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Spider-Man is not crazy about the new "Spider-Man" movie
In anticipation of the summer release of the "Spider-Man 2" movie it seemed like every one of the Spider-Man titles put out by Marvel comics did a Doctor Octopus storyline, with a few Doc Ock mini-series thrown into the mix as well. For "Ultimate Spider-Man," the series that has updated the wall crawler for the 21st century by going back to the beginning and focusing on a 16-year-old Peter Parker living next door to Mary Jane Watson, that mean the six-issues of the "Hollywood" story arc (issues #54-59). This is the one Doc Ock storyline Marvel offered that up in the summer of 2004 that tackled the idea of Hollywood making a movie about Spider-Man. It is not that Spider-Man ends up in Hollywood, but rather than Hollywood brings the magic of movie making to New York City and Spider-Man's home turf. Aunt May is out of town leaving Peter and Gwen Stacy alone and there is a story on the news about a Spider-Man film about to be made in Hollywood, starring Tobey Maguire and telling the story of a nobody/loser who grabs the world's imagination when he puts on a mask. The kids at school are all excited about trying to get parts as extras in the film while Peter can only tell MJ "I live in Hell." Spider-Man goes down to the movie set in NYC to chastise the actor and director for doing this (although he admits "Evil Dead 2" was cool, in a nod to Sam Rammi). Then Doctor Octopus breaks out of jail; it seems he has heard about the movie as well. Brian Michael Bendis (story), Mark Bagley (pencils), and Art Thibert (inks) have more going on behind the cameras than they do in front in this six-part story. At school Kong is excited to get a part in the movie but Gwen cannot get past the fact that as far as she is concerned Spider-Man killed her father and Peter is unable to tell her anything different. When Doctor Octopus attacks the movie set Spider-Man has to deal with the insult added to injury because he has to save the actors and crews from the super villain. But the attack was just a reason to bring out Doc Ock's true target, which is Spider-Man himself, and our hero gets to go someplace he has never been before. Ultimately, the most important thing here is that Spider-Man defeat Doctor Octopus and get home before Aunt May comes back from her trip, because our hero is more worried about being grounded by his aunt than being pounded to pulp by a super villain (which is quite reasonable given what we know about Aunt May's disciplinary inclinations). But there is something even worse in store for our hero beyond that point and the best part of "Hollywood" is the last part, which is pretty much a coda to the big fight. While this one does not end with a bang and the whimper definitely belongs to Doctor Octopus (the Nick Fury of the Ultimate universe is a pretty smart guy who does what needs to be done), it is strongly grounded in the characters. Granted, the action takes a back seat to the character dynamics, but I did not mind it this time around. "Ultimate Spider-Man: Hollywood" has a nice mix of comic moments (e.g., Mysterio) with more personal ones, especially given the horrible thing that is going to happen in the next volume of the series, "Ultimate Spider-Man: Carnage." Reading these stories again known what lies ahead made several of the scenes especially poignant. I think it is clear that Bendis et al. have a clear view of the big picture and the long term with this particular comic book, which is why the "Ultimate Spider-Man" experiment has worked so well. You can appreciate it on its own terms or you can enjoy the way they work in twists and turns on the original Spider-Man stories. I am happily ensconced in the latter camp and will be for some time to come.
