Sunday, August 09, 2009

A Potentially Interesting Conversation

I have a question for those of you that kept reading Ultimate Spider-Man after I jumped ship. Relax, the question is not 'Why did you stay?'

I was wondering if Peter and Kong ever had a discussion about Kong knowing Pete was Spider-Man. Kenny originally hit upon that flash of inspiration in Ultimate Spider-Man #14, which lead to his attempt in the next issue to prove it to Flash, and Pete having to play the weakling and get kicked into his locker, which lead to Gwen Stacy threatening to cut Kong. That whole scene seemed to settle things. Peter Parker, who started crying after getting kicked in the rump, was definitely not Spider-Man.

Then in #118, Kong's doing some push-ups, worrying that he'll botch his chance to date Kitty Pryde, and he starts wishing that Pete would tell him he's Spider-Man so they could talk about Kitty, and Pete could maybe give Kong some pointers on what to avoid*. Just out of the blue after 103 issues. By the next issue, Kong tells Peter he knows, when he tells Pete to suit up and go talk to Liz about her powers manifesting. It's never one thing out of the blue for Peter Parker.

I would have liked to see Pete and Kenny talk, how he figured it out, why didn't Pete's performance work, when, why he hadn't said anything to anyone else. Looking at the people who know who Spider-Man is, Kenny's I think the only one to piece it together that didn't have a vast intelligence network at hand, or was involved in the spider bit**. So that's sort of noteowrthy, and maybe they would talk about how Pete screwed things up with Kitty, which is one of those things I was in favor of Peter being reminded of fairly regularly. The possibility of that conversation, and Gwen coming back, almost made me keep buying the book. But Venom was coming back***, and I was fairly convinced that the title would be wrecked just because Bendis and Immonen would have to play along with Ultimatum, and here we are.

* Here's a big one: Don't start kissing your old girlfriend when Kitty is standing about fifteen feet away, especially after she rushed to your house to help you through a crisis. She's not fond of that.

** Osborn and Octavius were responsible for the experiment, and they told who knows how many guys. Clearly Otto blabbed to all those damn feds and scientists working on the clone project. Pete blurted his name out to the X-Men after they unmasked him. He told the FF. Wolverine and DD tracked him with their senses. Harry came in on Pete and Norman fighting when Pete's mask was torn. Fury had the aforementioned vast intelligence network, but Kong just had himself. The Kingpin knows what Peter looks like, but he never got his name, and he's the freaking Kingpin of Crime!

*** In a story tying into the video game, which had really frustrated me when I owned it, so consider that another strike.

No comments: