The Carnage is over...for now!
Ultimate Spider-Man # 64
W: Brian Michael Bendis
P: Mark Bagley
I: Scott Hanna
C: J.D. Smith
What Has Gone Before:
With Peter's consent, Dr. Curt Conners has taken some samples of Pete's
miraculous blood for research purposes. Unknown to Pete, Conners
has mixed Pete's DNA with that of Connors' own Lizard-infected DNA, and
some of the "Venom" anti-cancer material co-created by Pete's
dad. The result is a horrible mockery of life that possesses some
of Pete's memories and has sucked the life out of four people,
including Gwen Stacy, Pete's friend and houseguest. In the
aftermath of her murder, Dr. Conners has come to the scene of the
crime, Pete's house, looking for him. Peter finds him and takes
his rage out on Conners, only to be stopped by the arrival of the
murderous life-form itself!
What Happens Now:
The battle is on as Pete fights to stop this thing that can, on
occasion, mimic Pete's face. He sends Conners on to his
university lab to find something to kill it as he fights the thing,
leading it to ESU. During the battle, the thing sucks down two
victims despite Pete's best efforts. Immediately afterwards, it
re-forms itself into an almost exact copy of Pete's father! But
the battle goes on, and Pete comes to realize that it's draining people
to stabilize its damaged DNA, and in fact needs to suck Pete down to
finally achieve that goal. Pete decides that this thing is no
more than that and tricks it into falling into a smokestack, where its
finally consumed in a fiery death. Pete gets to Conners' lab
where he relates the end of the battle, and nearly resumes his assault
on him because of Gwen's death. Pete gets back to MJ's, who's
missed the entire battle, but he tells her that he's finally had enough
of what being Spider-Man has done to him and his friends and family.
He'll be Spider-Man, "No more." The next day, Conners has
confessed the entirety of the situation to the police, who are now
locking down his lab. Lab Assistant Ben Reilly comes in and asks
to get his stuff. He takes a vial of Pete's blood with him.
Yet Another Tour-De-Force
There's so much of regular Spider-Man continuity wrapped up and turned
around in this that you barely know where to begin. The overall
plot is a Carnage redux, of course (the arc title is just that), but
there's elements of the classic "Spider-Man No More" story (recently
adapted in the magnificent Spider-Man 2 movie), the shattering death of
Gwen Stacy (after her father's Spider-Man-related passing), and even a
couple spooky Clone saga references! The place wherein Carnage
was dispatched is especially evocative of that, not to mention how
Carnage was able to become a "clone" of Pete's dad, and the spooky
epilogue of Ben Reilly, seemlingly set to pursue the research
gone horribly wrong with a smirk on his face!
While this is as heavily derivative as I've made it out to be, this is
also one of those classic instances that proves the aphorism: it's not
what you do, it's how you do it. Which is the fundamental genius
of ALL of the "Ultimate" books, but it's no better typified than
Bendis' work here. All of the things we long-timers have seen
before are taken apart and rewoven into a new whole that is at once
intimately familiar and arrestingly new and different. You
newbies won't get all the references, but that's okay. Trust me,
you're getting some CLASSIC comic-book storytelling from the best in
the business. If you're not already up on this title, BY ALL
MEANS get the trade collections. Not to in any way diss JMS' work
on the core title, but this is as good as Spidey gets. Don't you
dare miss it!
Recommendation: Duh! Buy the mother!