After reading the first 57 in a straight shot

Spidey giving the Kingpin's thug a wedgie was the funniest damn thing I've seen in a comic in a long time. I generally don't laugh out loud at anything I'm reading -- text or comics -- but that made me do my loud embarrassing donkey laugh.

I've had many laugh out loud moments reading Ultimate Spidey. It's actually easier for a book or other written material to ellicit "Oh my God, I'm going to die" levels of laughter from me than TV or movies or whatnot. I also loved the little bit after Kingpin and Spidey have their little chat in the restaraunt and Spidey gets up to leave.

Kingpin: Young man, did you web my feet to the floor?
Spidey: Maybe.
Kingpin: What possible satisfaction could you gain from doing that?
Spidey: I don't understand you and you don't understand me.

I love that you don't even see the webbing, just the perturbed look on Kingpin's face.

(Edited to fix formatting)

I also loved the little bit after Kingpin and Spidey have their little chat in the restaraunt and Spidey gets up to leave.

Kingpin: Young man, did you web my feet to the floor?

Oh, yeah!!! I laughed at that, too -- AND at Aunt May telling Jonah Jameson that Hitler wants his moustache back!

Is the 3 issue Miracleman Apocrypha series worth getting?

It was pretty obviously written by lesser lights than Moore or Gaiman. I don't really remember much else about it.

I skimmed over the last...um...92 posts and don't think this has been posted:

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Oh, yeah!!! I laughed at that, too -- AND at Aunt May telling Jonah Jameson that Hitler wants his moustache back!

Yes, I absolutely adored Aunt May telling JJ off. Even though she's a very different person than the classic Aunt May, I think she's a great character.

It was pretty obviously written by lesser lights than Moore or Gaiman. I don't really remember much else about it.

Pretty sure they each contributed a story, but yeah, I was wondering abiout the quality of the rest of the writing.

I skimmed over the last...um...92 posts and don't think this has been posted:

suh-NERK!

Pretty sure they each contributed a story, but yeah, I was wondering abiout the quality of the rest of the writing.

There are some really good stories in Apocrypha and some I make a point to skip whenever I pick the issues up again. One of the best stories is about a young Kid Miracleman (I believe its written by Warren Ellis) realizing he's the only super-powered being in a world of humans. Moore didn't contribute any stories (he was completely done with Miracleman at that point) but Gaiman wrote the interludes between stories. So overall it's not essential, but worth getting just because there's so little Miracleman out there (I even got the pretty much useless Miracleman 3-D special since I'm a crazed completist).

The hardest run to track down is the Olympus arc, issues 11-16. I was trolling on Ebay for months until I finally won the trade (I gave up on single issues because #15 in particular was way out of price range). I remember I had to read it twice the night I finally got it. Amazing stuff. #15 and #16 may be the best two superhero comics I've ever read.

Gaiman's run is really worth reading too. Very different from Moore, but you can tell that he gets this universe. I actually came to Miracleman through Gaiman's Golden Age trade and then went back and pieced it together from there. Hopefully the rights dispute will be sorted out sometime in the next decade. It's always depressing to reach the end of #24 and realize that the comics have run out even though the story hasn't.

It was pretty obviously written by lesser lights than Moore or Gaiman. I don't really remember much else about it.

Pretty sure they each contributed a story, but yeah, I was wondering abiout the quality of the rest of the writing.

As Fone Bone pointed out, Gaiman did the framing and interludes and Ellis did contribute a cuh-REEPY Kid Miracleman story.

Also, a neat little story by Matt Wagner (of Mage and Grendel fame) is in there.