100. Ultimate Spider Man vol 1 #1 to 5 ... Marvel ...

For our 100th review, we decided to start on a title that effectively jumpstarted the Marvel U for the cinema-going crowd and younger generation. And that's the Ultimate Universe. Although it has been more than 10 years now, it is still going on albeit in different form

What makes this different from the regular Marvel U?

Basically it was decided that there was too much ongoing continuity in the existing Marvel U and some of it no longer makes sense if you are into continuity. In addition, it makes it hard for new readers. I am not sure how true that is because the essences of comics is comics reading and comics collecting and hunting back issues and trading for them was part of the fun!

Anyway, if this Ultimate is to be successful, in time to come, it would have created its own continuity problems and unfortunately that is what's happening now more than a decade later. Therefore it has started having its own limited series, off-shoots, revamps and reboots

But let's go back to the start of it all. Write: Bendis; Artist: Bagley

And what a joy it is to read. So what if it is decompression storytelling? This first five issues reintroduces us to the nerdy world of Peter Parker who is more a kid than a teen and looks like it. They have updated it for today's world with handphones and what-not. But some of the characters remain the same

Peter is a book nerd genius with a heart of gold. He live with his aunt and uncle and one fine day, in the lab, he got bitten by a Spider and he freaked out and went ... blacked out, actually! Naturally once the momentum is over, as it was a class trip, we can expect the usual school ragging and what-not which is essentially part of the joys as we get a good glimpse ... all the while, Peter is learning to adapt to his gifts and trying to learn more ... he is also trying to see who he can confide in as sometimes, it just seems too much ... o and there is young Miss Watson too!

This first five issues is basically that - retelling the origins. And they do it so well that even I, who has been reading comics for close to 1.5 decades when this series came out but never collected Spidey actually found myself buying it and later online because it reads so daaaaamn well!

And the covers? Wow!

Ratings: 8/10