Marvel Comics is ringing in 2024 with what promises to be one of its biggest releases of the year. January sees the release of a brand new volume of Ultimate Spider-Man written by Jonathan Hickman (House of X) and drawn by Marco Checchetto (Daredevil). That creative team alone is reason enough to give the new series a look, but now we know there’s another big selling point. The series will star an older Peter Parker who’s married with children.
That’s right. Marvel is bringing back Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane more than 15 years after the highly controversial One More Day storyline tore them apart. This is a big deal for Spider-Man fans. But if you’re not sure what it all means or how the new Ultimate Spider-Man is connected to the original series, here’s what you need to know about the return of the Spider-Marriage.
Marvel New Ultimate Universe: Cover Art Gallery
What Is Ultimate Spider-Man?
The return of Ultimate Spider-Man is part of Marvel’s larger effort to revive the imprint in 2023. The original Ultimate Universe line ran from 2000-2015. It presented a new, contemporary take on the Marvel Universe with a fresh continuity, allowing readers an easy jumping-on point for franchises like Spider-Man and X-Men. Ultimate Spider-Man followed the misadventures of a teenage Peter Parker, before pivoting in 2011 and introducing Peter’s successor, Miles Morales.
The new Ultimate Universe isn’t a direct continuation of the original. Instead, it introduces another new version of the Marvel Universe also designed to be a clean jumping-on point for new readers. In this case, the scope of the new Ultimate Universe – Earth-6160 – was established in the recent limited series Ultimate Invasion. The Maker, a refugee of the old Ultimate Universe, traveled to Earth-6160 and attempted to suppress the emergence of the world’s heroes. That included preventing Peter Parker from being bitten by the radioactive spider as a teenager. Now that The Maker has been taken off the board by Earth-6160’s version of Kang, a new generation of heroes is finally free to emerge.
Based on what Marvel announced at New York Comic-Con, there appear to be three pillars of the new Ultimate line – Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Black Panther and Ultimate X-Men. The new Ultimate Spider-Man will be very different from his predecessor in that he’s an older hero. Having been “saved” from the spider bite as a teenager, this Peter Parker doesn’t gain his powers until adulthood. How profoundly does that alter Peter’s story?
We know one way this new version of Spidey diverges from the norm. This Peter is married to Mary Jane, and they’re raising a son and daughter together. At NYCC, Hickman referred to the series as “a bit of a Peter B. Parker situation,” comparing his Spidey to Jake Johnson’s character from the Spider-Verse animated movies. At long last, Marvel is bringing back the Peter/MJ marriage, even if it’s not happening in the core Marvel Universe.
Art by Ryan Stegman. (Image Credit: Marvel)
The Return of Spider-Man’s Marriage
As mentioned, Peter’s marriage is still a bit of a sore spot for Spider-Man readers. Peter and MJ originally got married in 1987’s Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, a status quo that lasted until the One More Day crossover in 2007. In One More Day, Aunt May is shot by an assassin and Peter launches a desperate quest to save her. The opportunistic demon lord Mephisto appears in the guise of a young girl with an offer – he’ll save May in exchange not for Peter’s soul, but for his marriage. Peter and MJ eventually accept, realizing too late that Mephisto’s form is the daughter they’ll now never have.
Mephisto subtly manipulates the Marvel timeline so that now, Peter and MJ were never married. They were still together for all those years and all those existing stories, but they never officially tied the knot. This was Marvel’s way of eliminating the marriage and restoring Peter Parker to a more traditional status quo as a struggling bachelor, but without actually having Peter and MJ get divorced. Needless to say, One More Day was and still is a major sore point for Spider-Man readers.
It doesn’t help that Marvel has been actively pushing against the notion of Peter and MJ reuniting in recent Amazing Spider-Man comics. The current volume has seen MJ enter into a relationship with a man named Paul, becoming a mother figure in the process. Peter responded by briefly reconnecting with Black Cat, even referring to Mary Jane as being “like a sister” in the process. For some ASM readers, the current Peter/MJ status quo is a hard pill to swallow.
That’s why the reveal of a married Peter Parker in the new Ultimate Spider-Man is such a big deal. It’s a way for Marvel to return to a status quo where Peter and MJ are married, and even explore the idea of Spider-Man being a father. It wouldn’t be the first Spider-Man comic to do so. Various alternate universe Spider-Man comics like Spider-Girl, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows and J.J. Abrams’ Spider-Man have all featured variations on that theme.
Art by Elizabeth Torque. (Image Credit: Marvel)
However, Ultimate Spider-Man featuring a married Peter Parker arguably carries more weight. The original Ultimate Spider-Man series is widely revered as one of the definitive Spider-Man runs. It lasted far longer than those aforementioned books and, for a time, outsold Marvel’s other monthly Spider-Man comics. There’s a certain special significance to seeing a married Peter Parker in a book like Ultimate Spider-Man.
Marvel has made it clear it has no intention of restoring the Peter/MJ marriage in its core Spider-Man comics anytime soon. The question is whether Ultimate Spider-Man represents a shift in editorial philosophy. Between the Spider-Verse movies and the Insomniac games, many of the most significant Spider-Man projects of the last few years have focused heavily on a committed relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Now Marvel’s most significant new Spider-Man comic in recent memory is doing the same. If Ultimate Spider-Man proves to be as successful as its predecessor, will this send a message to Marvel that fans want and expect a Spider-Man who’s married to MJ?
Only time will tell how well the new Ultimate Spider-Man fares and if it’s a harbinger of things to come for the larger franchise. But for Spidey fans desperate to see more of a married Peter Parker, it’s good to know there’s about to be another option.
For more on the current Spider-Man franchise, find out why Marvel is delivering a double dose of evil Spider-Man and brush up on all the Spider-Man movies and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Marvel’s new Ultimate Spider-Man comic features a very different status quo, with Peter Parker as a married father of two. Here’s why that change is such a big deal for Spidey fans. Read More