Ultimate Spider-Man #155

In addition to this being an accurate representation of my feelings right now, I have to say that #155 may be my favorite issue of Ultimate Spider-Man ever. The series right now is without a doubt as good as it has ever been; probably as good as anything in the Ultimate line has ever been.

It's more or less a tradition to give Peter brief moments of happiness every now and then, only to ruin them shortly afterward. On the surface, in fact, this is essentially the same thing that's happening over in Amazing Spider-Man with Big Time, but even if this whole Death of Spider-Man storyline hadn't been teased to death over the last couple months, I think this issue would be notable for throwing so much sudden happiness Peter's way while still carrying an undercurrent of sheer dread. Part of it is due to Bendis - in particular the fact that he's been writing the title for ten years now and it's possible for one to sense his ebbs and flows after all this time - and part of it is just because it's the Ultimate U and Anything Can Happen.

Over in Big Time, making Peter happy is pretty much limited to taking away his financial worries and giving him something approaching a steady girlfriend (but let's not dwell on that), because the rest of his world is so fixed in stone after all these years. But here, Bendis can give us a reconciliation with JJJ that feels honest and legitimately earned, and reconnections with both Kitty and MJ that carry the weight of the entire series (or most of it, in Kitty's case) behind them. There's just nothing happening with Spider-Man right now that even touches the current Ultimate status quo, and I'm both excited and terrified to see what happens next.

On another note - I'm glad that I had a lot to say about this one, because after months of indecision, I've come to the conclusion that this strip, #100, will be the end of Half-Assed Commitment as it's existed thus far. There will be more coming to this site in the near future, if only because "half-assed.com" is too beautiful to go to waste, but you'll have to tune in next Tuesday at the usual time to find out what's next. Cheers!