Ultimate Spider-Man #76

Background

A dumbstruck Harry witnessed the violent defeat of his father. Peter tried to comfort his old friend. The only words Harry could mutter were: "I'll kill you all." That was the last time Peter, or anyone, saw Harry until a few days ago when he resurfaced, back in Forest Hills. Harry had been approached by an associate of his father, Mr. Shaw, who restored Harry's repressed memories of his father's life as The Green Goblin. Later, Harry showed up at Peter's house and accused Peter of stealing his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson. Peter and Harry manage to reconcile, realizing they have much in common. But Peter and MJ have a falling-out after she finally admits her past relationship with Harry. As Spider-Man, Peter visits Harry at his father's midtown penthouse only to witness a horrifying transformation.

Story Details

Harry has transformed into a monster, just like his father, only Harry is kinda orange. Peter is nailed to the ground. Harry attacks, Peter uses his webbing. The fight gets more intense. Peter wonders how this happened. What did Norman do to his own son? Peter does not believe Harry did this to himself. He's reluctant to fight Harry.

The fight moves outside, where the creature demolishes a couple of cars. Then after a little classroom cut scene [I'm not telling, go buy the book yourself!] Spidey finally snaps out of it and starts to help his friend Harry by talking to him. Then Mr. Shaw is there, invisible to Spidey. He orders Harry to end it. So Harry grabs a lamppost and throws it at Spider-Man.

Cut to Mary Jane who just left a subway station. She sees the fight and cries, "Peter!". Harry notices her, and Shaw makes him go after her. Using a webline, Spider-Man makes Harry fall over. He then grabs Mary Jane and swings away to a nearby rooftop. He quickly tells her the monster is Harry and pushes her to safety.

The monster has arrived. Spider-Man goes berserk and lets Harry really have it. He yells, why, why is this happening? Harry then finally talks, don't stop, do it, kill me. And the issue ends with Spider-Man holding his fist up high, ready to strike.

General Comments

Well, although packed with action (aka one big fight scene) I found this issue to be very, very boring. One good thing, though. Ever since I played Doom on my PC (the original, way back kids) I wanted to use the term "berserk" in a real sentence. Well, here I got one of those little chances. Not that it does any good to the review, considering it's the only fun I had with this issue.

Is it me? Am I getting old? Could be; I will turn 37 tomorrow, but the stories in Ultimate Spider-Man tend to bore me to death. This story is called Hobgoblin. It's part 5 of 6. But did the villain get a name yet? Nope, he did not. Only because he's kinda orange and looks like the Green Goblin, taking the Original Marvel Universe into account, you might deduce Harry is the Hobgoblin.

Is this the actual Ultimate way of telling Spider-Man stories? Not telling who we're dealing with? Back with the Carnage story, they did the same. Come on, this is a superhero book, we need cool names. Not just cool story titles, we need silly code names! Some old time readers, who know who the original Hobgoblin is [no, not Ned Leeds, please, do your research, again] might get a kick out of it, seeing the elements Goblin, Hobgoblin and Harry in a different mix. But I bet new readers, you know those that only read the Ultimate Universe series, might need a little bit more to go on.

Man, this really makes me wanna read the Original Marvel Universe stories again. So, let's wrap this up and dig up my precious copies. Ah, the smell of old paper, no glossy Ultimate comic can beat that.

Overall Rating

It's nothing more than a big brawl. This is what we've been waiting for, I guess. And of course it's not over yet. More to come in the next issue. Which to me is taking way too long. Sorry guys and gals, but giving this more than 2.5 webs would be a waste of webs.