Ultimate Spider-Man is really fun and delightful. I just finished reading Volume 1. You should check it out!
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Let us now consider, for just a moment, a list of Ultimate Spider-Man collections that, with two exceptions (marked with an asterisk), are, as far as I can tell, currently in print:
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1*
Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man Collection*
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1
Oh dear.
AN EXPLANATION
Let me see if I can explain this list.
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This softcover collects the beginning of Brian Michael Bendis’ prodigious run on the book, collecting Vol. 1, Issues #1-7. All of the collections listed below are also written by Bendis (with one exception, which will be noted).
This softcover series continues with numbered volumes to Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 22: Ultimatum (which, in some editions, is unnumbered). To continue the story you will then need to pop over to Ultimatum: Requiem.
Utimate Comics Spider-Man – Volume 1: This is the 23rd volume. It collects the first issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 2, which was relaunched with a new #1 (but would later revert to the original numbering).
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This is the 28th volume. It collects Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (which relaunched with a new #1 starring Miles Morales).
Yes, the collection called Ultimate Comics Spider-Man collects Ultimate Spider-Man, while the collection called Ultimate Spider-Man collects Ultimate Comics Spider-Man.
No, I’m not making this up.
If you follow this set of collections to its end, however, you’ll have a complete set of Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man comics.
However, this list does not include…
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: A hardcover edition of the original run, but it collects #1-13 instead of #1-7.
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1*: A hardcover edition of the original run, but it collects #1-7.
Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection – Volume 1: A softcover edition of the original run, collecting #1-13.
Ultimate Spider-Man Collection*: An exclusive hardcover sold by Barnes & Noble, collecting #1-39.
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: An omnibus edition collecting #1-39.
Ultimate Spider-Man – Volume 1: This collects Vol. 3 #1-6, a new series by Jonathan Hickman with a completely different version of the character. (This is the one I was recommending above, although Bendis’ series is also excellent and well worth reading if you haven’t.)
A REFLECTION
Every so often, while digging through yet another Marvel/DC reading list to unravel the arcane lore of which book I need to read next and frantically cross-referencing ISBN numbers in a futile effort to make sure I’m not getting the wrong Wonder Woman (Volume 3), I imagine what it would be like if other series did this.
C.S. Lewis, writing the sixth Narnia book circa 1955 and thinking to himself, “This book also involves a lion, a witch, and the origin of the wardrobe. So let’s just call it The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe again!”
And, of course, who can forget J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary The Hobbit, which is the sequel to The Hobbit and also Volume 1 of The Lord of the Rings? (I don’t even know why you’re complaining about this! A real fan would obviously recognize that it’s about a completely different hobbit!)
Andy Weir is pleased to announce The Martian, the new book in the award-winning trilogy which began with The Martian and will conclude with The Martian.
Of course, I say this, but it’s not just Marvel and DC, right? They’re just the most cancerous examples. We’ve begun seeing this creep into other media, too: Tomb Raider. God of War. Halloween. Scream. Weezer albums titled Weezer.
It seems to be creeping into everything, doesn’t it? And is it a coincidence that so much of this is corporate-owned IP? Is it meant to baffle and confuse us? To reduce creation to consumption? To anonymize creators into a mass of undifferentiated product?
Of course, it feels like reboots, remakes, and re-adaptations aren’t the same thing, but it’s also true that when I say The Maltese Falcon, the film you’re thinking of almost certainly isn’t the original film adaptation.
And then there’s Shakespeare’s King Lear, the multiple editions of which I won’t be able to explain without multiple flowcharts and a 90-minute presentation.
But, honestly, I just want to read The Ultimate Spider-Man. (No, not that one. The other one.) And it just feels like it shouldn’t be this hard.
This is such a headache. I’ve run into it across multiple titles, and sometimes numbering reboots are only a couple years apart. Currently dealing with it with Spider-Man 2099 (the Spider-man 2099 Conpanion is really good! But it’s the later run, and a half dozen related titles’ first issues, and on and on…).
I’m a big fan of the Epic Collections because they gather all the related crossover material and present it in a sensible reading order. The big problem is they’re published with weird gaps (someday we’ll get X-Men vol 9, but here’s 14 and 15 to tide you over). Purists have gripes about the color reproductions but I don’t care. It isn’t as jarring as the ElfQuest switch from markers to computerized coloring.
I feel very seen having read this. I worked in a comic book shop for a while, and it really is overwhelming in a way that, personally, puts me off reading those series at all. I quickly found myself almost-exclusively sticking to limited series (and rarely from the big publishers). Thanks for sharing
If your posts had a Like button, I could thumbs-up this without having to pretend like I have thoughts to add to the conversation.
👍
And then, just because it’s not enough of a headache already, if you DO manage to land on a series of collections that you hope will carry you through (cough–Marvel Masterworks–cough), the publisher will helpfully delay, cancel, reinstate, reschedule, and retitle the series at whim, as if they’re a WWI fighter ace trying to shake the Red Baron, or one of Hammett’s detectives trying to lose a tail.
It really doesn’t help that there is a TV series of the same name that has NOTHING to do with the Ultimate Universe. Even that universe is a bit weird, it has stuff from the Avengers series, but that series had a soft reboot with the Cinematic Universe…
This is the reason I gave up on comics a long time ago and my kids bounced off them. At this point all they read is Manga because it is easier.
And none of the spines line up/match, even when the names are consistent…..
Wow, that sounds even worse than XBox naming conventions!
I find it baffling that in this era of SEO, so many products (like films and videogames) go with this approach, which makes it far harder to actually find the right product with Google. I do wonder if there is some secret marketing wisdom whereby a confused customer is likely to spend more money, or something.