Psycamorean's Profile

Yeah, I hated this finale. I feel like it's such a betrayal of what that first issue promised, and how it resonated with so many readers. The first issue resonated with me because it spoke to this collective sense that our lives are not our own, that there are forces outside of our control that have directly or indirectly changed the course of all our lives for the worse. In the years since, this feeling has only manifested more as the tyrants at the top continue to make it impossible for us to live our lives how we wish to live them.

This comic is fluff. It has very little to say, it is overflowing with aesthetics. It wants to appear to be a title about family. It wants to appear to be about anti-fascism. It is about neither. Nothing is given time to be reflected on. Harry at one point asks Peter why he's been so passive, and we get a flashback that doesn't really answer the question. He's passive because... he has MJ and the kids? Isn't that in direct conflict with the idea of power and responsibility, even in the butchered, meaningless, mangled version presented in this issue? But you know, Peter seems to be fine with his family being in danger, since we never see any consequences for it or him. Hell, even in this finale, there are zero stakes. Richard must save the world and die in these impossible odds, except actually he's fine.

And to get into the politics of it all, which I will grant colors me extra annoyed here, Hickman is not a stupid writer. He writes things with intent. I don't know what his intent was here, but everything about this issue is repugnant. While you have the Ultimates comic actually deconstructing fascism and showing how people overcome it, this comic insists that passivity is the best course of action. Peter has all these morals on the surface that never get directly challenged, and the comic even subverts them. Peter is anti-killing and anti-torture, on the surface. But he can only defeat Kingpin with biotech Harry and Otto tortured out of a Bullsesye, and so he does, and the day is saved. Except the day isn't saved. With Kingpin dying, he's been replaced by Mysterio, another tyrant at the top. One that gives the people the mercy of ignoring them. And the cast seems fine with it, and why wouldn't they? They get to ignore the problems because the powerful aren't targeting THEM, plus they have millions and millions of dollars now off the back of crime, so they're now unburdened by socioeconomic factors. Everything is fine as long as THEY are okay. The Maker is still in charge, the elite still rule over us, but it's really about family. Peter wasn't missing anything, he just didn't know that he should've been happy with his station in life, the fool.

This title was so many unfulfilled promises, so much fluff, and the joke is on us as the readers for buying it and expecting consequence.more