Ultimate Spiderman

“Ultimate Spiderman” is a fairly recent guilty pleasure. It’s been sitting there on bookstore shelves for a while but I thought it was a story I already knew. Peter Parker bit by a spider shooting his webs away. It’s the movie right? But not told with so much wit and humor as how Brian Michael Bendis wrote this. Here you really get involved with Peter’s life and how crappy it can actually be. He's juggling school, a job, a girlfriend and saving a city that hates him. He has to buy ingredients for and mix his own web fluid. He has to wash his costume and ask Mary Jane to help stitch it together after every fight. His Aunt May can be a right bitch at times. And worse, he had to actually endure having a Hollywood movie made out of him that he didn’t get a dime for.

It also has some moments that do make you think, like this scene (my partner’s favorite). In volume 8, “Cats and Kings,” Peter asks a teacher how come the courts allowed the Kingpin to be set free despite being caught on tape murdering someone. The teacher just replies “I think that our judicial system has it’s flaws, but it does serve us well, you have to look at the bigger picture… I guess, well, he does a lot of good for the city as well.” Enraged, Peter lashes out “When does it happen exactly? During college? After college? When you turn thirty? When do you just give up? To the point where you can actually look me in the eye and say ‘sure he murders, but he’s got good qualities too.'” And for that Peter gets kicked out of class.

I read this around the time a very famous political figure who, ousted from office 7 years ago, found guilty of his crimes, was then suddenly pardoned by (of all people) the very person he was ousted for. For healing, she says.

So, when did it happen exactly?

Enter Sandman

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” – Dream, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (from “Dream Country”)

“The Sandman” is how I got started again in comics (er, graphic novels). Prior to this, I think my last comic was Archie and Jughead. Then, here I was, in the Pearl Jam-era 90s, seeing all my drama in an equally angst-ridden Dream and his Endless siblings: Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Delirium and uhm, one more that has gone missing. Written by Neil Gaiman, at-the-time god of my idolatry...until he started visiting Manila a lot and I discovered I wasn’t so special anymore. You want to feel profound and serious and raise your cool factor, go for this one. Not always a linear story so don't expect light reading. Lots of story arcs that seem to go nowhere, then some of it resurfaces about 10,000 years later, literally.

My favorite volumes: “Seasons of Mist” in which Lucifer quits Hell, “Fables and Reflections” with the short stories of the first and only Emperor of the United States and the story of the Wise King of Baghdad who wanted his city to live forever, and “Dream Country” where one cat tries to rally a thousand cats to change the world.

“So what I want to know is, when I’m asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?” – Chloe Russel to Dream (from "Brief Lives")

“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.” – Dream (from “The Kindly Ones” where he caught one of his staff mocking him behind his back)

Comic Picks

I haven’t finished a book in years. I always say it’s because of my eyes – after a page or two my eyes get tired. Something to do with wearing glasses since I was 5 years old. The sentences all blur together after a while. So it’s amazing that I even finish reading books like Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King and those Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles that go on and on with descriptions about the décor in each and every room.

But now I’ve come to admit, it’s not my eyes as it is my impatience. Sometime in my early 20s, I rediscovered the joy of reading comics (ok, graphic novels, just to sound a bit more mature). After all, what I have to read through an entire paragraph to get an image of, I can just glance at one panel. Worth a thousand words.

So, in over a decade, the late bloomer that I am in comics (er, graphic novels) now has stacks of trade paperbacks and hardcovers and single issues. I won’t say I’m a comic-con level expert at comics (er, graphic novels). But I do know what I like. And for those who have always been curious where to start, I decided to start dedicating a series of blogs on the titles I would recommend. (Don’t worry, I will do my best not to put spoilers.)