The New Ultimate Spider-Man Revealed

For the unaware, the “Ultimate” Marvel universe is an alternate universe that Marvel created so they could do a retelling of classic Marvel characters and not have it mess up continuity.  Ultimate Spider-Man has been their biggest success from the Ultimate universe.  Recently Marvel made the decision to kill Spider-Man and replace him.  Of course, whenever comic book companies kill a major solo character it’s to garner media attention.  Examples:  Superman, Captain America and Batman. The luxury of having an alternate universe is Marvel gets to go outside the box and test how audiences will react to another person being Spider-Man besides Peter Parker.

Anyway, Peter Parker/Spider-Man died in battle with the Green Goblin.  Spider-Man’s replacement was finally revealed in Ultimate FallOut #4.  So is the new Spider-Man a current cast member from the Spider-Man family, someone already established outside the Spider-Man books but in the Ultimate universe, or a brand new character entirely?  If you guessed option number three you would be correct!

The new Spider-Man’s name is Miles Morales and is half-African-American and half-Hispanic.  This choice is of significance to Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso and Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis. Alonso is half-Mexican and Bendis has two adopted daughters – one Ethiopian and the other that is African-American.

I give Bendis and Marvel credit for making such a drastic change with one of their franchise characters.  I’m also glad they did this in the Ultimate universe and not the “616” timeline, which is the official universe. Marvel has always touted the Ultimate-verse as being the place where they can take chances and freshen up the stale points of established characters.  If the feedback is positive for the new Spider-Man, it could lead Marvel to be more experimental.  My one caveat is to not kickstart every drastic change with the death of a character, because that has happened so much that it has become stale.

I have a good feeling about Ultimate Spider-Man with Bendis as writer and hopefully Mark Bagley penciling. Those two have worked together on Spider-Man books for many years.  The track record is there of success. You never know, Miles Morales may become a household name.

Timdogg

#ComicBookChronicles @CBChron founder. Editor-in-Chief of @thekliqnation. Comic book reviewer, podcaster #RABBLERABBLE