Ultimate Spider-Man #111

Ultimate Spider-Man #111
Stuart Immonen takes over for Mark Bagley on half of this issue, and will fully supplant him in the next. I think he's a good choice, because, while it's important that artists have their own particular styles, one of the reasons that Ultimate Spider-Man has survived this long and succeeded as the flagship for the Ultimate line is largely due to the consistency of its art from month to month. With Bagley drawing this book for the past more than nine years, fans knew that they could come back and find the same beautiful artwork every month.
Bad art pisses me off. I dropped X-Men several months ago because reading it gave me a headache. I'm seriously considering dropping New X-Men. I haven't read the last several issues of Superman/Batman, though that's largely due to the fact that Verheiden fucking sucks. Then again, an artist can only interpret the story by way of the descriptions given him by the writer's script, so in some instances it's the writer who's to blame for the bad art. Carey's a great writer. That's why I blame Bachalo. I hated every issue of Ultimate X-Men that Bachalo drew. In fact, he's one of the reasons I stopped reading that title until recent issues. And I'm not the only one who made a similar decision. Marvel's sales on UXM must have dropped measurably after Bachalo took over for Kubert. So their not wanting to make a similar mistake with the departure of Bagley is a very smart decision.
From the few pages that were drawn by him in this issue, Immonen's style seems similar enough to Bagley's that readership on this title should remain strong. Plus, I know his work, and he's really good. Plus, he'll bring a number of loyal fans with him to this title. So it's a good move.
And Bendis turns in his "The Talk" issue. Not bad.
Overall, this issue was VERY GOOD. I'm looking forward to Immonen's first complete issue.