Apparently the end of the Spider-Marriage in the main Marvel universe lasts forever. But Marvel thinks they can thrown Parkers fans a bone…in a reborn Ultimate universe.
I wasn’t planning to do two Spider-Man articles this week but I just learned on Tuesday about Marvel’s reborn Ultimate universe, or at least the imprint being reborn. This is not the universe Miles Morales escaped from, where Peter Parker died and Miles took over before it was ultimately (not sorry) destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass or whatever was going on in the latest event that I stopped caring about because events are a dime a dozen now and don’t hold the same meaning anymore.
No, this new Ultimate Spider-Man features a still breathing Peter Parker married to Mary Jane Watson. Now we know that 616 will never restore the Spider-Marriage. The Spider-Writers are too invested in making Peter a total loser who won’t keep a girlfriend for more than three storylines so we have no reason to get invested in his love life. It’s like those 80s TV action shows where Michael Knight or someone would meet a girl, they’d kiss at one point, and then they’re never brought up again. There’s no reason to care about Peter’s relationships outside of Aunt May. Even his ties to the Daily Bugle don’t seem to matter anymore.
So, fine. Alternate universe but at least we can finally see more of the Parker family, with Peter fighting crime and MJ as his support and all the cute, fun, and drama-laden moments that come with it. They’re even going to have kids…including Peter’s first son in the multiverse! Isn’t that great? Well, as usual the Mephisto is in the details, and that one was on purpose. When you look into what’s actually about to happen this isn’t what we wanted at all, because Marvel will not do that with Spider-Man anymore.
Writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Marco Checchetto’s bold new take on ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN is shaping up to be full of surprises!
Launching this January as the first ongoing series set in Marvel’s new Ultimate Universe, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN will star a very different Peter Parker—an older, wiser web-slinger who balances his super hero duties with his responsibilities as a husband and a father. That’s right, Spider-Man is a married man!
Like I said, this isn’t any of the previous Ultimate universes, the comic and game or the cartoon or the Ultimate Avengers direct-to-video animated movies that I wish more people discussed. It’s a brand new one, emphasis on “brand” because the name still carries familiarity. They could have called it the Ultra Universe and it still could have worked…and reawakened interest in the Malibu Ultraverse they destroyed to get their coloring process but that’s another discussion. I’m just saying even the universe is just a brand imprint now with no real meaning to it, which is just business as usual in the 21st century.
Meet Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson—MR. & MRS. PARKER! They’re one of pop culture’s most iconic couples, and now readers will see them stronger than ever in the Ultimate Universe. To celebrate, Peter and MJ’s romance will be featured on a series of picture perfect variant covers by Elizabeth Torque that will adorn the first four issues of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. Spidey superstar Ryan Stegman also spotlights the whole Parker family on a new promotional piece.
“When we decided that we were going to do a book about an older Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man, we really wanted to lean into him starting his super hero life from a very different place than what’s traditionally expected,” Hickman explained. “Peter and MJ being married is one of many decisions we made that underline this being quite a ‘different’ kind of Spider-Man story.”
Did you catch it?
…a book about an older Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man…
This changes a huge part of Peter’s story. An adult Spider-Man with presumably his wife and kids will gain the powers of a spider rather than Peter’s growth as a superhero through his teen and college years. This changes a lot of the dynamic of the Webhead’s career and his motivations for becoming Spider-Man. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Wes and Doc of the YouTube channel Thinking Critical debated that.
I’m with Doc more than I am Wes on this one. Where I do agree with Wes is that 616 will never restore the Spider-Marriage. They’ll tease it but some of them would put Peter back in high school if they could, and don’t think they aren’t trying to figure out a way to do so, probably equally as stupid as the Devil Deal. Before anyone tries to tell me how Mephisto totally isn’t the devil AS IF THAT PART MATTERS! “deal with the devil” is a metaphor that doesn’t always involve Lucifer himself! Stop pretending it’s a defense. It just means a cheaply made cartoon rabbit literally knows more about metaphors than you. I don’t remember the name of it though.
Anyway, while the idea of a new superhero as an adult with a family has some merit, it isn’t Spider-Man’s story. An older Spider-Man should be a more experienced Spider-Man. That’s the one I want to see being a father. We’re not even going to see Peter juggle being a new father with being a crimefighter. The girl (I don’t know if it’s May, Annie, or some new daughter) is probably in third or fourth grade and the long overdue son looks to be in middle school.
I just noticed both kids are redheads. Points for not hating on the redheads but points off for none of them having dad’s hair, just mom’s.
We’re once again stuck with an inexperienced superhero rather than seeing Spidey at presumably his best, thus requiring new challenges from existing bad guys and new bad guys that represent the younger villain. Maybe Peter’s son is a computer whiz and his knowledge is required. Or the daughter is being cute and yet accidentally stumbles on something the others missed in how to defeat the villains or learning what their plans are. Older Peter doesn’t negate those last two but an experienced Spidey would try to keep up with the times if only because his villains are and he really likes science, especially chemistry and engineering.
This is the same thing we lost when Jon Kent was hyperaged because Bendis didn’t want to write a kid character on his Superman run (or ruin, one of the two), and so we got the bisexually gay CW-ized Jon Kent instead. (They can call him bi but we all know he ain’t gonna date a girl even if he breaks up with the dude, because certain groups will get mad even though they don’t read the comic.) Imagine if one or both kids end up with spider-powers and Peter has to train them. It’s like Spider-Boy but we’d actually care because it’s Peter raising his son, daughter, or both to be a superhero. We could explore what that means to Peter compared to his Spider-Kid(s), see the kids be the inexperienced ones but with the mentor Peter didn’t have because superheroes were still a newfangled thing at the time outside of comics and tales of Captain America and the World War II heroes. (Sliding timelines leave a larger and larger gap between those events.)
Then there’s Mary Jane. How does she deal with one or both of her kids having Peter’s powers? How does she connect with two superkids or console one who doesn’t get to have powers? By now she’s used to her superhusband but like any police, rescue, or military wife still worries when he goes out to save people from psychos and scumbags. Now at least one of her kids is potentially going to take his place someday. Can she deal with it again? What does her position as a supermodel actress offer to the group both as crimefighters and narratively for story ideas? If Peter gets his powers after having the kids most of this is never a concern and apparently modern Marvel couldn’t figure that last one out before so how are we sure Hickman can do it now? It’s more like a married father suddenly deciding to be a cop at age 30 like the TV show The Rookie. It could work but is it their story?
The end result is that we’re only getting half of what we wanted. We got a married Peter and Mary Jane but in an alternate universe and apparently something else brought them together rather than Peter and Gwen. Come to think of it Gwen shouldn’t have died considering there was no Spider-Man and thus no Green Goblin with an urge to kill her to get at Peter, and if Peter didn’t go to college because he couldn’t afford it or events caused him to be elsewhere since he didn’t have to be Spider-Man would they have even met? One little change can alter a whole host of things about a character’s life. It was literally the point of Marvel’s What If… including one where Flash Thompson became Spider-Man, leading to Ben surviving and Mary Jane dying. I’m betting that Peter didn’t meet Gwen either. We also don’t get to see an experienced Spider-Man have to juggle a new responsibilities with his kids. Also curious what happened to Aunt May.
As Doc noted it sounds like Marvel is trying to shove the Spider-Marriage fans into a corner to shut them up, but they already tried that with Renew Your Vows and it wasn’t very good. Not because of the Marriage and the Mephisto image of Annie replacing MC2’s “Mayday” Parker but because from what I hear it wasn’t well written. Concept cannot save a terrible story or Mystery Science Theater 3000 wouldn’t have nearly as many bad movies to riff. It’s a half-assed attempt at placating a small group of fans who won’t be returning to 616 and the main Spider titles so long as the current shenanigans continue and I can see Marvel using this and Renew Your Vows as excuses not to restore it. “See, even you really don’t want it back.” No, what they want back is good storytelling and using the benefits of Peter finally being happy but still needing to fight evil, a supportive wife who serves as Peter’s anchor to the people he’s fighting to protect but also offering a new perspective to whatever situation Spidey is currently up against. And those of us who want to see daddy Spidey want to see him raising their child–including changing diapers–and balancing being a father with his career (whatever career he has now) and his crimefighting. We want an experienced Spider-Man dealing with new challenges from an old hero’s point of view. In other words the world outside my window shouldn’t stop changing except for the parts that do. Commit to the bit or stop teasing us.
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