Ultimate Reading Update

So a while back when I read through all of the original X-Force I thought I'd try to write about it as I did. It didn't last too long. I didn't do a very good job of it and lost interest pretty quickly. So what made be decide it would go better now as I read through Ultimate Marvel? I don't know, it probably won't. But we'll give it a shot.

What did I read?
Ultimate Spider-man #1-13
Ultimate X-men #1-6
Ultimate Marvel Team-up #1-8 
What did I skip?

Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra #1-4
Ultimate Elektra #1-5

I did read read the Ultimate Daredevil's back in the day, but I had checked them out from the library and never owned them. From what I remember they were pretty self contained and didn't have much of (if any) effect on the overall Ultimate Universe, so I decided not to sweat skipping those.

What happened?
Spider-man's origin is pretty much what it is at this point: Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, gains spider-like super powers, starts wrestling to make some money, declines to prevent a petty theft by a robber who turns around and kills Uncle Ben which teaches Peter that with great power must also come great responsibility, Spider-man is born. This all remains unchanged, but this time Norman Osborne sees what the Spider has done to Peter and tries to recreate it, but just ends up turning himself into a giant green.... goblin. Spider-man defeats him and then goes on to pick on the Kingpin for a while, eventually exposing him and causing him to run and hide. Unfortunately while doing this he hurts Mary-Jane's feelings a couple times and decides to tell her his secret.

Meanwhile, Professor X recruits a team of X-Men consisting of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Colossus, Beast Storm and Iceman to stop Magneto and his terrorist group and spread Xavier's dream of peaceful human/mutant relations. Magneto hires Wolverine to infiltrate the X-men and assassinate Xavier, but apparently the world's greatest, most deadly assassin is easily swayed by a pretty face and switches sides, just in time to help save the world from Magneto and an army of reprogrammed Sentinels.

What did I think?
At this point I've already read all of these books, so nothing is new or shocking. This is the first time I've read them in order like this though, so it's interesting to read Spider-man's first encounter with the Hulk before he shows up in the Ultimates, as they make references to his rampage through New York in that book.

The thing of note for Ultimate X-men was that I had never noticed before how there is not a single likable character in that whole first arc. I had read that book at least 2 or 3 times already before this and it never stuck out to me like this before. Every single charger comes across as a pompous, egotistical, piece of crap. All of their dialogue is super conceited and braggy. The heroes, the villains, the side characters, all of them. It kind of made it tough to read this time and I was really looking forward to finishing those issues and getting back to Spider-man. But as I recall, the Ultimates kind of come across that way too, so maybe it's just a Mark Miller thing I get to look forward to.

Either way I guess, onward we go.

Currently reading: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
In the stereo: Everything Will Be Alright In The End by Weezer