Whatever a Spider Can’s All-New Ultimates #2 review

All-New Ultimates #2 has been out for a while, but I’ve just got round to reading it! So, here comes Whatever a Spider-Can’s review, because that’s what happens when you read a comic and you write for a Spider-Man website, if you want the recap go here. I enjoyed the first All-New Ultimates although I found it a little confusing and hard to follow.

This issue didn’t help that at all as it opened with a confusing mish-mash of reintroductions and new introductions as all of the different factions involved collide in a brutal alley-way brawl. I found it hard to distinguish between certain characters, I can’t tell if it’s because the art isn’t distinctive enough for each different character, or it was just a lot going on in a couple of panels and I couldn’t follow it, after all I’m fairly new to comic books and this is the most action I’ve seen so far.

That being said this was a great issue at establishing all of the different narrative threads that we’ll be seeing in this comic. It’s a neat little trick to have them all converge at the start rather than introduce them seperately and have them all eventually collide. But now we know that the Serpent Skulls, the police department, the All-New Ultimates and a vigilante who is killing criminals off in a different form of justice.

I also like the fact that we’re seeing this new super-hero group struggle despite their powers. The fact that this was on the surface a simple alley-way brawl with some street-level gang and the heroes not only struggled but two of them ended up injured and one of them ended up leaving the group, all before they’ve barely started. Seeing this group develop and come-into their own from the start is something I’m looking forward to.

Whilst I have previously found an issue with the artwork from Pinna in terms of identifying the mutltitude of different new characters, there are one or two moments when he really shines. Don’t get me wrong, I really like his neon-style splashes of colour, the panels are full of bright oranges, yellows, greens and pinks. But where Pinna really excels are in his drawing of Bombshell’s power-blasts and the panels of Cloak transporting the entire team to safety and the montage panels at the end ending with Jessica Drew’s Spider-Woman collapsing, which are beautifully done.

I also really liked Pinna’s use of the colour red to unversially apply to the hit-man who we see shooting Dr. Stone, and then killing two more Serpent Skull members later on in the issue. These managed to stop the confusion i’ve mentioned. However Serpent Skull leader Crossbones was very inconsistent, sometimes appearing purple and sometimes appearing flesh-toned. It’s little things like this that are an issue, although I don’t know if they’re being done for deliberate stylistic reasons.

Still, the issues that the team need to overcome in the storyline, such as Jessica’s poisoning and Lana leaving the team are great developments, but I really don’t expect Spider-Woman to die or Bombshell to stay away from the team forever. After all, this is all building towards the All-New Ultimates becoming a finely tuned super-hero team so next issue I fully expect everything to have worked itself out.

I enjoyed the issue, mainly because it had a lot of action and because I’m getting to meet characters like Cloak and Dagger who I wouldn’t normally read about. I just found this to be a bit less focussed as an issue than I’m used to in my relatively fledgling comic-book experience. But, next issue has some clear plot-points to resolve so I imagine All-New Ultimates #3 will be an improvement.

Check out Whatever a Spider Can’s other Spidey comic book recaps and reviews
Amazing Spider-Man #1 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man #2 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl #1.1 recap, and review
All-New Ultimates #1 recap, and review
All-New Ultimates #2 recap,
Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man #1 recap, and review
Amazing X-Men #7 recap, and review

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