Well admittedly, the Clone Saga was probably the worst story arc in USM's history. BUt if you really didn't like any of the 96 issues of USM before that (which I gotta wonder why you read so much of it), then clearly you're not gonna like the relaunch.
A lot of people don't like the art, but I don't mind it. It fits the tone of the book, which is essentially a book about teenagers. It fits better than Bagley ever did, (although, I would love to have Immonen back on it, he is quite awesome). He does a great job conveying the characters emotions and his actions scenes are pretty nice. And honestly, Ultimate Peter Parker always had a ****** haircut, whatever, he's a nerd, I don't care.
And there's only been one story arc of the new run, in which he did defeat Mysterio, but he escaped. After the clone saga, Spidey made a fool out of Kingpin, Moon Knight, and Silver Sable in a pretty funny scene (in the Marvel Knights story arc).
And fine, if you want to consider it an unofficial team book, okay. It's as much a team book as Captain America was after Civil War. That book was ****, right?
CAPTAIN AMERICA after CIVIL WAR starred James Barnes. Black Widow was often beside him, and she seems to do that, such as the years when she was DAREDEVIL's "partner" in the 70's and 80's. Falcon showed up very sporadically. They weren't all living under the same roof appearing in every single issue and fighting together every single time.
I did like USM overall until about the CARNAGE saga, but even then, ever arc had some issues that Bendis would never improve upon. His need to stretch every story 1-3 issues longer than he had to, for one. Perhaps the most major was his belief that having Spider-Man get unmasked, or unmask himself, to literally everyone he meets was gold, and I disagreed. I saw it as a cheap and lazy way to get around the usual drama that comes out of a secret identity. It got to the point where if you took a shot every time Peter Parker unmasked himself or was unmasked by anyone, you'd be dead from alcohol poisoning before issue #40.
Leading up to the CLONE SAGA was the trend I mentioned; rather than improving with experience, as written in better teenage hero comics like BLUE BEETLE or INVINCIBLE, Spidey seemed to stagnate at best, and regress at worst. Any one of his enemies could seemingly capture, unmask, and humiliate him, to the point where predicting that whatever guest star or ally of his would have to save him got very, very easy. Then CLONE SAGA happened, which was like the one in the 90's, only much worse, because it had hindsight.
Bendis' personal opinion about Spider-Man is he is a hopeless, hapless, clueless loser who cannot do anything competent or relevant when it counts. When he has to fight a "space filling" random thug or villain, he's fine. Like if Shocker is robbing a bank for 5 pages to start the arc with a bang, JAMES BOND style. When Spider-Man does survive an arc villain, it is either due to luck, or assistance from anyone and everyone around him, or by accident, or the villain self-destructing, or so on. Bendis has a lot of these personal tics to his writing, but USM seemed to repeat them to farcical levels. It is Bendis Squared, his best and worst every month.
The biggest farce is that so many people, especially villains, know Peter Parker's identity and/or fare in USM within so few issues, and he has any sort of life left. It hasn't been leaked to the media, mobsters haven't fire-bombed May's house to ashes, everyone he knows hasn't been kidnapped and murdered, and so on. Lots of superhero comics have some sort of suspension of belief, but USM always stretched this. As far back as Kingpin unmasking Parker, I thought, "he can't just release a description of the kid he saw around Midtown High, the location of Spider-Man's first major battle?" Bendis' act of trying to "reinvent" the secret identity in the name of "realism" has, ironically, made the series less realistic. That was an issue I had long before CLONE SAGA. It makes absolutely zero sense that so many villains have unmasked or know who Spidey is within 100 issues and he has any sort of status quo at all. But, Bendis wouldn't deconstruct his own fetish, so the farce remains.
That's not even getting into the fact that USM gets captured/kidnapped and needs to be rescued about as often as Lois Lane, historically. In TV Tropes, I believe he would be referred to as a "James Bondage" (the male version of "Damsel in Distress").
After all that, and especially after ULTIMATUM, and for $4 a pop, would I bother giving it another chance, when after over 100 issues I was irritated enough to drop it. Heck, my SHH reviews of the Clone Saga, at the time, were the harshest anyone on SHH had read from me.
I imagine Immonen's run on art was fine; he's probably better suited than LaFuente, IMO. I liked Bagley fine, although I think a lot of people have lost interest and looked for "jumping off" points to the book, whether when Bagley left or when the series was relaunched. I have the cartoon SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN to fill whatever void in my heart for modern day based, teenage Spider-Man adventures. While Greg Wiesman had 6-7 years of USM comics to glance at for ideas (as he used Kong, he obviously did), his ability to create a new Spidey universe that was so much better written and executed than even Bendis' best on USM is mind boggling.
