10 Reasons Ultimate Spider-Man Is The GREATEST Spider-Man Run Ever
The Ultimate Marvel Universe had its ups and downs, but Ultimate Spider-Man was superb.
The Ultimate Marvel Universe was a new imprint of comics that took all of the Marvel properties and created a new universe independent of the original 616 main continuity.
Primarily, it allowed writers and artists to reinvent famous characters such as Captain America and Wolverine without having to worry about 40 years of previous continuity, as well as serving as a way to introduce new readers and younger audiences to comics who weren't interested in braving the perils of back-issue bins to figure out an unending list of retcons.
The Ultimate Marvel Universe ultimately came to an end in 2015's Secret Wars storyline, where the most popular characters were moved from the Ultimate Universe into the main continuity. While the Ultimate imprint did have its issues across its fifteen year lifetime, it was also home to some of the greatest comics Marvel ever printed - one of which was Ultimate Spider-Man.
Peter Parker's Spider-Man received one hundred and sixty issues in the Ultimate Universe while Miles Morales would get twenty eight before joining the main continuity. In this time writer Brian Micheal Bendis - together with an array of talented artists like Mark Bagley and Sara Pichelli - was able to tell one of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever, taking the best of Spider-Man and using it to tell a truly satisfying story about power and responsibility.
10. It Was Easy To Jump On And Start Reading
If you were to try and read the entire Amazing Spider-Man run, you'd have to slog through over 800 issues. While that in itself would be an achievement, not everyone has the time to read that many comics and not every issue or story arc is going to be good. Collecting these issues would also come at an extravagant cost to say the least.
Through these 800 issues you'd read through three different comic book ages, five different decades and a whole multitude of writers who take the story in different directions. It does mean that The Amazing Spider-Man lacks a certain cohesion which can sometime lessen the impact of the narrative, especially with all the retcons sprinkled in across the decades.
Compare this to Ultimate Spider-Man, which in its entirety is made up of 188 issues, it's understandable why many people would rather read the Ultimate Spider-Man series over the main continuity.
The comics are also easier to collect, with different story arcs being compiled in easy to find volumes with great covers to accompany them. Bendis also oversaw all the issues, meaning that from start to end it really does feel like one complete story.