Yep, Brian Michael Bendis wants absolutely nothing to do with the ‘Divided We Fall’ crossover taking place in the rest of the Ultimate Universe. The crossover banner may be emblazoned on the cover, there may be a map in the beginning of the comic detailing the current chaotic state of the country, but you wouldn’t have any idea what the heck is going on based on this issue of Ultimate Spider-Man. This is entirely self-contained. Honestly, reading Ultimate Spider-Man #14, it’s as if nothing has changed anywhere else in the Ultimate Universe.

Ultimate Spider-Man #14

And I am perfectly fine with that! To hell with the rest of the Ultimate Universe and its stupid crossover!

Comic rating: 4/5: Good!

Apparently Captain America went into hiding in the wake of Peter Parker’s death. You wouldn’t know it based on this comic. Cap is a major guest star this issue, but there’s no indication that he left or that his return is a big deal. He’s written exactly as he would have been written had he not taken a major sabbatical. And better yet, Aunt May, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson are all written the same too. Nobody seems to know or care that the United States doesn’t exist anymore, and that’s great! As long as Miles Morales’ fantastic story isn’t disrupted due to the rest of that crap, I couldn’t be happier. Bendis is writing good comics here. The origin and early adventures of Miles Morales are going to be important for a long time. ‘Divided We Fall’ isn’t even flavor of the month. Nobody’s talking about it. Nobody cares. It’s a dying gasp from a past-its-prime universe.

Give me more of this issue, where Miles finally has a real heart-to-heart with Peter Parker’s supporting cast. Give me dialogue and characterization like this. I’ll take the story of Miles’ first attempt at web-swinging over some dumb, overblown crossover any day of the week.

Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review! And Miles’ first web-swinging!

We open with a classic callback moment of Gwen Stacy calling Captain America a jerk, the same way (and the same pose) as Kitty Pryde once called Professor X a jerk so many years ago. The callback appeal is minimal. It’s really just kind of disruptive. Fortunately, we don’t dwell on it.

At the end of last issue, Miles Morales arrived at an old, hidden warehouse to have his first ever meeting with Aunt May. She contacted him, and has a present for him. But Captain America showed up as well and got right to the point of telling Miles that he can no longer be Spider-Man. Not cool, dude. Gwen then jumps to Miles’ defense by calling Cap a jerk.

What’s with those rectangles on his shoulders?

Miles asks how Captain America even found them, and Cap says he traced the phone call. Cap won’t budge, insisting that Miles is far too young to be Spider-Man. Even though Nick Fury previously said he was OK with Miles in the role, Captain America is putting his foot down. Miles has no training and is way too young.

Mary Jane Watson, who has been kind of goth since Peter died, steps out of the shadows to point out that Captain America is just projecting Peter onto Miles. Cap passed on the opportunity to train Peter Parker, and it ended up with Peter taking a bullet for Cap, and then dying as a result. Cap feels guilty about never training Peter, and is now putting all of that onto Miles. May asks what Mary Jane is doing there, and Gwen says that she called Mary Jane. She thought this was going to be a nice meet & greet with the new Spider-Man. She didn’t expect “the eagle from the Muppets was going to show up and fart on us.”

Which is a priceless line.

Miles tries to defend Captain America, but Gwen won’t hear it. Cap said that Peter’s death was his fault, and she believes him. Cap says he just wants them all to learn from their mistake.

Meanwhile, Miles and Mary Jane have a very cute meeting, in that oh so Bendis style.

I wish Miles read my blog

Cap steps up again and tells Miles that now isn’t the time for him to be Spider-Man, our one and only reference to ‘Divided We Fall’. Miles brings up the death of the Prowler, and Captain America says that he doesn’t know what happened anymore than Miles does. Before the argument can go on, however, Cap gets a call and he has to take off to deal with some emergency – and threatens to put Miles in jail if he disobeys the order to stand down.

As if.

What follows is a rather delightful scene as Miles and the ladies debate what he should do. All this time, Miles has been trying to do what he thinks Peter Parker would do. Aunt May is full of words of wisdom and gives Miles Peter’s old web-shooters. Then she tells him some rather awesome words of advice:

All 13-year-old boys would run into danger

Ultimate Aunt May has always been pretty damn cool.

And next is a fantastic scene as Miles tries out the web-shooters for the first time ever. Hard to believe he’s been without them this entire time. But the art is absolutely fantastic by David Marquez, with the webbing looking particularly gooey. Miles has no idea how to web-swing, basically just guessing at how it’s done, and it gets nicely comical.

He should play Spider-Man 2 the game

Miles figures it out in time to swing over to the Lincoln Tunnel, where Captain America was headed. He does have a brief worry about what happens when he runs out of webbing – since Peter Parker made it himself – but that’s a worry for another day. Right now, Miles has to take on…Ultimate Rhino!

Sure enough, that big, great mechanical monstrosity comes smashing out of the Lincoln Tunnel, leaving all manner of cars and explosions in his wake. The Ultimate Rhino is a guy in a giant mechanical suit, and he’s a classic Ultimate villain. Peter Parker took him on several times, including in the video game. I’ve always liked his look. But this is yet another example of Bendis just writing business as usual. Ultimate Rhino has absolutely nothing to do with ‘Divided We Fall’. His appearance here easily fits in as just another Miles/Spider-Man story. In fact, that has been Miles’ whole thing so far: with the exception of Prowler, all of his villains have just been classic Peter foes trotted out for an issue just to get beat up. It’s one of my only complaints for his series so far.

Bendis needs to move on and introduce some new villains or actually use the old ones in a new and interesting way. Seeing Miles easily defeat yet another classic foe is getting really dull.

And yep, he takes out Rhino no problem, while finally getting the hang of quipping comically.

Though he is borrowing some of Peter’s old lines

Seriously, fantastic artwork. I would be happy if this guy stayed on for the long term.

Miles chats with one of the armed guards who was transporting Rhino and learns a bit more about the nature of the costume. We then get a somewhat confusing sequence where Miles is about to stick his hand into the Rhino’s control panel on his back – but then thinks about how he used his ‘Venom Blast’ on his Uncle Aaron, causing him to blow up. Miles then hesitates a moment before using his Venom Blast on Rhino’s neck, away from the control panel. It short circuits the Rhino’s suit, taking him out for good.

I’m not sure what just happened.

Are we supposed to infer that Uncle Aaron blew up because Miles zapped the Prowler suit with a Venom Blast? I thought it was very clear that Aaron blew up because his gauntlet short-circuited. Is that why everybody thinks Spider-Man killed Prowler? Because it’s not clear…at least to me. Maybe everybody else understands perfectly.

The issue ends with Captain America and Spider-Man huddled together, and Spidey asking a potentially fun question.

Though I don’t want the book to become a buddy comedy

Very good issue. Parts of it were rather predictable, like the fight with the Rhino, and Spider-Man of course not listening to Captain America. I’m pretty sure Peter Parker did the exact same thing. But the conversation with Aunt May, Gwen and Mary Jane was nice…though if I’m being honest, I kind of expected more. Bendis writes amazing dialogue. It’s probably his strongest writing tool. And there have been some great ‘talking heads’ issues of Ultimate Spider-Man before. I kind of wanted more of that. Instead Captain America basically rains on the parade, ruining what could have been an amazing heartfelt moment between Aunt May and Miles.

Instead, Aunt May just hands over the web-shooters with nary another word and basically gives her unconditional support to Miles. They all do. Nobody from Peter’s life seems bothered. I kind of wanted something more…but it was still good, don’t get me wrong.

I wonder how this lines up with Spider-Men…which I will read, one of these days. I plan on reading it all in one setting and then reviewing it as one big story. More on that later.

This was a good issue of Ultimate Spider-Man. The art was great, and Miles’ first scenes with the web-slinging were fun. But I would have liked a deeper, more meaningful meeting with Aunt May, and some villain fights that aren’t so predictable. But we can’t always get what we want.