Review: Ultimate Fallout - Spider-Man No More #4 SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD So here it is; Marvels next big, headline grabbing reveal, the identity of the new Spider-Man! And I have to admit that despite my dislike for these attention grabbing events (see the recent Death of Spider-Man, Death of Johnny Storm issues), I was excited. This tactic clearly works as well as people who have no interest in comics have been coming into my office, picking up this issue and asking me who this character is. Newspapers, Magazines and television programs have all been reporting this story. Which brings me to a topic I want to briefly talk about before we get into the nitty-gritty of this issue. Why have Marvel adopted this marketing strategy recently? Well that's easy, because it works. Just ask your local comic shop vender and I'm sure that they will tell you whenever a poly-bagged issue comes out with a death of a character, the sales sky-rocket. People who never normally read that book pick it up, and even people who never read comics will be tempted to buy a copy. Great, everybody wins right? Well my problem with this tactic is that every time Marvel creates this publicity storm, they feel the need to release a spoiler a day before the comic is released. Why? Because then every website and chat program will report it, therefore giving them a great amount of free advertising. I'm sure this translates to fantastic sales and I'm glad that my favorite books can become great sellers (if only for a week or two), but the fact that it's always spoiled so dramatically means that it's almost impossible for me to avoid. I really wanted to discover who the new spidey was for myself, but instead, on my facebook wall, marvel posted a picture of the new character and his name. ON MY FACEBOOK WALL! I'm still so annoyed that Marvel ruined the surprise for me. I'm also scared that this marketing ploy is working so well, that we are going to see a lot more superhero deaths over the next few years. After all, it seems to be making them piles of money. Anyway, enough of the ranting, here's the review: If you've read my other reviews of Ultimate fallout 1, 2 and 3 you'll know that I haven't exactly been in love with this book. Its been an up-and-down ride with no clear direction and unfortunately this issue is the same. Granted we are shown who the new Spider-Man is, but are given no back-story, character development and no name for him (although online it has been said that he's Miles Morales, half African-American, half hispanic, teen) the stories in this book just seem to flop around with no real purpose or development. And I was exited about this reveal, I even wrote a whole article about my theories about who could be the new Spider-Person. This reveal though, was dull. We get no details about this character and as a result he just feels like Peter Parker 2. He looks the same in the costume, he makes wise-cracks and he's not so good at fighting. Until we get this guy's back story and motivation, he just feels like a ghost replacing a well-loved character. At least the art in this part of the story was fantastic (as you can expect from Sara Pichelli) and... well that's about it. Nice art but pointless, headline grabbing story. The second chapter in this issue was about Mr Fantastic, was written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Salvador Larroca. I don't know if I missed something in the Ultimate continuity, but this story made no sense to me. Reed Richard's seems to have done something bad, and has become trapped in the negative zone after battling some heroes, he builds... something, he goes to a forest, and then... gets some people to go inside a futuristic dome in a white room... You know what, forget this. Without any more story to clarify what the hell is going on here, this story is pointless and unintelligible. Although, I did like the art. The third chapter of this book... well it deals with some characters... I'm not sure who. Talking about a character who I don't know, and the fact that in the Ultimate universe, mutants were created by some government funded, genetic experiment. This comes from an Ultimate mini-series from a few years ago that I can't even remember the name of. Nothing happens in this chapter except two women sit at a table and eat an ice-cream. Maybe they are setting up something for the next issue or one of the new Ultimate books about to be launched, but so far this series has set up about 10 story lines and resolved none, so don't hold your breath. And I didn't even like the art. You may have seen Clayton Crain's work on the recent Carnage mini-series, and some people like it, but I don't. Something about it feels artificial and hollow. If you are at all curious about this book, just look at the new spider-man panel thats been everywhere online. It's all you need to get from this comic. This is the new spider-man and... that's all we know about him. I don't even have the energy to be annoyed about this series anymore. It's been a major let down and really hasn't been worth my time or the money I've spent on it. At least there are only two issues left and hopefully something will finally happen in them. Art 3/5 Story 1/5