Worth the money:

Amazing Spider-Man #624

As we get deeper into the ‘Gauntlet’ event, it is now clear this storyline turned out to be a tad different than I original imagined.  Unlike a 6-issue Sinister-Six storyline, this methodical approach to redefining Spidey’s classic list of villains is starting to feel a bit overly decompressed.  Waid is one of the better Spider-man writers and does a great job of handling this very special “they took our jobs” issue where Parker gets a taste of that 10% unemployment.  While you may or may not care for the 2.0 versions of these classic arch-enemies (and for the most part I do not), it’s the handling of the everyman Parker that makes this book work and has really been the saving grace since the OMD reboot.  The throw-back art by Paul Azaceta is very stylish and works well in most areas.

Save your receipt:

Ultimate Comics New Ultimates #1

Talk about putting a silk hat on a pig, what a waste of incredibly rendered Frank Cho art.  This guy is one of my favorite artists working today and his ability to draw T & A is legendary.  So much so, in fact, it seems that Jeff “I used to be a good writer” Loeb is relegating his script to serving Cho fastballs right across the plate and letting him draw everything in his wheelhouse.  Unfortunately, other than that, there is nothing here of note.  Same old dysfunctional group we saw Loeb do in Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum with the same lazy soap opera plots and navel gazing narrative that is just not entertaining.  If Ultimatum was supposed to wipe the slate clean for a new start, it’s ironic that the very author of that series doesn’t seem to get that point.  It’s sad that Marvel has seen fit to give the worst writer in comics two of the best artists (Cho & Adams).  If this was just a pin-up book, I would rate it higher.