A creepy rendition of the green goblin. ( )

See my note on it in my blog:

http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/01/booknote-ultimate-spider-man-vol-4.ht... ( )

In this book, Peter is dating Mary Jane Watson who knows his secret identity as Spider-Man. The Green Goblin, aka, Norman Osborn is dead and Harry has just returned from an extended leave of absence where he has forgotten that the Green Goblin is his father. Gwen Stacy, a new student, has caught the eye of Harry. Peter has just been grounded by Aunt May for coming home late after being in New Jersey dealing with Doc Oc, but she lifts the grounding when Norman Osborn's assistant comes around asking if Peter can come over for dinner with Norman and Harry and for Peter to make sure he brings his backpack--the one he keeps his spideysuit in. It would seem that Norman is alive after all.

Norman takes him aside and injects himself with the serum to become the Green Goblin for a short while then reverts back and explains to Peter that he will no longer be Spider-Man. That from now on Peter works for him and if he doesn't do as he says he will come after Aunt May and Mary Jane and then kill him slowly.

Peter is approached by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. who tells him that Osborn wants Peter to kill him and that they have information on all sorts of things about him but no evidence of any wrongdoing so until he actually goes after Peter or his Aunt or Mary Jane there's nothing they can do, but that they will be watching. Which is, of course, no help to Peter. What will he do and will Harry get caught in the crossfire? There's something off about the art. Maybe it's the coloring which was done by a digital company. The eyes are huge, too, though. It's kinda odd. But the storyline is interesting, which is no surprise as it was written by Brian Michael Bendis who writes Spider-Man comics, but who also created Jessica Jones, so I am recommending it for that reason only. ( )

A decent reintroduction of the Green Goblin to the Ultimate universe. I recently watched Spider-Man 3, and as a previous reviewer stated, these comics do a better job of dealing with Harry and Norman than that movie does. There's also an interesting scene for people who have been reading The Amazing Spider-Man for years that parallels a well-known event that featured Gwen Stacy (here it involves Mary Jane instead). ( )

Collects ultimate spider-man #22-26 ( )