Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #1-6 Review - RIB08

Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #1-6 Review

Disclaimer: This review will contain no spoilers but will have background information, so if you want to go in totally blind then please don’t read this. I have not read the other series within the new Ultimate universe but that will probably change soon enough.

TLDR: Please read this, buy the singles too.

        Oh boy, it feels like I had just heard about this series but we’re already at the half-year mark, how time flies. I remember when the first issue came out, I had to call 3 different local comic shops before I found one that had a copy of the first issue in stock, as I was in college and could only find the time to go hunting for it on Friday, a good few days after its initial release. After reading it I was filled with, I kid you not, a real sense of happiness that one of my favorite heroes was getting some proper respect in an ongoing comic series with a story that needs little to no background.

        I think I should address the background part before moving on, this new Spider-Man series is a part of Marvel’s rehash of the Ultimate universe following the events of Secret Wars (2015), which destroyed the previous Ultimate universe, and introduced a handful of characters to the mainline continuity. One of these characters was The Maker, an evil version of Reed Richards, who got up to some shenanigans and is responsible for the impetus of this new Ultimate universe. These details are covered in some lead-in stories for the greater Ultimate line, I didn’t read these but I probably will at a later point in the future. Regardless, you really can go into this new Spider-Man series blind and enjoy it greatly. I wasn’t lost and you won’t be either, please don’t worry about it at all.

        Let’s talk about the book itself, I’ll keep it spoiler free but if you follow online discourse you’ve probably known that the mainline Spider-Man comics have been shit for years, mostly due to a disrespect of the character and splitting up Peter and MJ. This new comic takes an entirely new direction, Peter is grown up and married to MJ with kids. He is only now becoming Spider-Man in his 30s and it’s such a fresh dynamic for such a beloved classic character. The way they spin the side-characters, the greater Ultimate universe as a whole, and of course seeing Peter with a happy life has reinvigorated much of the fandom and this book is selling like hot cakes, I’m serious. I like comics, I really do, but I kid you not, the release of the first issue was the first time in around 10 years that I had bought a single issue instead of a trade or hardcover.

        The writing is really good, it’s Jonathan Hickman at the helm, the guy’s a legend for steering Marvel’s ship from basically 2008 to 2016 and then renovating the X-Men with the Krakoa era before tackling this. I don’t know how the guy does it but goddamn he’s just a well of creativity, it’s insane. The art in the books is fantastic, the main artist is Marco Checchetto of Daredevil fame, he really knows his stuff. There were one or two issues where they got someone else because he was maybe taking a break or something, and no disrespect to anyone involved but Checchetto’s art is really for me, I’m very picky about the comic art that I like.

        If you have even a modicum of interest in reading a Spider-Man story that’s brand new, ongoing, and creative as all hell then please support this series. The TPB with the first four issues releases sometime in September, I very much recommend at least pre-ordering that from Amazon if you’re on the fence or hate single issues but this is worth it. It’s probably the most money Marvel’s made from a comic release in a long time, I mean it’s an actually good ongoing Spider-Man series, you just gotta check it out.

Nikhil Saxena

Founder, Destrier Studios

https://linktr.ee/destrierstudios

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