How Ultimate Spider-Man 2024 Became the 1st new comic I've bought in years (and why you might buy it, too): a personal story.

Overnight, I was thinking: Instead of video games, I like to unwind with books. But if I really want to let go, it's comic books- preferably from the 20th century.

I won't go into 'why,' besides it's a cheap bit of time traveling plus escapism. I like to see the weigh stations of the times, the way comics integrate influences from years before I was born with voices of their times, which are now before many of YOU were born. I love the way art and text together tickle my brain, ping-ponging between right and left hemispheres in a way Grant Morrison described so beautifully in the non-fictional SuperGods.

There's a delight in execution, certainly a hint of nostalgia to stir a lifetime of remembrances, a love for this four-color trash made by an industry that always expected its demise the next year, making pamphlets that might survive to a yard sale for a quarter or so each, if not just tossed before the silverfish struck. I've met, interviewed (especially for Back Issue! Magazine) even befriended-for-real, some of these creators. I've passed minutes here and there, amusing other aging fans and myself with hypotheticals and details that hold no real-world value, on forums like IMWAN years ago, and the FB pages like Marvel 1961-1986 on Facebook. I've combed the years for interesting, well-crafted runs I've read about. Even after I discovered I'd been robbed of my collection I'd gathered from childhood to about age 30, I eventually set aside some of my drowsily-earned tutoring money for a couple of late 1960s gems. I did buy quite a lot of, and read about all of, The Immortal Hulk with its body horror art by Joe Bennett, because it was a well-written reinvention of Hulk/ Banner, with cool deep-dive details resurrected by writer Al Ewing (as detailed amusingly on his Tumblr).

As my friend Ed Pettis pointed out, however, the horror reinvention of Hulk drifted into mysticism, and Devil Hulk wasn't the same guy we grew up with (though that Hulk, essentially, DID re-appear, drastically altered). Now what if someone re-interpreted a guy as radically, as refreshingly, as the MCU redefined an essential Tony Stark/ Iron Man?

(I'm teasing you so hard right now)

What if- to use the title of the alternate universe-seeking comic that's been published now in several volumes- they did it with virtually all the characters I loved most, from the mythos of my very favorite superhero?

What if, after dipping occasionally into the cool Slott-era villains, and checking out Doc Ock-as-Spider-Man in Superior Spider-Man- someone made a Spider-Man comic I had to have, from the ground-up? What if I wanted to read a Spider-Man comic, monthly, for the first time in over two decades?

I definitely dug the Bendis/ Bagley Ultimate Spider-Man enough to read its first couple of years, but my years collecting Amazing Spider-Man basically stopped during the mostly-excellent Stracyniski/ Romita Jr. run.

Say, why did I ever quit? Was it the tightening of finances after school, spurred on by our gypsy travels to California and beyond?

Peak Lee/ Ditko Spider-Man, from 1965. Well, it was kind of over a girl.

A desire to branch out to other literature- that sounds nice, but is it honest? Well, it's not a lie, but...

About the time I branched out to One Act Play and Driving, I first slimmed my vigorous collecting habit simply to de-geek-ify, to open conversations about other things, and maybe finally land a date. This was before you could take your date to a movie and get your superhero/ villain fix. I held on to Peter David's run of Incredible Hulk as my sole title, in my upperclassmen years. But then, while dropping out and trying to re-invent myself as a creator of songs, I met this young woman...

And not long after our hasty whirlwind romance united us in matrimony, she decided to try a comic book with me, on a honeymooon trip that radically tried to mutate into my original plan before we met: going to Colorado. Before I knew it, we spent most of our first year together, reading my collection. That made my comic books matter in a way they maybe would not have, anymore: now, these stories were something I could share with someone I loved with all my heart!



And further still, we started collecting Spider-Man together, a weekly date, often enjoyed with Sbarro's or Wendy's in the old McFarlane Mall, right across from the place we worked to make that money, Ezell's Catfish Cabin. Every week, we'd stop by, say hello to Pepper or David (now writer David Alistair Hayden) or Nancy or Chuck at Chuck's Comics and Cards.

I liked letting her pick the comics, because I knew I'd enjoy ANY comic book, and I found a little something for me, too, in the occasional Back Issue bin dive.

First I, next she, became college students. And so long as the Parkers looked likely to have a little Parker, I had a guaranteed date at my elbow, turning the pages.

I did see this in the university book store and couldn't tell it 'no.' Now, in the interest of trying to reverse decades of maturing Peter Parker and moving him along with a realistic life-path setting, you had the Clone Saga, which undid itself after two years, ending with the unexplained vanishing of Baby May Parker. My wife didn't like that, but at least we had The Invisbles, John Constantine- Hellblazer, and The Preacher to amuse our more adult tastes. And we still dutifully collected our Spidey comics, too.

And then Marvel blew that for me, too. Volume Two, Amazing Spider-Man #13, saw the disappearance (death?) of Mary Jane Watson-Parker. After that issue, I was on my own. It was just a few years later, by which time I was occasionally 'Byrne-stealing' issues down at Border's on the corner of Market and Sixth Avenue, that Marvel created One More Day, to finally shake off 'married Spider-Man' in a literal deal with Mephistopheles.

Like I said, there was Ultimate Spider-Man, volume one, which tried to more-artfully establish teen Spider-Man for a new era. It even shocked us and brought us Miles Morales. But my love was no longer elbow-to-elbow with me, reading. She had her thing over on that chair. I had mine over on this one. Not a shared bacon cheeseburger in sight.

So why bother, really.

I had other interests, too.

Granted, our proximity to San Diego Comic Con, and the generous passes given to me by our lovely neighbor Janice, put me in touch with comics professionals. I found these individuals and the lectures far more of interest than the big game roll-outs. They led me to read some great stuff like Steranko's SHIELD run (because I spent hours with Jim Steranko himself and was frankly charmed), Little Nemo and Scott McCloud's books on making comics, and the weird worlds of Steve Gerber.

Thanks to our dear friend Johann, we were able to print our own comic, D'n'A, which we drew, then commissioned artists to make covers, t-shirts- and now we were at whatever dinky sci-fi convention we could afford to table! I even assisted, for a few weeks, the phenomenal Joe Phillips, but was honestly too lonely to work with him in the silence he preferred in those Recession days. You can find his amazing work on Instagram; I'm having trouble linking his home page. He drew Superboy and Mister Miracle at DC, Star Trek at IDW, even painted with Mike Mignola. A real 'brush' with professional comics for me.

Re-invention and a love for the past have been part of the tension of comics creation since the very beginning, with the pulp fiction and novels informing Early Marvel, and then, Marvel's own past, informing the decade when I truly began reading, the 1980s.

So she and I found comics again-but the reading experience was back to just me, as it was in my days living out in the country. Back in the day, there was a '10s investment of terrific analysis, which I think greatly improved my way of approaching writing comics, on the many blogs that looked back with an adult, and sometimes erudite, eye. I was able to pour over a vast amount of the history of the Marvel Universe on Super Mega Monkey, which put the big story of Marvel in the best chronological order possible, and graded the stories with the thought, 'if 'C' is something a reader who already loves these things might enjoy, and A and B+ were so well-done that a non-comics fan might appreciate them...' The comments, the links, the samples of the work of the teams, allowed me to cherry pick. Rod's writing was entertaining and very informed by modern thought So I was able to wrap myself in old comics and stayed entertained.

We've come a long way since Johnny storm vs. The Asbestos Man. But, that had to be! And just last night, I was thinking, like I said, about how, while I occasionally do try out something newer online, and did subscribe to a year of Immortal Hulk in the midst of COVID (we worked at home, tutoring, as I mentioned), and even read a bit of new Justice League and Slott's Iron Man run--- I tended to stick with comics of a bygone era. The reckless experiments, morose/ macabre mood, and trashy trends of 1970s Marvel (including a box full of Conan the Barbarian I bought with my friend Johann for a hundred bucks in Tuscaloosa), the wonder and silliness and hints of profundity of the 1960s, and the highlights of the 1980s, where I had bought all my first comics, in that unified Marvel Universe overseen by Jim Shooter, became the place I drifted when I wanted to unwind. I quite consciously found myself drawn to that sandbox. I consumed something called Valiant Comics around 1993/4, also, which fed me the idea of independent comics being a fresh start, which definitely influenced my own creations, most of which you've only seen in hints, as i have no comic book company. (You can find my work at GamesCreate and Itch.io Games, however, if you want to read something more prose-oriented with original characters. Here's the almost-finished cover art to my game, The Curse of Allautou, by Aladdin Khaled. )

And sometime after the snow stopped falling, I picked up the hint that this Ultimate Spider-Man reboot was something seismic on the scale of Imomortal Hulk. I wouldn't have to keep up with several books, like the X-Men/ Krakatoa thing that sounded so well-done but exhausting. I took a peek at ReadComicsOnline.

And here was Peter and MJ. With a family.

And grown-up but faithful renditions of Peter's supporting cast. And maybe therein, a glimmer of a chance of buying a comic my wife would enjoy with me! Maybe it will have the weird anyone-could-die tension of Byrne's Alpha Flight. I don't expect the same thing, retread, but could I enjoy anything like I once did Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr., when I discovered their Amazing Spider-Man issues from right before I became a monthly buyer? Could it be as retro, but crackling-fresh and well-crafted, as Lee and Romita's ASM? Can you go home again?

No spoilers to this point, outside what a variant cover hints at (Peter and MJ). You can turn around, with this discourse on my love of Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, Roger Stern, Steve Gerber and the others mentioned herein (I'm fond of Stan Lee, and even Stan Lee with Steve Ditko, the original nerdy outcast Parker chroniclers), and take your curiosity over to Ultimate Spider-Man #1, volume three. If you don't care for it, well, you never have to trust my word, again. Isn't it the weeds of learning the ever-expanding big story that, in discussions, I've found turn away so many potential readers? That continuity was Marvel's strength, because it gave facsimile to the lives of the characters. It's no wonder alternate realities and reality-warps were necessary to both keep the characters alive in fresh approaches, and to attract the slim new interested parties. They certainly have prevailed upon the IPs as we find them in cinema; time lines are, for example, all LOKI is about, and I do believe I saw three Spider-Men in the last live action movie, and many, many variants await me when I finally sit down with the sequel to Into The Spider-Verse.



So take my word, as someone who knew nearly everything that happened of merit in nearly forty years of Spider-History. This one SLAPS.



S

Spoilers follow

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One guess who this blind priest is.

Uncle Ben is alive. He's best friends with J. Jonah Jameson!!!!

And Iron Man is trying to fix everything, but it looks like he's a teen.

This new Green Goblin looks badass.
and the Kingpin just took over the Daily Bugle.

And Peter Parker, at 35 years old, is faced with the conscious decision to assume powers, abilities, and dreaded knowledge, about which he can only guess.

Bravo, Johnathon Hickman. I stayed away from your work in general because it looked very dense, but this hits raw emotions. You cashed in on your rep with a fire interpretation of our hero and his cast. And most of all, you gave us Spider-Man with a family. Peter Parker with mid-life crisis thoughts, but none of the history as Spider-Man to conflict with him being happily-married and in full Dad mode, even if he feels there's something missing.

Marvel chickened out on this one, twenty-five, damn nearly thirty years ago, and my wife never bought another issue of your books.

I can't wait to see what she thinks.