Trade Tales! - Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 15 - Silver Sable

Wow, it's been a while. Between working days, getting used to my PS4, and doing other things, posting has been a little challenging. Then, there’s the fact that the views on my recent posts are all screwed up and crap. I know I ain't that popular and I did ask about it. Darn spammers. Oh well, it’s time to move on and get back in the swing of things. Since Spider-Man: Homecoming is making his way down the red carpet with Christina Hendricks at his side, I think it’s time to return to the Ultimate Universe for a bit. Besides, it seems this new Spidey is looking to be more and more based off that universe especially when Miles Morales is involved. Weird.

Silver Sable is the title for this latest volume. It contains Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1 as well as Ultimate Spider-Man #86-90. We more or less have the same team on this one. BMB is writing and Mark Bagley is handling pencils. We do get another penciller for the annual issue and that is artist Mark Brooks. The inks were handled by Scott Hanna, John Dell, and Jamie Mendoza. So, let's see Peter win some and lose some.

Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 15: Silver Sable

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Mark Bagley and Mark Brooks (Annual #1)

Inks: Scott Hanna, John Dell, and Jamie Mendoza (Annual #1)

Colors: Justin Ponsor and Dave Stewart (Annual #1)

Letters: Chris Eliopoulos and Cory Petit 

SYNOPSIS

The first annual to this series is pretty much a date between Peter Parker the X-Men’s Kathrine “Kitty” Pryde. Kitty expresses some interest in Peter since they’ve interacted a couple of times, so she calls him up and asks him out. They meet at Peter’s  school and then head to the mall for a bit. Everything comes up on their date. While it  has a couple of bumps and roads (Peter’s break-up with MJ, Kitty’s quirkiness, and the “awesome” Shocker), the date goes well and the two kiss. Their story ends with them heading home and immediately getting contact over the Web.

Then, we get to the Silver Sable arc. Silver Sable and her group, The Wildpack, are hired by Donald Trum… I mean, Donald Roxxon, head of Roxxon Industries. He believes that Spider-Man has been keeping his company safe from different attacks the company has gone under and he wants the Wildpack to bring him in for questioning. It literally takes a few weeks for them to track Spidey’s movements but they do find him at Midtown High and grab him in his civvies. Fortunately, it then turns out that they actually grabbed Flash Thompson who was in the same vicinity as Spider-Man was. Flash wakes up and is somehow able to escape the idiots.

Later, the whole school is abuzz over what happened. It even gets to the point where the school guards start looking to see if Spider-Man is a student. Peter almost gets caught and this leads him to almost tell Aunt May about his identity. He relents when May… tells her true feelings on the wall-crawler. By they way, MJ find out about Kitty. Once again, Peter Parker is getting hit everywhere. It even gets worse when he faces the Wild Pack. He actually takes them out easily, but Silver Sable had one trick left and he gets knocked out.

Duh duh duh!

Spider-Man, who is now unmasked (take a drink), wakes up at Roxxon tied up. Roxxon questions him and Peter reveals he knows nothing about the attacks. He’s just been stopping them because he’s just that nice of a guy. Suddenly, they all are attack by another assailant: the Vulture. Spider-Man and Silver Sable are able to take Vulture down but one of the Wildpack dies. The person who is attacking Roxxon even calls Roxxon himself. Luckily, SHIELD kept its distance from the battle and tracked the call to a disgruntled scientist. Nick Fury himself basically threatens the man (the Ultimate version of the Tinkerer) to work for them. In the end, all is okay but Flash did get a movie made about his experience. Peter’s still missing out on those royalties.

OPINION

While it’s not my favorite trade of the bunch, this was still good. Instead of some big bad coming, we get Silver Sable and the Furious Five… yes, I wanted to call them that. While I know little about the character, I thought Silver Sable was handled well. We learn a little bit about her here and that was nice.  I also liked the banter between her and the Wildpack. The multiple villains were also a treat. Even though they just were around to be menacing, it was nice to see the Ultimate versions of Omega Red and Vulture. It was even nice to see the X-Men for a little bit.

Of course, this is still Peter’s show and a lot happens here. He and Kitty Pryde get together which is something that couldn’t have happened when she first got on the scene in the 616-universe. That whole annual was a highlight in itself. The aftermath was also a nice thing to see since I felt Peter was being too hard on MJ considering what happened. May's scene with Peter was also pretty interesting. Just know that this is going somewhere and we're close to something happening with those two.

The artwork was a bit better this time around. I didn't run into that many problems like I did last time. The action was crisp. I think the inks help and colors worked this time around. I also thought Mark Brooks was a nice stand-in on the Annual. While it was obviously different, it worked for the story Bendis was trying to tell. I don't have anything too negative to say about it. I did think the story was a little too padded out. Plus, the main thrust of the story involving Roxxon was okay. Other than that, this was nice.


Revealings/Unmaskings of Spider-Man: 1

This time on "Times Spidey is Needlessly Unmasked," he gets unmasked when he's captured. Why he's unmasked isn't explained. Either way, it's a weird moment. I do think his reaction to it all is funny.

Total Reveals/Unmaskings of Spider-Man: 16


HIGHLIGHTS
Finally, here are my highlights of the trade:
-Peter's and Kitty's first date: Their first date was nice and pretty funny.

-Flash's kidnapping: I gotta say it was nice to see Flash get kidnapped. Too bad he escaped. Butthead.

-May's outburst to Peter: It was interesting to see what happened when May revealed her true feelings about Spider-Man.

Overall, this was nice. It's not the best trade in the run but it does the job. Next time, there will be even more adventures featuring Kitty and the X-Men. We might even get some vampires too. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.