I’m not going to deal with the fact that no part of this story takes place in the “present.” For more on that, see my review of last issue.

Also, I’m not going to talk about the fact that this is apparently a re-telling of the Ultimate Spider-man video game, because I never played the game so I wouldn’t know about it.

What I am going to say is that not only did two excellent Spidey books come out this week. Two excellent Spidey books with Venom in a major role came out this week. And oddly, the Ultimate Venom is much, much more terrifying. It’s a whole different take on the character than in the main Spidey title and I like. Bendis has taken a page from Miyazaka, sure, (see “No Face” from Spirited Away) but as source material for cribbing ideas, you can’t get much better.

Immonen’s art is delectable as always and plays no small part in the making this version of Venom the most horrific. Just look at any panel where he’s eating. It’s… visceral. I’m looking forward to next issue and eventually seeing what Spidey’s been up to lately. But I guess if anything bad happens to Peter in Ultimatum, Bendis can just keep telling more stories from “Months Ago” to keep the series running.