So this is the end, huh?

I've been reading ultimate spidey since the first issue. It's kind of fitting because one of the first issues of Spiderman I ever picked up was an issue of Amazing drawn by Bagley where he fought the Hulk.

However, as much as that issue makes me all nostalgic and weepy, this issue suffered from the same problems I had with New Avengers this week.

This story seemed to be a half assed retelling of the 3rd issue of Ultimate Marvel Team up, but this time with added school bus-y goodness.

Why were the kids on a school bus, anyway? Either school had started and they should have been in class, like the very beginning of the story indicated, or, if it is the all purpose field trip, they probably should have still been getting organized at the school not half way to the middle of the city on a bridge. I know it's more compelling to make Hulk a hero if he saves kids, but that just grates against my nerves to no end.

Add into the fact that Ultimate Hulk is much more of an evil bastard than regular Hulk ( or am I the only one that remembers him killing and eating 300 or however many he said when he was after Freddie Prinze Jr.  people in the first Ultimates arc?) and this story just had all sorts of continuity problems.

Actually, I usually can ignore continuity problems if the story was good, but it wasn mediocre at best. Other than have righteous indignation, what was the purpose of Spidey in this story?

I do appreciate that Bendis bent over backwards to let the Randian principles that Ditko wanted the character to have to be evident, but seriously, come on.

 And if I read the word Man child one more damn time I'm going to set something on fire.

The art was great and I really do miss Bagley on the book. He was perfect for it. Only John Romita Jr. is a more iconic Spider-man artist to me.

The pages hitting the "high" points of the series just seemed like wankery to me. I mean honestly, who is nostalgic for the Ultimate Beetle story. And I remember Ultimate Six being obscenely late and ending with *pfft* sound of someone letting the air out of a balloon. And did he really team up with the Ultimates during Loeb's run? I seem to recall him being knocked out by Hawk-Bulls-eye.

 I'm glad that they showed Pete being okay on the last page, as a big mystery of his death to start out the first arc of the new series would have been too much to bear.

This issue didn't feel like an ending so much as a recap, which is all well and good for those  free Marvel Saga books, but not worth what I wanted when I bought this.