I actually really dug this issue, but I have a few problems with it that really haven't been brought up. Also, some good things.
+ The whole "Why aren't you in jail?"/"Probably because you just leave him webbed to a light post" exchange between Spidey and Foggy was funny and made a lot of sense.
+ De Wolffe's death put Spidey squarely back in the NYPD's sights. The cops see him as a bad guy, and they're going to hunt him like a dog. There's been a tendency to forget that recently, and this puts the pressure squarely on Spidey again.
+ Shocker cried.
That makes my day.
+ The set-up for a potential "Ultimate Knights" was wicked. and the "Knights" in general were pretty damn cool. A lot of the art of the Punisher in action made him look like a total badass, Daredevil looked like a straight up demon, and the idea of a schizophrenic Moon Knight is intriguing.
But...
- De Wolffe's death seemed way too premature. We got the first reveal that she was working for Kingpin at the end of The Warriors, then there's no presence of her at all until this Annual, and then she's killed off. The potential of that subplot was very cool, and Bendis didn't give it time to breathe. It felt the same as Ultimate Gwen and Ultimate Beast. It always feels clumsy when Bendis kills off a character.
- UDD seems pretty hardcore, and not really in a good way. When he first ran into Spidey, am I the only one that thought he was going to break out with "I'm the goddamn Daredevil!"?
- Ultimate Punisher still sucks. and the first thing he did after breaking out of jail is what? Get a haircut? And how does he keep getting out of jail and getting his hands on hard-core ordinance? I love Punisher, but at least once, I'd like Bendis to show why and how he's such a colossal badass that he can break out of any prison and get his hands on a military base's worth of firepower.
- Ultimate Moon Knight is cool in theory, but he needs to be expanded on. It felt like Frank Castle was only there because Bendis needed someone to shoot DeWolffe, and like Moon Knight was only there for the "Marvel Knights" allusion. I can understand the character's being here if Bendis really DOES intend them to become major players in USM soon, or if there's going to be an Ultimate Knights spin-off, but something tells me neither of those things is going to happen. I think this is indicative of a huge problem Bendis has with the title. He'll have a loooong story arc dealing with organized crime, and then run off to do one about the super-human arms race, and then run off to do one about vampires, and then he turns around and realizes "Oops. I forgot about this plot thread. Let me tie it up real quick," and it doesn't have any impact because it's done too quickly, too far away from the original story. If he'd drop these silly stories about Morbius and Deadpool, or work on tying them in better to the urban Spidey stories, we'd have a much more cohesive plot.
- I agree about the Kingpin/DeWolffe plot. The Vanessa angle was the one thing making Fisk a sympathetic character. It's a shame.
- A lot of the flashback didn't work for me. It was the same problem Bendis had with the flashbacks in Silver Sable. It just felt like, "What's the point?". He could probably have dropped the padding and turned it into a regular-sized one-shot. But then again, that's the same problem he has with his regular super-long arcs.
- Ultimate Kangaroo was a disappointment. He's a thug who (maybe?) has supernaturally strong legs. It's another character that's just going to get thrown away without any explanation.
Despite all that, I really did like the story. But we'll just have to wait and see if it has any impact on the world of Ultimate Spidey.
