Ultimate Spider-Man is Remixing the Symbiote Suit in an Amazing Way
Ultimate Spider-Man #8 takes Peter Parker's new Spider-Man costume in a dark new direction by teasing its version of a symbiote suit.
Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) continues to be a thrilling reinvention of Marvel's Spider-Man mythos – and that now includes a brand new take on Peter Parker's infamous symbiote suit! In Ultimate Spider-Man #7 we got a fun new take on Spider-Man's motor-mouth monologuing, with the reveal that his new suit has an AI system that mimics Peter's psyche. Well, In Ultimate Spider-Man #8, we see this AI assistant subplot take a darker turn – literally and figuratively.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!
Ultimate Spider-Man #8 picks up three weeks after Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Harry Osborn/Green Goblin got a surprise visit from a time-traveling Tony Stark, who returned to see if Peter had yet mastered his superhero duties. Three weeks later, Peter is planning a birthday party for his son and daughter when he falls into an unexpected conversation with the black ball that is his suit after it comes online and begins talking on its own. Peter is understandably perturbed by development, and asks his suit what else it can do without his knowledge; the suit intimates in a creepy way that it can indeed do a multitude of things that Peter has no idea about – something Peter pledges to dig more into, after the party.
This early scene with Peter's suit is clearly a foreshadow of how Ultimate Spider-Man is reframing the symbiote mythos. Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) reinvented the symbiote as a genetic experiment gone wrong; Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) is dipping into the modern themes of AI and next-gen tactical gear – something the issue digs into.
Ultimate Spider-Man's New Symbiote Suit Explained
A flashback scene to Tony Stark visiting Spider-Man and Green Goblin reveals more about the "picotech" suit that Spider-Man was gifted. The suit is cutting-edge armor tech that was invented by Tony's father, Howard Stark, before his apparent death – a technology so cutting-edge that even Tony himself cannot replicate it. Tony reveals that Howard had a list of the people whose heroic destinies needed to be stopped by The Maker, Reed Richards' nefarious variant who recreated the entire Ultimate Universe according to his own designs. Peter was at the top of The Maker's list of potential threats to his plan, making Peter the clear candidate for the picotech suit.
Like the alien version of the symbiote, Spider-Man's picotech suit can mimic any piece of clothing in any style and can protect Peter while remaining lightweight and versatile. The AI personality and its teases are the first real clue that this suit could be more powerful than Tony's Iron Man suit, or Harry's Green Goblin suit (which is also Starktech). However, that could become a serious problem if (once) the AI decides to go rogue and/or take charge of the kind of hero Peter should be – or if it finds a new wearer who has less noble intentions for its use than crimefighting.
Ultimate Spider-Man is now on sale from Marvel Comics.
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