Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto

[Kevinroc]

[Hurricane Billy]

I do hope Hickman spends some time in the comic exploring MJ's career life too.

[9AlphaOmega1]

Give us a mini series called Ultimate Mary-Jane detailing her meeting her Peter and up to the point him getting bitten. 👍

[Frontier]

He basically goes from a normal attractive dude to a swole attractive dude.

(I do wonder if they've settled down a little after having two kids...)

I do hope Hickman spends some time in the comic exploring MJ's career life too.

Yeah, I hope she has a (non-reporting) job and it's somewhat relevant, just like Peter's civilian job should still be relevant alongside his Spidey and family life.

[Hurricane Billy]

He basically goes from a normal attractive dude to a swole attractive dude.

(I do wonder if they've settled down a little after having two kids...)

Yeah, I hope she has a (non-reporting) job and it's somewhat relevant, just like Peter's civilian job should still be relevant alongside his Spidey and family life.

Honestly one idea that I really enjoyed from J.M. DeMatteis' Spider-Man: The Lost Hunt was exploring MJ transitioning her acting career over to being a drama teacher for kids. While I'm still all for MJ having her usual acting career here, I could totally see her teaching locally and maybe even helping coordinate small theater show productions too.

[Frontier]

Honestly one idea that I really enjoyed from J.M. DeMatteis' Spider-Man: The Lost Hunt was exploring MJ transitioning her acting career over to being a drama teacher for kids. While I'm still all for MJ having her usual acting career here, I could totally see her teaching locally and maybe even helping coordinate small theater show productions too.

That would be kind of funny, almost like one half of the Parker's must be a teacher or something .

[Hurricane Billy]

That would be kind of funny, almost like one half of the Parker's must be a teacher or something .

Admittedly as much as I love the idea of Peter becoming a science teacher, it’s definitely a career that I struggle to imagine lasting long for Peter while he’s still being Spider-Man. But it would be funny if both of them start off as teachers when we meet them.

[Frontier]

Admittedly as much as I love the idea of Peter becoming a science teacher, it’s definitely a career that I struggle to imagine lasting long for Peter while he’s still being Spider-Man. But it would be funny if both of them start off as teachers when we meet them.

For me I feel like MJ should have a job that gets her out there and in front of peoples' faces rather than sitting at a desk/teaching job.

[Hurricane Billy]

For me I feel like MJ should have a job that gets her out there and in front of peoples' faces rather than sitting at a desk/teaching job.

I would definitely agree with you in terms of a traditional teaching job. That's just not MJ's speed. But a drama teacher actually fits rather well for her, I think. Far less desk work involved and more directly interacting with the students.

In fact, in The Lost Hunt, MJ has a moment where she's reflecting on the differences between her former career modeling and acting and being a drama teacher and how she's finding herself preferring this job as a teacher because it lets her help mentor and encourage her students in pursuing the passion she shares with them as acting on a more direct level. It's not her just sitting behind a desk, it's an example of Mary Jane getting to express her love of theater and acting beyond the typical pressures of working on a set.

[Frontier]

I would definitely agree with you in terms of a traditional teaching job. That's just not MJ's speed. But a drama teacher actually fits rather well for her, I think. Far less desk work involved and more directly interacting with the students.

In fact, in The Lost Hunt, MJ has a moment where she's reflecting on the differences between her former career modeling and acting and being a drama teacher and how she's finding herself preferring this job as a teacher because it lets her help mentor and encourage her students in pursuing the passion she shares with them as acting on a more direct level. It's not her just sitting behind a desk, it's an example of Mary Jane getting to express her love of theater and acting beyond the typical pressures of working on a set.

I think more just putting herself personally out there rather than needing to teach people to do that fits better with MJ in my opinion unless we're going with more subdued careers for both Parkers because of their families or being 30+ age-wise.

[Huntsman Spider]

I only have a passing familiarity with that particular miniseries, and while I doubt Hickman would ever go as far with Ben as Andrews did, I could believe that the Uncle Ben we might potentially meet in Ultimate Spider-Man is a fair bit grumpier or jaded than normal.

spoilers:

After all, I doubt much time will have passed between Aunt May's apparent death in Ultimate Universe #1 and the start of Ultimate Spider-Man. So it could be that we meet Ben in throes of grief, trying to adjust to a life without his spouse of however many years. Maybe Ben has a bit of an arc resembling the Pixar movie, Up.

end of spoilers

Honestly, if that's where Hickman were to go with 6160 Ben, I'd be all for it. One of my favorite little episodes from DeMatteis and Buscema's run on Spectacular Spider-Man was the story where Vulture had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was trying to find forgiveness from Aunt May for his involvement in the death of Nathan Lubensky and how May found herself caught up in how deeply she hated Vulture for that incident and how she felt that anger and hate was getting in the way of her final years. That was a great bit of humanization for May that showed an all too relatable "ugly" side to her.

That would be a very good angle to explore, especially if Peter as Spider-Man got entangled with Tony Stark, whom the Maker's Council set up to take the fall for their attack on New York that killed Aunt May in the first place.

[PanicPixieDreamGirl]

Honestly one idea that I really enjoyed from J.M. DeMatteis' Spider-Man: The Lost Hunt was exploring MJ transitioning her acting career over to being a drama teacher for kids. While I'm still all for MJ having her usual acting career here, I could totally see her teaching locally and maybe even helping coordinate small theater show productions too.

Come to think of it, didn't she express a desire to be a teacher back in the original Ultimate Universe? Quite early on in the run, I think.

[Refrax5]

Oh I would love this.

Honestly if Ben is alive in 6160 and is an important supporting character, I hope that Hickman takes the opportunity to really flesh him out and humanize Ben past the typical saintly figure he's generally been squared away as in the main comics. So them starting off on dicier terms than we're used to seeing could be a great way to provide that. Or even if Peter and Ben start off with a great relationship, maybe things get testier for them as the series goes on and we see a rift develop between them over Peter becoming Spider-Man and other recent events.

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.

[Moxxi517]

One thing I've been curious about for a while is whether or not Black Cat will have much presence in this new ultimate universe. I mean she wasn't particularly present in the old ultimate comics, and the start of her and Peter's relationship usually comes from the superhero side. Like Gwen Stacy, Randy, Flash, Harry, etc, etc, all those characters have reason to know Peter outside of the Spider-Man stuff. But Felicia doesn't. At the same time, their general dynamic of lovers that didn't quite work out -> strong friends doesn't seem like a possibility in this universe either. Since after all, MJ and Peter are married (thank you Hickman). So all in all, I'm just hoping that Hickman has something in mind for her, cause it also has the potential to be unique.

[Spider-Tiger]

For me I feel like MJ should have a job that gets her out there and in front of peoples' faces rather than sitting at a desk/teaching job.

I feel like I see both Parkers doing the education thing part-time or supplemental to careers in research and entertainment. Which is believable for both fields, suits their personalities, and is flexible enough to fit the superhero lifestyle. Like both could give lectures or coordinate theatre productions at ESU without becoming full-time educators.