Once again, expectations have served me greatly. With a name like Learning Curve, I expected this second Ultimate Spider-Man story to mostly revolve around Peter learning to deal with his new powers, such as climbing on walls and being strong, and that this would be basically fine, but nothing to write home about while waiting for the next good story to start up.

Instead, I got a sensible revamp of several eye-rollingly silly criminals from the early Spider-Man run (and also Kingpin, who I haven’t even gotten to yet in the originals), as well as the beginnings of Peter’s work as a freelance photographer and the beginnings of a relationship with Mary Jane. On top of this, there are some seeds scattered about for future plot development, and Aunt May seems like a real and interesting character, which I would not have guessed was possible; in my experience she has only ever been a device to serve as a limiting factor on Peter’s choices in life. All this, plus the learning curve in question is Spider-Man learning to behave intelligently instead of bulling forward into fight after unwinnable fight. Which is to say, something that’s actually interesting to read about, and not filler in the slightest.

All of that plus the beginnings of the smart-mouthed banter that was, at least to my eye, Spidey’s first real trademark maneuver have gelled this series in my mind as my clear favorite in the super-hero genre, and in the top 5 of graphic novel series generally. Looking forward to more quite eagerly, let me say.