Ultimate Spider-Man #116 (Spoilers)
Well, here goes:
As we seen last issue, GG and Spidey are falling down from Trump Tower and Spidey has no web fluid (thanks to Danvers) keeping him from webbing himself and Gobs. Kitty dives off the building and manages to catch Spidey in mid-air just in time to phase through the sewer and onto muck-filled crap water. GG crashes into the street of course causing serious damages and a great looking splash page.
SHIELD agents stupidly fail to catch Osborn and he eventually aludes the authorities. Spidey and Kitty decide to leave SHIELD by themselves in mid-pursuit. Spidey comments that he's done being a dangling carrot to lure out Osborn. Danvers thinks to herself that he's not the only carrot they have. There's some little drama while they are alone as Peter tries to apologize for the bad break-up they had. Eventually we predictably find out that Kitty is interested in dating Kong. After all's well, Peter swings back home.
Now back at home, Peter cleans up and notices a suspicious-looking van parked on the road. He goes to the kitchen to picks up some snacks and drinks as the guys in the van are simply SHIELD agents doing surveillance. After handing the grub over to them and checking out some neat camouflage features of the van, he heads back and notices that the TV is on. Osborn is in his home! And wearing only a bedsheet no less!
Not happy, Peter tells Osborn to scram. Osborn tells him that if Peter reports him, he will kill the agents outside. He finally clears up to Peter about his agenda. He wants Peter to out himself as Spider-Man, and of course as a creation of Osborn, as this is the only good legacy Osborn can leave. This would also give him a good excuse to return to his super-soldier projects. Peter vehemently refuses. In the midst of their argument, a knock is heard at the door and message is slipped underneath telling him to go to CNN. We finally find out who the other "dangling carrot" is. Harry Osborn, and he is condemning his father's acts on national TV.
This is a very, very good arc. I have never been this hooked to an USM story arc for a quite a while. Interesting to note is Bendis is now trying to give out some sympathy towards Osborn through his conversation with Peter. It's a level of sanity we did not expect from Norman as we usually find him as a merciless and ruthless creature with it only magnified after his transformation to the Green Goblin, but I do not find it off-character as Norman has always seen Parker as "his boy" for years. I've always taken this attempts of writers to add some redeeming qualities to a person is some way to clue in on the character's going to bite it. Then again, we don't really know.
The best so far post-Venom era. 4/5
