Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)
Spider-Man (Peter Parker) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a modernized, alternate universe counterpart of Spider-Man who is in his youth, a superhero first created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962. The Ultimate version of the character originated in Ultimate Marvel, a line of comic books created in 2000 that is set in a parallel universe with a narrative continuity separate and independent from the main continuity of Marvel Comics stories that began in the 1960s.
For the second Ultimate Spider-Man, see Miles Morales.Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (September 2000)
Peter Benjamin Parker
Ultimate Marvel (Earth-1610)
Webhead, Wall-crawler, Spidey, Spider-Boy, Punk in a Onesie
- Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, agility, reflexes, coordination, and balance
- Clinging to solid surfaces
- Accelerated healing
- Genius-level intellect
- Proficient scientist
- Utilizes wrist-mounted webshooters
- Precognitive spider-sense
- Master hand-to-hand combatant and acrobat
Ultimate Spider-Man, the first and flagship title of the Ultimate line, was created by the writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley, and debuted in September 2000, which featured the first appearance of the Ultimate version of the character. Based on the original Spider-Man who debuted in 1962, he was bitten by a genetically-mutated spider, which gave him superhuman spider-like abilities which led him to become the superhero Spider-Man, and fight crime after the tragedy of his late Uncle Ben. The biggest difference is that this version of Parker is killed at the age of 16, being Spider-Man for a span of almost a year before being replaced by the 13-year-old Miles Morales. However following the Secret Wars storyline, Miles and his family were retconned into the history of the prime universe and Peter who had been resurrected had resumed his superhero role. To differentiate him from other incarnations, Peter Parker from this universe is commonly dubbed Ultimate Spider-Man.
Other versions[edit]
In November 2023, writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Marco Chechetto announced they would be relaunching the Ultimate Universe under the new designation of Earth-6160. Following the events of Ultimate Invasion, the Maker created a new universe completely devoid of superheroes, having gone back in time and personally prevented the origins of several famous heroes. One such hero was Peter Parker, whose spider bite at the Oscorp Research Facility was prevented by the Maker.
Years later, following a terrorist attack that killed hundreds of civilians (most notably the Aunt May and Norman Osborn of this world), an older Peter, now married to Mary Jane Watson with two children named Richard and May, is visited by a hologram of Tony Stark, who presents Peter with the same spider the Maker had captured nearly twenty years earlier. Providing him with a synthetic stealth suit, Stark's message encourages Peter to let the spider bite him and transform him into the hero he could've been before the Maker took that away from him.
Powers, abilities and equipment[edit]
Powers and abilities[edit]
After being bitten by a genetically-modified spider, the resulting aftermath led to the unseen side-effect of the spider-venom slowly killing Peter, before the effect eventually wore away and subsequently led him to develop arachnid-like superpowers. So far, Spider-Man has been established as possessing:
Reception[edit]
Brian Michael Bendis' modernized re-imagining of Peter Parker/Spider-Man has been met with a widely positive response from fans and critics, with many considering the Ultimate Marvel version of Spider-Man to be the one of best modern interpretations of Spider-Man and has even influenced other non-comic Spider-Man adaptations in the television, video game and cinematic mediums. Many critics and fans praised Ultimate Peter Parker/Spider-Man as a fresh, unique and distinctively contemporary, but familiar and faithful twist on the classic Spider-Man mythos, being called as a well-rounded and likable, but also vulnerable, humanly flawed and struggling everyman teen hero, with a commendable character-arc from being a selfish, angry teen who irresponsibly uses his super-powers for his own personal gain to a more heroic and altruistic figure as Spider-Man and accepting his new life as a solo teen superhero and the consequences and negative side-effects that comes from it, his relatable struggles, internal conflicts, the constant mental self-doubts about his responsibilities as a superhero and his struggles with said responsibility and the realistic depiction of how being a super-hero would negatively affect an individual's life and his relations with his close ones, similar to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original depiction of Spider-Man in the early 1960s Spider-Man comic-books.