Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9

Background

After 8 issues you might think they know how to handle the Ultimate Marvel Team-Up series, right? Well, read on!

Story Details

Peter Parker is at the Baxter Building to career-shadow Reed Richards. Therefor, he is being scanned when entering the building. The scanners pick up his superpowers and the costume in his backpack. Before he can actually meet the Fantastic Four, he has to watch a promotional video.

The video explains how the Fantastic Four got their powers. When returning from the Negative Zone they just had them. Reed Richards funded that trip himself using money he earned from various extremly silly patents like the kilowatt.

The FF are arguing about some broke coffee machine and think that Peter is one of the interms. They tell him to get some coffee from the Starbucks down the block as the alarm sounds. When they leave in a hurry, Peter is still standing in the room.

Exiting the building, Peter wanders off the path he's supposed to take and after not being able to give the correct answer to the safety system, he's attacked by machine guns. The guns break something and the portal to the Negative Zone is open. Enter the Skrulls on a quest to conquer the world or take the head of Reed Richards.

Trying to stop them, Peter changes into his Spidey costume and tells the Skrulls that he in fact is Reed Richards. Of course they do not believe him and after crashing through the building of Marvel Comics they're destroyed by Reed Richards with the Negative Zone Nulifier B-2000.

Closing the story, the FF say that it's Spider-Man fault for he did not follow the rules. Spidey says they're mistaking him for somebody else. Which they find hard to believe.

General Comments

First, the story. I guess this an attempt of Brian Michael Bendis to be funny. After the first 8 disaster issues of this series where he could not create a thrilling action packed story, humor might be it. Well, it isn't. I smiled at the first page only, not for the humor itself, but for what he was trying to do but obviously failed at.

Second, the art. I've been told Jim Mahfood has done underground comics. Well, I wish he'd stick to that so I wouldn't have had to read this comic. Lots of people might appreciate his work, but in my opinion it's just not the right style for mainstream comics. Sorry, Jim.

Overall Rating

Yep, you read it correct, just 0.5 webs! Not only was the story an insult to my intelligence, the art was downright UGLY. Wish I could give it a negative score, but the editor won't let me.