The Cast: Ultraforce (Black Knight, Ghoul, Prime, Prototype, Lament, Topaz, Wreckage), Spider-Man, Green Goblin

The Catalyst: Old man Prime has arrived from a future where the members of Ultraforce have been killed by the Green Goblin.

The Convergence: Due to some possible future as seen by an older version of Prime, this leads the team to crossover onto the 616 version of Earth, thereby running into Spider-Man while looking to stop the Goblin once and for all.

The Critique: There are great crossovers and then there is Ultraforce/Spider-Man, a strange, garbled mess of an encounter that leaves readers dissatisfied with its ending despite it being somewhat entertaining. Marv Wolfman, no stranger to writing a team book delivers some of the worst dialogue he has ever written in this title which is a real shame and the fact that the story is all over the place, with talk of a traitor that is never revealed, a shadowy figure who is controlling everything behind the scenes who is never revealed and a mystery in the form of Old-Prime that is never explained makes one wonder just what the point to it all was. For those who might pick this book up and wonder just why it is the Goblin is playing hero, it is because Norman Osborn was once replaced by Phil Urich for a time, thereby turning good – something that was never really explained and just taken for granted by the creators of this book, assuming that everybody was reading Spider-Man at the time. As it is, the team hashes it out with Spidey, they all split up to deal with some mystery threat on two fronts and while successful, never really figure out what is really going on. The artwork for the issue is all over the place, ranging from good to not very and it boggles the mind that the publishers involved in this could not get a single creative team, seeming like they had to rush to press or something by throwing so many people at it. This could have been a great book, Ultraforce being quite good at the time while teaming with Marvel’s pre-eminent superhero, it should have been a win and sadly, it was anything but.

The Credits: Marv Wolfman – Writer; Steven Butler, Chris Marrinan, Gabe Alberola, Shawn McManus and Gabriel Hardman – Artist; Philip Moy, Ken Branch, Jerome Moore, Shawn McManus, Jim Amash, Scott Reed and Larry Welch – Inker; Andrew Covalt, Robert Alvord, Kurtis Fujita and Malibu Color – Colours; Patrick Owsley – Letters

Companies Involved: Marvel Comics, Malibu Comics

Chronology: January, 1996