New Avengers # 51

This issue opens up with Dormammu telling the Hood that Dr. Strange isn't Sorcerer Supreme anymore and that the Hood should kill him before anyone else gets the chance.
Meanwhile Dr. Strange is trying to find the new Sorcerer Supreme. He talks to Wiccan, thinking he might be the one when the Hood shows up.

Also concurrently the New Avengers are meeting and they decide that Ronin/Hawkeye/Clint Barton will be the new team leader with Ms. Marvel being second in command.
Barton's first order of business is that Spider-man needs to unmask. After all how can they trust someone who they never get to look in the eye.

According to what's been said from the spidey braintrust about the BRAND NEW DAY. Everything that happened in the past still happened except Mary Jane and Peter Parker never married and also that when Spidey unmasked in front of tv cameras during the civil war everybody saw his face but then forgot who he was.

Spider-man spends about 5 minutes time lamenting how his family and friends could get hurt if the wrong people found out who he is. Then just whips his mask off.



Jessica Jones-Cage then tells Petey how she used to be in love with him in high school much to the displeasure of Luke Cage. Wolverine just sits there and eats proving once again he's the best at what he does. All of a sudden they hear a noise and rush outside, Petey still unmasked (which seems kind of odd). Lying on Captain Bucky's doorstep is Dr. Strange all roughed up and asking for help.

jeph loeb destroys the ultimate universe

i read ultimatum # 2 when it came out and it has taken me until today to learn that this is the ultimate version of the blob eating the wasp. i was under the impression that it was going to be some new character or at the very least a hulked out version of the mole man. i mean yeah it was funny in ultimate x-men way back when blob claimed to have eaten someone (fat people have no control and will eat you if you're not careful). wtf! jeph loeb just because wasp died this month in the 616 universe you had to think of a way to kill her in the ultimate universe this month too? and to boot you threw in a tacky cliche.


when loeb got the green light for ultimates 3 was when the ultimate line began its slow descent towards death. sure ultimate x-men had it's weak moments but for every good story arch in 616 x-men there have been 10 horrible ones. ultimate fantastic four was a fun read although reed richards was ultimately responsible for every bad thing that went on in that comic. and for the most part ultimate spidey has been golden through out.


i hate you jeph loeb!

Changeling

As it turns out, this film was written by J Michael Straczynski, whose tenure as writer of Amazing Spider-Man presented us with:

- the revelation that Spider-Man's powers are actually the product of a magical spider cult

- Gwen Stacy as the mother of Norman Osborn's bastard children

- Peter Parker revealing his secret identity on national television

- a grand finale where Peter Parker must negotiate with Satan to re-write history and save his octogenarian aunt from machine gun wounds.

In retrospect, it's hard not to wonder if Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada signed off on Straczynski's maniac ideas as a way to purposefully fuck up Spider-Man so bad that he would be left with no choice but to hit the reset button, and thereby fulfill his long-time dream of dumping Mary Jane from the book.

Anyway, I'd like to say this justifies my decision to not see this movie, but really I'm just happy to learn that there's so much upward mobility from writing He-Man adventures.