The list of creators working on this book should be enough to make you buy it. Hickman, Spencer, Hardman, Hitch, Bendis and Garbett. And at first glance it all seems like such a comic nerd’s dream. But look closer and the cracks start to appear.

I loved the last few Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Fallout issues but this one is a different matter. Despite having great art, the plot never lives up to the last few books. The comic opens where it left off and we see Captain America claiming responsibility for Peter Parker’s death, then Aunt May breaking down. That’s great. That’s what I want; Emotion centered around the death of one of Marvel’s most important characters. Soon however, the book starts to loose track of what it should be.

The majority of the issue is taken up with the story of how Rogue and Thor are dealing with Spider-Man’s death. Both of these stories are dull, under-developed and seeing as the characters never really featured much in Spider-man, they end up feeling as if they have been crow-bared in. It’s clear that they are here just because this book is setting up the return of the X-Men in the ultimate universe and a new Ultimates series. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, and maybe that’s what the point of this book should be, to remind us of where all the characters are, whats happened before and to ease us into the new Ultimate universe. It’s just not what I wanted when I picked up this issue. I might have taken it better if they had chosen more interesting characters than Thor and Rogue though. It just seems that these stories could’ve been told in the Ultimate X-men or Ultimates series as they have almost no connection to the Death of Spider-Man arc.

Generally its an ok issue though. Its well drawn and the writing is ok, the subject matter is something that was never going to shine though. In short; If you’re going to start reading the new Ultimate books, it’s probably a good place to start. If not, don’t bother.

Art 4/5

Story 2/5