Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (2024) Recap With Spoilers

Twenty years ago, the Maker prevented a radioactive spider from biting a young Peter Parker. He likewise prevented the creation of any other super heroes and formed a secret council to rule the world from the shadows. When Tony Stark learned the dark history of his universe, he sought to undo it — prompting the Maker’s Council to attack Manhattan, killing thousands, and frame Stark for it. Peter Parker has lived his life unaware of the Maker’s Council or the truth behind the spider, but that is about to change…

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Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is the debut title of Marvel’s new line of Ultimate Comics, making this week’s issue an entry point for new readers. (Before you read the recap below, here’s everything you need to know about the new Ultimate Universe and a guide to the characters of Earth-6160.)

January 2023. Earth-6160. A 35-year-old Peter Parker is the husband of Mary Jane Watson-Parker and father of their children, Richard and May. Peter palms a glass orb and promises his wife they’ll talk tonight. He’s late for work at The Daily Bugle under his boss, an affable but short-tempered J. Jonah Jameson, and the Bugle‘s managing editor: Ben Parker.

Peter’s Uncle Ben is old friends with J.J.J., who gently reminds Peter to ask his uncle how he’s doing. Ben hasn’t talked about what’s happened or how he’s doing or how he feels, and his nephew is worried. Peter was 15-years-old when his parents died and he went to live with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May; that was 20 years ago. “It’s been a long time,” Ben reminds him. “But has one day gone by that you didn’t think of them? Is there one day that it doesn’t hurt that they’re gone?” Peter’s response is a quiet “no,” so Ben tells him: “Then you know exactly how I feel.”

The Parker family has gathered on a day of remembrance. The city unveils a snow-covered memorial for the victims of the Stark terror attack, which claimed thousands of lives — including Peter’s beloved aunt, May Parker. (The public believes that Tony Stark, the teenage son of the technocrat Howard Stark, died in the terror attack that destroyed Stark Tower in Manhattan; in reality, the Maker’s Council of world leaders commandeered a Stane/Stark Industries satellite and fired the blast that killed thousands.)

Blind priest Matt Murdock gives the eulogy for the lives lost in the Stark terror attack, a speech that moves the immovable Ben to tears. Father Murdock then introduces Harry Osborn, whose parents, Emily and Norman Osborn, are also memorialized on the wall. “We all lost someone. Mothers, fathers, siblings, sons and daughters,” Harry says. “And like Father Murdock said, they will live on in our hearts. We will always remember them. But I have to be honest. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to move on. Or get better. Because when I’m all alone — in the quiet of the night — it isn’t angels I hear singing.” Instead, the Osborn heir hears screams and sirens. “I hear all of us crying out in pain because a part of our future was stolen and in exchange all we got were… memories. It’s just not enough,” Harry says. “And I’m not sure any of us should be expected to live with it.”

Peter and Harry are strangers. Ben interviewed Harry’s father over the years for the Bugle, Peter says, but he never got a hint of who Norman Osborn really was. “Billionaire businessman, ruthless competitor, founder of Oscorp Industries… and loving father,” MJ remarks. “You never know, I guess.” Peter then returns to the Bugle with Ben just in time to see JJJ storm out and quit. Robbie Robertson informs Ben that the Bugle will be undergoing “editorial restructuring.” Advertisers have been complaining about the paper’s “more inflammatory content” and are uncomfortable with “how dogged the Bugle is being while looking into the Stark terror attack.” At the behest of the board and and broader ownership, The Daily Bugle is going to be making editorial changes. With Jameson out, the obvious choice to lead the Bugle is Ben.

So says Wilson Fisk, who offers Ben the promotion if he can “toe the line.” Without a word, Ben quits the Bugle in solidarity with Jonah. That night, Fisk and his eyepatch-wearing right-hand man are attacked by a green-suited Goblin wearing armor marked “OBSTRK Mark 004,” who bombs Fisk’s vehicle and flies away on a glider. At A Bar With No Name, the unemployed newspapermen mull over starting their own paper. Their mission statement: tell the truth. “In this entire universe, there’s only one thing I know for sure,” Jonah tells Ben. “And that’s that there’s no truth in the news and no news in the truth.” Instead of telling the truth, JJJJ offers: “We promise not to lie.”

Peter tells his Uncle Ben and Jonah that his job is safe and learns that they’re starting their own news business. Peter is curious: “How do you blow up your whole life in one afternoon and then just start a new one?” Ben tells Peter, “My wife is dead. You’re a grown man and have a family of your own. And — given the opportunity — I just couldn’t take being in an industry of compromise one minute more. Why wouldn’t I do what I did? It was an easy choice.” He doesn’t outright say it, but the message is clear: With great power must come great responsibility.

“My wife is very much alive. And I have a family, and responsibilities that exceed professional bliss. I don’t know that I can blow everything up just because I want my life to change,” Peter confesses to Ben, who thinks his nephew is conflicted about joining him and Jonah in quitting The Bugle. But it’s not that. It’s something else. “For the longest time, I’ve thought something was wrong with my life, Ben — that something was wrong with me,” Peter says. “I can’t really explain it, but now I just… I just know that I’ve been right all along… and I don’t know what to do.” And because Ben and Peter are in the business of words, Ben has some words for his nephew.

“You ever heard the saying, ‘Inaction is action?’ Well, that’s just a garbage way of saying don’t spend your life waiting for something to happen,” Ben asserts. “Make it happen. I love you, son… but if you’re walking around half asleep… anesthetized by your own life… then wake up.”

Later, Peter puts his children to bed and has that talk with Mary Jane. He needs a change. They might have kids, and bills, and the Parker luck, but Peter was behind her when MJ started her own business last year. She’s behind him for this, whatever this is. “No, MJ. I need to change.” MJ tells Peter that he’s an amazing husband and father… but he’s not satisfied with who he is. As long as things don’t change between the Parkers, MJ tells her husband: “Go get ’em, tiger.” Peter takes the orb and goes to the roof.

Last night. Peter receives a hologram message from Tony Stark — a.k.a. Iron Lad, the son of this world’s Iron Man. After the Maker’s council targeted Tony and his allies — Doctor Doom, Thor, and Lady Sif — Tony went to the only safe place he could think of: six months into the future. “I’m sorry that I can’t be more specific than I am about to be, but we have to be careful… because this world is more complicated and dangerous than you could ever believe, and there’s a component of ‘faith’ to this that is, frankly, unavoidable,” future-Tony tells present-Peter. (Read our explainer on the secret origins and history of Earth-6160.)

Tony gives Peter the orb. Inside it is a picotech stealth suit to mask his identity and a bio-organic catalyst necessary for Peter to undergo a post-human transformation. “Twenty years ago, you were supposed to be bitten by a radioactive spider. This would have given you amazing powers. And with them, you would have become one of Earth’s most prominent superheroes,” Tony explains. “Instead, a great evil traveled through time and erased almost all the heroes of this world from existence. You were one of them. He did this so that he — and his confederates — could treat Earth as a kind of experiment. An exercise in creating a society that could be perfectly directed and controlled.” Tony is repeating this process with other superheroes who were erased when the Maker made this reality, and if he does it correctly, “In six months, I will exit this room to find an Earth that has regained its heroes. And together, we will free the world.”

“It is my greatest hope that you are among our number,” Tony tells Peter. “You were supposed to have a different life, Peter Parker. You were supposed to protect the innocent, save lives and inspire the citizens of this world to be their best selves. And instead, all of that was taken from you.”

Now. Peter Parker stands on the top of a building. On the precipice of change. He recalls the words of Tony Stark, echoing from six months in the future: “These people stole your future. These people robbed you of your destiny. The question is… do you want it back?” Peter opens the orb and its contents: a test tube with the radioactive spider that should have bitten a teenage Peter Parker on that fateful day he marveled at the Isotope Genome Accelerator (in Ultimate Invasion #1).

“I want it,” Peter says. He hears Uncle Ben. “Then wake up.” He hears Mary Jane. “Go get ’em, tiger.” The radioactive spider bites Peter Parker… and Spider-Man is born. The beginning.