Ultimate Spider-Man #125 Review

Creative Team
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Inker: Wade von Grawbadger
Colorist: Justin Ponsor

Issue Rating
Story: 7.8/10
Art: 7.5/10
Overall: 7.65/10

Issue Development
Eddie Brock wakes up in a prison cell like containment field in Trask Enterprise. Eddie sees the President and CEO of Trask Enterprise Bolivar Trask who is the person that hired Silver Sable and her crew to capture Eddie and the Venom symbiote. Trask says that he captured him so that he with from Doctor Adian Toomes they can seperate Eddie and the symbiote to make billions of dollars.

The scene shifts to Empire State Museum of Art were Spider-Man explains to the cops what happend ealier in the museum with Venom and Silver Sable. After talking to the cops Peter is back in his basement having a "date" with Mary Jane to study his blood. It seems that Peter still has some of the Venom symbiote in his system. Peter ends his "date" with Mary Jane and goes back out as Spider-Man to find Eddie.

Back at Trask Laboratories Toomes is beginning procedures to seperate Eddie and the symbiote when the Beetle breaks into the lab and sets Eddie free. Once he is set free Eddie starts going crazry and attacks everyone in the lab and actually eats one of the lab assistants as Venom. Venom than escapes the lab and starts a huge brawl in the city with the Beetle.

As Venom and Beetle fight Spider-Man sees all the comotion and tries to stop the fight and wanting to talk to Eddie. After a small fight between Spider-Man and Venom the symbiote decides to leave Eddie's body and take over Spider-Man once again. the symbiote completely takes over Spider-Mans body and we see Peter screaming as the issue ends.

Highlights of the Issue

"Venom is so hungry he can eat a horse"

"It's good to be home"

Review

Overall Ultimate Spider-Man #125 was another enjoyable issue by Bendis. But at the same time there wasn't really anything special about this issue and that is because the issue went by so fast with the Spider-Man/Venom/Beetle fight taking up a good part of this issue. That is not to say it's a bad thing but Ultimate Spider-Man has always been at its best when the focus is not on Spider-Man but on Peter Parker and his life outside the mask.

As a kid Venom was probably one of my favorite Spider-Man villains. I just thought Venom was one of the coolest villains but now Venom has become one of my least favorite Spider-Man villains. One of the reasons for this is because the whole novelty of an evil version Spider-Man, which is what Venom basically is, has been gone for long time now. Also the other reason I don't like Venom anymore is because there really hasn't been any good storylines involving Venom or the other symbiote characters since the first few stories were Venom originally appeared.

In saying all that I have to say that the Ultimate version of Venom and of Eddie Brock is a much more interesting character than his 616-counterpart. I like that Peter and Eddie have a much deeper connection to one another with being childhood friends and their parents being the creators of the symbiote. It actually makes it a lot easier to draw parrallels between both Peter and Eddie lives to how they each reflect what the other would have been if they swapped places.

I also like that Trask Enterprise is involved with the symbiote as well and it is starting to look like Trask has a much greater involvement in the Ultimate Universe. Because not only do they have the rights to the Venom symbiote that they took from Peter and Eddie's parents, the company has also been involved with Doc Ock, Sandman, Vulture, Osborn, and Silver Sable. So it will be interesting to see if SHIELD gets involved with the company or if Trask will be involved with the Ultimatum story in one way or another.

Now while I did enjoy the brawl in the story and am interested about the Ultimate Beetle and who he works for I wish Bendis would show more of Peter's supporting characters other than just Mary Jane and Kitty, and only MJ is in this issue. The great thing about Ultimate Spider-Man, and Spider-Man in general, has always been Peter Parker and his supporting characters like Aunt May, Mary Jane, Kitty, Flash, Kong, Liz, and The Daily Bugle staff are involved in the story. But when the supporting cast is reduced to only MJ and Kitty the stories have tended to be boring since the focus is on Spider-Man and not Peter Parker. Hopefully after, or even during, this story arc Bendis uses more of Peter's supporting cast then he has been in these past few issues.

On the art side I have to say that Stuart Immonen art is actually getting better and it seems he is getting better at Peter Parker and everyone that is not wearing a superhero mask. This was the best art Immonen has done since he has come on to this title. Now let just see if he can keep up the art on a more consistent bases before I start comparing his art to Bagley's.