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This book was amazing, and I very much so suggest all Ultmate Spider-Man fans read it.
They bring back Harry, who can barely remeber anything about his Dad and the Goblin. Also, Peter is all mad at MJ for never telling him that her and Harry had been boyfriend and girlfriend, and also because she never listens and just always asks questions when Peter asks her to do something.
When Harry becomes the Goblin, he is asking Peter to kill him. and it also brings back that Shaw character, sorta.
Over all, it was an Amazing book.
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I absolutely loved Volume 10. However, volume 11 was... disappointing to say the least, and most of the issues in volume 12 were basically trow-away stories. Luckily, this volume redeems the series, in my opinion.
The thing that I really liked about this volume was the great dialogue and character moments. There were just so many great moments between Peter and Harry, Harry and MJ, and especially MJ and Peter. You really care about these characters. Because of this (spoiler) when Peter and MJ break up, it doesn't feel forced, but rather understandable, even though you feel sorry for them and know they should eventually be able to find their way back to each other. Plus Bagley does a great job with facial expressions. Oh, and if what you want is beat-em-up action, that's in here too. So if you've enjoyed any of the past USM books, or if you would like a jumping-on point (since the backstory isn't too muddled), I would recommend this book.
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Great read and unpredictable plot line. Bendis still keeps this line fresh.
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This book features the return of the Green Goblin's son Harry Osborn. Bendis excels at portraying the normal lives of these characters including a potential break-up of Peter and MJ. Another solid book in this series.
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"Ultimate Spider-Man, Volume 13: Hobgoblin" collects issues #72-78 of the comic book, which includes the 6-part Hobgoblin storyline and the "Dumped" coda. The saga begins what we are told is nine months ago, when the radioactive spider bit Peter Parker when his high school class was visiting Oscorp. However, this time we learn an additional detail: Harry Osborn and Mary Jane Watson were dating. Of course, this was before she learned that Peter was Spider-Man and they became a couple. We then jump to "today" as Spider-Man is doing another thankless good deed. But in the interim a lot has happened. Most recently Carnage killed Gwen Stacy at the Parker's house and Nightmare put Peter through the ringer. Before that Harry witnessed his father as the Green Goblin, trying to coerce Spider-Man to be part of an attack on the White House. Harry was used by Nick Fury and the Ultimates to defeat Osborn and when Peter tried to comfort his friend all Harry has to say is, "I'll kill you all."
So when Harry shows back up at school, Peter knows this is not good. He warns MJ to stay away from Harry, but wants to know why and he does not want to play that game. As he pointedly reminds her, "every time you DON'T listen to me you get thrown off a bridge." The Parkers are moving to a new house in the neighborhood and when Harry shows up Peter becomes the last person to know that he is now dating Harry's girlfriend. We then go back a week to see what happened to Harry before he showed back on the scene, when he was finally released from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody and was approached by Mr. Shaw, an associate of Norman Osborn, who restores Harry's repressed memories of his father's life as the Green Goblin and shows him a bunker where the senior Osborn set up a mini-Oscorp. There is everything Harry needs to become a second Green Goblin.
The inevitable battle between Spider-Man and the Hobgoblin is problematic for our hero because Harry is not a villain and not his father, but a friend who is hurting. But the story becomes even more tragic because ultimately writer Brian Michael Bendis, penciler Mark Bagley, and inker Scott Hanna coming back to the love triangle that is creating as much tension as Harry's transformation into a movie. When MJ shows up in the middle of the battle she has obviously made a mistake, but not as big as the one that she keeps asking questions when listening would be a better idea. Nick Fury has his own idea of how to deal with Harry as the Hobgoblin, which complicates things as well. Plus, he does not take having his eye patch knocked off of his face well. However his threats seem rather trivial given what Peter has to say to MJ at the end of issue #77.
I really like "Ultimate Spider-Man," not only because I like the way it plays off of what happened in the original run of "The Amazing Spider-Man" but also because I really like the web-head as a teenager, more so than I did the first time around with Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Taking the hint from the "Spider-Man" movie to have Mary Jane be the girl next door from the start is proving to be a masterstroke and knowing that their ending up together is inevitable makes what is happening poignant rather than predictable, as the last page of issue #78 that concludes this trade paperback collection amply proves and does not allow Bendis et al. to run in new directions as the "Ultimate Spider-Man" annual #1 that just come out evidences as well. I also think that doing fewer and longer storylines not only makes economic sense in terms of setting up this reprint collections, but also because it allows for considerable more depth than we had in the early 1960s with the revolving supervillains every month. I have not been overly enamored of the other Ultimate titles from Marvel, but then I think they all pale compared to this one, which is as much of a testimony to the inherent popularity of the character as to the talents of the creative forces behind this comic book.
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