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?