Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto

[Hurricane Billy]

As much as people are focused on the marriage/kids aspect (which obviously will be a big part of it), stuff like this is equally interesting to me. Peter getting his powers as a teenager, being responsible for such a tragedy and living with that guilt was such a huge part of who Peter became as an adult. I'm really curious as to what Peter is like if Ben is alive (or died but it wasn't Peter's fault).

I feel like the idea of Peter having this whole different life and coming of age and becoming Spider-Man at a later stage of life opens up all kinds of ways things could be different. Did this version of Peter and his supporting cast get to grow up living normal lives without all the tragedy and stress of Spider-Man and his villains? How does that change Peter's motivation to be Spider-Man if he didn't learn that tragic lesson early on? How does that change his personality and history?

There's so much to explore there and I hope Hickman goes for it. In some ways, this Spider-Man variant has a life that diverged more wildly than many of the others we've seen.

I just wonder who he became without Spider-Man and how becoming Spider-Man as an older, settled family man affects him now.

Exactly. Obviously seeing an iteration of Spider-Man that highlights and showcases the marriage and Peter and MJ having kids is a big selling point for me, but in general, there's just a lot of really interesting possibilities and ideas at play here conceptually in Hickman's decision to explore what it might be like if Peter only gets his powers and becomes Spider-Man much later into his life as a middle aged family man.

I'm fascinated and eager to see what Hickman comes up with for this particular comic, because really this comic has a very interesting opportunity to explore and tackle what it means to be Spider-Man and what experiences that can have for someone beyond the normal angles we see on that front.

[Frontier]

I hope there's still some heart and fun to things, though it might feel like a riff on Spider-Man 2099 with a family man Peter Parker instead of Miguel O'Hara.

[Prime]

So how do you think did MJ fell for Peter in this universe if there was no Spider bite?

[Dark Soul # 7]

So how do you think did MJ fell for Peter in this universe if there was no Spider bite?

Probably same as in 616. He's a kind, smart and funny guy who can match her pace. Except now he's not burdended by the overwhelming responsibilities of being a superhero.

[Garlador]

Probably same as in 616. He's a kind, smart and funny guy who can match her pace. Except now he's not burdended by the overwhelming responsibilities of being a superhero.

Likely. 616 Mary Jane was very clear on that.


She’s said before that she turned down his marriage proposals at the start because she wasn’t prepared to handle the Spider-Man part of his life yet and had to work through that.

That’s a huge change here. In the 616, Mary Jane knew in advance and married him anyway. She understood the cost and sacrifice that would bring with it.

Here, Mary Jane DIDN’T marry Peter with that burden, and now it’s thrust into their lives. If she’s anything like her classic counterpart, they’ll work through it, but it’s a vastly different set of circumstances that unwillingly force their way into their established marriage.

[Tuck]

I love the "I was a nerd?" thing.

Dude, you wore a suit to class every day.

[Tapioca Blitzkrieg]

Plus, as a young woman, MJ was, to me, always established as a person who would think thrice about long term romantic commitments, in virtue of her acting career, daddy issues and overall party-animal persona. Her arc into maturity and falling for Peter would overcome these hurdles but it makes sense to me that it would still take a push to finally commit to tying the knot for good and settling down. I hope we get the flashbacks on that whole part of their lives along the series, sooner than later.

In a bit of unrelated info, i just saw this video recap on TAS '94 and it's so funny how when peter pops the question MJ literally F'n jumps from a building instead of saying yes lol. She gets saved and explains it was some kinda test, but the semioptics of asking someone in marriage and they just jump to their imminent death as an answer is pretty amusing to me.

[Frontier]

I do wonder if they're going to portray Peter as more emotionally well-adjusted because presumably he never had the stress of being a Superhero on to of being a high schooler and breadwinner assuming May and Ben lived up to his adulthood.

But also maybe there's some stuff that he repressed that he wasn't able to work out without having been Spider-Man?

He also might not have the pathological need to be Spider-Man that 616 Peter has which might effect him as a Superhero.

[NC_Yankee]

I do wonder if they're going to portray Peter as more emotionally well-adjusted because presumably he never had the stress of being a Superhero on to of being a high schooler and breadwinner assuming May and Ben lived up to his adulthood.

But also maybe there's some stuff that he repressed that he wasn't able to work out without having been Spider-Man?

He also might not have the pathological need to be Spider-Man that 616 Peter has which might effect him as a Superhero.

I think a great concept to explore in ultimate is the fear of not coming home to the wife and kids versus doing a dangerous job. That is something police and firefighters deal with every single day:

[Hurricane Billy]

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting possibilities for Hickman to explore here in having Peter only just now becoming Spider-Man as a grown man with a family and how something like this would inevitably differ from previous comic iterations of Peter being married with kids while having been Spider-Man the whole time. That sort of sudden shift in life would absolutely have significant ramifications for the rest of the Parker family in all sorts of different ways.

For instance, say Peter tells MJ and the kids right away that he's suddenly gotten superpowers and they're in from the get-go that he's Spider-Man. Aside from the obvious sorts of worries that MJ would now suddenly have to feel about her husband's safety, there's other angles to consider like how well of a job could two children actually do in keeping their father's secret identity a secret from their own friends or classmates at school? Maybe one of them is being bullied for not being cool or wanting to impress the other kids- and the temptation to just say "My dad is Spider-Man" is right there. How does Peter respond to an incident like that while trying to maintain a good relationship with his kids?

That's all completely different than a scenario where MJ got married to Peter knowing from the start that who he secretly was and them having kids who they've raised and trained to keep a lid on the family secret since their earliest years.

[Ursalink]

I just remembered something bad.

In the world of "Bullets", certain events lead to Peter Parker to become the Hulk and Bruce Banner to become Spider-Man. Point is, the bite of the radioactive spider had a desastrous effect on Bruce, because he was already an adult man. It appears that, since Peter was a teenager and he was still in development, the radioactive venom of the spider manage to establish a "symbiotic relationship" with Peter's body, allowing him to assimilate the power. However, on a body of a full grown man, the Venom was rejected and it had disastrous consequences for Bruce Banner, dooming to be under vigilance and treatments for the rest of his life.

So, how about if something like that happens to this adult Peter?

Ultimate Spider-Man #1 variant by Tony S. Daniel:

Is it just me, or this Spider-Man seems bulkier and quite less "friendly"?

[Huntsman Spider]

I just remembered something bad.

In the world of "Bullets", certain events lead to Peter Parker to become the Hulk and Bruce Banner to become Spider-Man. Point is, the bite of the radioactive spider had a desastrous effect on Bruce, because he was already an adult man. It appears that, since Peter was a teenager and he was still in development, the radioactive venom of the spider manage to establish a "symbiotic relationship" with Peter's body, allowing him to assimilate the power. However, on a body of a full grown man, the Venom was rejected and it had disastrous consequences for Bruce Banner, dooming to be under vigilance and treatments for the rest of his life.

So, how about if something like that happens to this adult Peter?



Is it just me, or this Spider-Man seems bulkier and quite less "friendly"?

That would be an interesting take.

[Hurricane Billy]

I just remembered something bad.

In the world of "Bullets", certain events lead to Peter Parker to become the Hulk and Bruce Banner to become Spider-Man. Point is, the bite of the radioactive spider had a desastrous effect on Bruce, because he was already an adult man. It appears that, since Peter was a teenager and he was still in development, the radioactive venom of the spider manage to establish a "symbiotic relationship" with Peter's body, allowing him to assimilate the power. However, on a body of a full grown man, the Venom was rejected and it had disastrous consequences for Bruce Banner, dooming to be under vigilance and treatments for the rest of his life.

So, how about if something like that happens to this adult Peter?

Maybe, but I highly doubt it. A big theme for the new Ultimate Universe is the broader, ongoing struggle between the heroes and the Illuminati and the marketing thus far has made a bit of a subtle point to highlight Peter as a central focal point for the heroes in potentially being able to turn things around and stop the Illuminati.

Is it just me, or this Spider-Man seems bulkier and quite less "friendly"?

6160 Peter does seem to be a bit bulkier than normal for sure. As for "friendly," it's hard to say yet. Might be that the harsher dystopian setting results in this Peter being a tad less quippy than normal, at least starting out.

[Frontier]

Maybe, but I highly doubt it. A big theme for the new Ultimate Universe is the broader, ongoing struggle between the heroes and the Illuminati and the marketing thus far has made a bit of a subtle point to highlight Peter as a central focal point for the heroes in potentially being able to turn things around and stop the Illuminati.

6160 Peter does seem to be a bit bulkier than normal for sure. As for "friendly," it's hard to say yet. Might be that the harsher dystopian setting results in this Peter being a tad less quippy than normal, at least starting out.

He developed his quips as a coping mechansim. If he didn't really need them growing up, he might not have developed his more traditional and outward sense of humor.

[Majesty]

So how do you think did MJ fell for Peter in this universe if there was no Spider bite?

Because of his personality. The "MJ is obsessed with Spider-Man" narrative is a product of the Raimi films. Mary Jane when she liked Peter, liked Peter. Peter after an initial attraction didn't care about her much till after Gwen died as until then he found her too shallow and self absorbed. In this world he'd have had to seen that side of her without Gwen's death being the catalyst. Maybe MJ used partying less as a coping mechanism in this universe? Or maybe without Gwen to compare her to he was more liberal with her initial personality and they stuck together long enough that eventually she grew.

Either way, Peter was always whom she liked more so than Spider-Man. She puts up with him being Spider-Man and accepts that part of his life, despite the turmoil she acknowledges it causes, because she knows Peter couldn't not be Spider-Man and she wouldn't ask him to.

I'm wondering more so how the Uncle Ben situation happens in this world.. as that was sort of what pushes Peter into the direction he went. If he's already a married adult by the time he's bitten, what is the tipping point that causes him to be Spider-Man? Will be interesting to find out.