spider-Man of the 21st Century. It came out in 2000 and every movie, every cartoon that came after is touched on that, as is the PS4 game that became all the rage (not to mention the Ultimate Spider-Man game that was okay). Sam Raimi's movies borrowed the Genetically Altered Spider and Harry Osborn being Peter's high school friend. The Amazing Spider-Man movies took ideas from the Venom and Peter's parents story, and Homecoming is Peter as a whiteboy Miles. Bendis got an entire generation of readers to Spider-Man comics and more crucially he kept them, the readers of USM on the whole did not really become readers of 616. He is the most defining writer of Spider-Man since Lee-Ditko-Romita. So this is a monumental work even if it's kind of a down-to-earth Spider-Man.

As for favorite stories, I generally agree that Issue #13 is the best single issue of USM. I also like the "Learning Curve" aka the Spider-Man vs. Kingpin arc, where Peter outsmarts and out-insults the Kingpin. But generally I don't think Ultimate Spider-Man really did well with any of its villains. Like the Ultimate versions of Goblin and others are poor compared to 616 so USM is mostly about Peter and his supporting cast, and that works well and on the whole I remember single issues more than parts.

So my favorites (in no particular order):

- USM #13
- USM: 7-12 (Learning Curve, Kingpin's first story)
- Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1, where Peter and Kitty Pryde start dating, and the Peter/Kitty Pryde romance in Ultimate is in my opinion better than the Spider-Man/Black Cat romance in comics ever was.
- USM #70-71, which is really underrated. It has Peter Parker going against Nightmare, who is a Dr. Strange villain but since he didn't take in Ultimate Marvel, he became a Spidey villain and a really good one.
- USM #78 (A Mary Jane one-shot, which I see as the sequel to USM #13)
- Ultimate Clone Saga
- The Ultimatum tie ins for Spider-Man are superior to the Ultimatum series itself, I love that image of Spider-Man diving underneath the waters and saving people. And I like him going against Nightmare again.

Post-Ultimatum, I like the Chameleon Twins best and to me that's the one revision of the classic Spider-Man rogue by Bendis that is really good.

Then Miles Morales entire opening issues and the Prowler Arc. Brilliant.

[your_name_here]

Ultimate Clone Saga was great.
Bendis handled supporting cast great, especially Aunt May and MJ.
I think the villains weren’t bad. Electros appearance especially has influenced games/cinema and more so the comics.
I think once Bagley left, the series lost its direction a little. After Ultimatum it felt like it was just hanging on until the big shake up that we all know is Miles Morales.
Completely agree on The Prowler arc. Great idea (the film handled this better, but hats off to Bendis for the idea)

[The Kid]

Still is my all time favorite comic book run ever. Really something special to me. Like some of the others, I don't have a favorite arc. It's just the whole thing that is great. Loved Peter, MJ, Aunt May, Gwen, Kong, Flash, Liz, Harry etc.. Also loved when Kitty became a supporting character. Really can't rave about this run enough

Ultimate Clone Saga was great.
Bendis handled supporting cast great, especially Aunt May and MJ.
I think the villains weren’t bad. Electros appearance especially has influenced games/cinema and more so the comics.
I think once Bagley left, the series lost its direction a little. After Ultimatum it felt like it was just hanging on until the big shake up that we all know is Miles Morales.
Completely agree on The Prowler arc. Great idea (the film handled this better, but hats off to Bendis for the idea)

I agree with that. When I reread, I usually stop right before Ultimatum.

[Frontier]

I think it's definitely one of Bendis' strongest comic works and did a good job of what it set out to do in trying to modernize the mythos and interpret it for a new generation, even if I think stuff like The Spectacular Spider-Man did a better job of it.

[Chubistian]

I’ve read the first 28 issues and The Death of Spider-Man arc. I think they’re all spectacular comics. It’s a run that I plan on continuing collecting at some point in my life. If I had to choose among those storylines, I don’t have a less favorite, but the ones I think as “the best” are the rematch against the Green Goblin and the death of Peter

[K7P5V]

Ultimate Clone Saga was great.
Bendis handled supporting cast great, especially Aunt May and MJ.
I think the villains weren’t bad. Electros appearance especially has influenced games/cinema and more so the comics.
I think once Bagley left, the series lost its direction a little. After Ultimatum it felt like it was just hanging on until the big shake up that we all know is Miles Morales.
Completely agree on The Prowler arc. Great idea (the film handled this better, but hats off to Bendis for the idea)

I do agree there was a feeling of "just hanging on" after ULTIMATUM, but I still very much enjoy everything Bendis & LaFuente did with Peter & his friends before Bagley came back to finish off the series.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Cheers for the contributions. This is up there with the best of Spider-Man.

[Spidey_62]

I was reading Ultimate almost from the beginning (started regularly picking them up around issue 6, that point was when I started buying comics regularly and was reading all the Spidey titles at the time, I don't wanna pick any favorite title in the era cause they were all on fire. I remember getting the first few issues in a reprint at Walmart, Marvel had an initiative where they stocked reprints of the first few Ultimate books in big stores like Walmart which I think was a cool thing to do. Anyway, I think the first 39 issues (the omnibus, coincidentally) are a great complete package and the run maybe operating at its highest. The Learning Curve arc is maybe my favorite story as it has the emotional moments, humor, Peter getting a big win, then the end with the identity reveal which was a crazy but real feeling thing to see in the book. The Venom arc is a great re-imagining of the character, I think it's cool how that story got to get its sequel as a video game looking and feeling like one of the comics. I like the game version better than the actual adaptation/retooling Bendis did a few years after.

[blackspidey2099]

Ultimate Spider-Man: Learning Curve was probably the first Spider-Man comic I ever read, so I'll always have a special place in my heart for the mythos Bendis and Bagley created. However, I'm ngl, I do think it has become overrated and overused/overexposed.