One New Spider-Man Comic is Everything Fans Want & Deserve (And It’s Taken Too Long to Get)

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Between Spider-Man‘s recent team-ups and solo films, starring in some of the best superhero video games of the past decade, and more, the webslinger’s fans have been having it good. That is, except for those who actually read his comics. To put it mildly, Spider-Man’s recent comics have been polarizing at best, and downright horrible at worst. Spider-Man may be one of the world’s most beloved comic book heroes, but his current mainline comics don’t get any of that goodwill and adoration.

The only thing worse than some debatable and questionable creative choices in Spider-Man’s current comics is the fact that this has been going on for more years than fans want to count. Thankfully, they need look no further than the new Ultimate Spider-Man (written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Marco Checchetto) for the kind of Spidey stories they’ve been begging Marvel to give them for years.

Marvel Keeps Holding Spider-Man Back From Improving

Peter Parker Isn’t Allowed to Grow as a Superhero and a Person

The biggest issue with mainline Spider-Man (or the Peter Parker of Earth-616) is that Marvel seems hell-bent on preventing him from growing up. Every time Peter is about to make a breakthrough in his personal life, or just as Spider-Man goes up the superheroes’ ranks, an editorial decision pulls both identities back down to the status quo. This preferred status quo is the one that keeps Peter perpetually stuck at rock bottom, whether he’s a superhero or not.Given that this was Peter’s original status quo from the ’60s — which is also when some of his best stories were written — keeping things the same makes some sense. However, this double-edged sword did more harm than good to Peter’s story and reputation.

In 1973’s The Night Gwen Stacy Died, Gwen Stacy was killed because she and Peter were too “perfect” of a couple. In 1996, Peter and Mary Jane Watson’s newborn daughter died so that the two could remain as lovers instead of becoming parents. In 1998, Aunt May’s death was revealed to have been faked so that Peter could return to his comfort zone. In 2007’s One More Day, Peter sacrificed his marriage with MJ to Mephisto so that he and everyone else could regress to young adults. Most recently, in 2022, MJ broke up with Peter to leave him for a newcomer named Paul Rabin. This was only one of many developments fans despised in writer Zeb Wells’ controversial run on The Amazing Spider-Man.

Shortly after the breakup, Peter burned his bridges with literally every Marvel hero he once befriended. Things were so bad he had nowhere and no one to turn to but Norman Osborn, his former nemesis who inexplicably got a redemption arc. Wells’ run was hated not only because it seemed like the ultimate example of Marvel’s demands to keep Peter down, but because it also felt like a forced and mean-spirited return to the preferred status quo. It didn’t help that Wells’ run seemingly went out of its way to reject everything his predecessor, Nick Spencer, promised to do — such as finally undoing the infamous One More Day. To Marvel’s top brass, Peter’s being a boyish power fantasy for teenagers and young adults had to be preserved at all costs.

Any chance Peter or Spider-Man had to outgrow their original purposes was brutally struck down. This isn’t speculation, as different people outright confirmed this. Writer Gerry Conway killed Gwen because he thought Spider-Man must always be defined by great tragedies and juvenile angst. Joe Quesada, Marvel’s former editor-in-chief, believed that ending Peter and MJ’s marriage through One More Day was necessary to keep Spider-Man relevant among his perceived young male reader base for the next few years. Most recently, editor Tom Breevort said that one of the ground rules for writing Spider-Man was that Peter and MJ could never be married. Needless to say, these decisions backfired horribly.

Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) Finally Let Peter Parker Grow Up

Peter Parker’s Ultimate Variant Is Everything His Prime Version Should’ve Been

Because of Marvel’s refusal to let him grow up even if he was one of their flagship heroes, Spider-Man has stagnated for almost 60 years. Where his fellow superheroes — both inside and outside Marvel — enjoyed big personal developments while still struggling with the dual duties of being a costumed hero and an individual, Peter was stuck with being the same loser he was back in the ’60s. He achieved some great milestones only to have them be violently taken away by editorial mandates, which was just an insult to injury. Even ignoring fans’ backlash, this was a frustratingly repetitive status quo for any character to have.

In the new Ultimates continuity (aka Earth-6160), The Maker remade reality to his liking. He ensured that the radioactive spider never bit Peter Parker in his youth. Peter grew up to be a reporter happily married to MJ, now the head of her own public relations firm. He and MJ are also the loving parents of two kids. Additionally, he’s now an adult who’s well into his 30s. This Peter has faced his fair share of past and present tragedies (e.g. Aunt May’s prior death), but he hasn’t let them consume him. This Peter easily side-stepped many of the challenges that would’ve made his prime self crumple. Best of all, he found a healthy balance between his heroics and personal life. To say that this Peter is an improvement over his mainstream counterpart would be an understatement.

Most importantly, this new Peter was mature — which can’t be said for his Earth-616 self. For whatever reason, Marvel’s editors erroneously believe that Spider-Man’s main appeal is his immaturity. Whether they intended it or not, this condescending mindset shows how little they think of the hero’s fans.The implication here is that readers can only relate to Peter if he’s a loser and a blank slate who they can project themselves onto.Peter’s self-improvement was seen as a threat to this supposed selling point. Worse, it also reflects poorly on writers who seemingly can’t let go of the young Peter and Spider-Man who they grew up with. Time and again, they’ve proven that they will do anything and everything to undo any progress Peter makes — even if it ruins his goodwill.

Thanks to this, the mainline Peter is stuck both in adolescence and in time. Prime Spider-Man is effectively trapped in a time capsule that forever keeps him at his lowest and most underdeveloped to placate aging creators’ and fans’ nostalgia. Conversely, and thankfully, the new Ultimate Spider-Manproved that an adult and more mature web-crawler can still be the escapist yet inspiring power fantasy he was always envisioned to be. The new Ultimate Spider-Man isn’t a deconstruction of the mainline Spider-Man comics, but it’s clearly a reaction to them.

​​​Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) Is the Spidey Fans Have Been Waiting For

The Comic Is Only One Part of Marvel’s Timeliest Run Yet

The Peter of Earth-6160 still faces the usual challenges and risks of being a superhero with a secret identity, but he does so in the most competent ways available. Gone is prime Peter’s penchant for self-loathing and tantrums, and in their place are the kinds of reactions that a well-adjusted person would make. But best of all, the new Peter speaks more to the moment than his mainline counterpart does.

Peter became Spider-Man after receiving Iron Lad’s message because being a superhero was the purpose he’d been searching for his whole life. Even if he didn’t know who The Maker was or why he had altered reality, Peter knew that something was missing.

Now, Peter knows that his past, present and even future — and that of many of his generation — was stolen from him, and he’s going to fight to get it back. In brief, the new Ultimate Spider-Man’s status quo speaks to the moment better than the prime continuity ever could, or even wants to. Without getting too off-topic, Millennial readers will relate incredibly well to Peter’s existential musings and his need to fight for what’s right in a world overrun by the worst possible villains.

The new Ultimate Spider-Man is just one of the many reasons why the new Ultimates run is so good. Where its roughly 20-year-old namesake and predecessor reflected the jingoism and cynicism of the early 2000s, this new Ultimates run acknowledges today’s dark reality while still choosing to hope for a better future.

Superheroes are, by nature, power fantasies made for a typically young audience. However, that doesn’t mean they have to be shallow wish-fulfillment and nothing more. The new Ultimate Spider-Man not only proves this by defying Marvel’s constrictive mandates but also by telling the mature Spider-Man story that his fans knew he was always capable and deserving of.

Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) is now available to read and own physically and digitally.

“}]] The new Ultimate Spider-Man is everything and more than fans and comic readers ever expected, paying off lost dreams of what might have been.  Read More