Ultimate Enemy 1
Pencils by Rafael Sandoval Written by Brian Michael Bendis

BMB just can’t stop writing huge ensemble cast crossover epic stories. If only he could do so consistently well.

I really loved Ultimate Spiderman and I really loved his work on Daredevil.  These were groundbreaking, redefining runs on books that sucked you in and made you want to stick with the books.  I have enjoyed most of his run on New Avengers, and kind of thought of that as his clinic book that he should use to improve upon ensemble cast narrative and characterization.  Sometimes, Wolverine doesn’t seem like himself and sometimes Spidey whipping his mask off with only slight arm twisting goes in the face of everything that had been done over on the main Amazing Spiderman book.

Ultimate Enemy was a bit empty for me.  Art is fine and consistent with what’s been going on in Ultimate Spiderman with floppy hair Pete and his flop house of super friends.

The story mostly follows Ultimate Spiderwoman, a female clone of Peter.  The story doesn’t really do much to entice you into anything deeper.  I was disappointed – for a book that supposedly wants to get you in the door for not only this series, but two additional ones (“Ultimate Mystery” and “Ultimate Doom”), I just didn’t feel the appeal.  It lacked that “grab me by the brain and hook me” quality.

What I did like, however, was seeing something BMB spoke about years ago in a Wizard Magazine article.  He said the Ultimate Universe was gearing toward the exploration of a conspiracy within the Marvel Universe where we find ourselves looking at a universe of characters who we have long thought of as the products of accidents and incidents who were, in most cases, planned all along.  Behind the scenes of all of this would be the military and the corporations of the Ultimate Marvel universe – companies like Stark, Stane, Roxxon, Rand, Hammer and more all vying to create super soldiers and weapons.

This storyline was visible in early Ultimates and Ultimate Spiderman stories.  The Oz formula (Green Goblim serum), which created Ultimate Goblin – and to some degree, Spiderman – and inadvertently played a part in Ultimate Doctor Octopus who had been committing sabatoge or spying for long time Stark competitor Justin Hammer who seemingly created Ultimate Sandman. We know Roxxon went on to become involved with Ultimate Beetle, Ultimate Shocker and more.

Considering the narrative of Jessica Drew (Pete’s female clone), this seemed to be the direction the book would go. 

The art’s good – the story is a bit slow for me, but I’ll give it another issue to develop.

You’ll notice I haven’t had that much to say about the story or dialogue.  It’s because there really wasn’t much story to talk about.  If this were a homework assignment, I’d probably have to grade it as incomplete.  Story opens, disaster occurs, we see various characters caught up in the event but nothing really happens, except that we see two characters have an awkward moment; one of those characters appears to be undergoing some physical change – oh, and someone inpersonated an old man and violates copyrights to mission impossible.  Call Ethan Hunt immediately.  Oh and hey, Great-Faceless-Energy-Spewing-Figure wants to confront Nick Fury. Next!!!  That was the entire story, not counting the formless mess that is the threat throughout most of the issue. Leave threatening, shapeless, monstrous creations to JJ Abrams on cursed islands, please.

Comics Online gives Ultimate Enemy #1 2 out of 5 Ultimate Stars .