Ultimate Spider-Man: A Brand New Day Story by Samhita adapa

Ultimate Spider-Man: A Brand New Day Story By: Samhita adapa

It's no secret that Spider-Man fans have been disappointed with the current run of The Amazing Spider-Man. Distaste for it can be seen everywhere, especially regarding the treatment of one of the Spider-Man cast’s most iconic characters, Mary Jane Watson. Overall, the run gets criticized for its handling of characters, poor writing, redundant story lines, and sometimes even its art. Amazing Spider-Man hasn’t been good in a long time and for many, it feels like a toxic, codependent ex you can’t stop going back to. People were looking for relief, a way out, and that was when Ultimate Spider-Man(2024) came in, the savoir people were begging for. 

 The current Ultimate Spider-Man run started in 2024 and is currently on issue #22, written by Jonathan Hickman, known for The Nightly News, Secret Wars, and F4, and illustrated by Marco Checchetto. Offering a breath of fresh air, the story follows Peter Parker as an adult, married to MJ, and with 2 kids. It is not till he’s 36 that he gets his powers through a message left through Tony Stark.  Familiar characters are seen through new lenses and new story lines are introduced, such as The Paper. The run was quickly met with wide acclaim, selling out three times in just two months. With a stacked creative team, the comic offered a new perspective to those who were getting tired of the repetition and redundancy of the Amazing Spider-Man. Beloved characters like Harry and Norman Osborn, Ben Parker, J Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy are all familiar faces and yet they feel fresh and engaging to read. Not only familiar faces, there are Marvel characters that make appearances with completely different circumstances to, once again, remind readers that this isn’t Earth-616 and make you say ‘aha!’.  

Almost immediately, people jumped ship. In every post made about Amazing Spider-Man, there is at least one person in the comments telling them to read Ultimate Spider-Man. It spread like wildfire. Older fans regained the excitement they once had for the character and newer fans got to see a fresh perspective after the dullness of Amazing. Many fans just liked seeing Peter happy with a wife and kids, following the extremely controversial decision to break them up in the infamous One More Day comic, but that’s a whole other story. Despite all the praise, the comic isn’t perfect. There are still many criticisms of the run. Some don’t like that Peter seems to be a passive protagonist, reacting to things happening around him rather than taking action himself. Others think the comic spends too much time on characters around Peter, specifically The Paper storyline, leading to people not knowing much about Peter and his motivations. His character is not as fleshed out as others, for example, Harry Osbon, who we seem to know much more about than the titular character. 

Overall, Spider-Man fans seem to greatly enjoy the new Ultimate run and look forward to it every month. The series is set to wrap up with its 24th volume and 22 have been released so far. For me, personally, I’m really enjoying reading this series every month and though it's not in my top 5 spidey runs, it’s definitely fun and engaging. After the series concludes, it goes back to hoping Amazing gets better until another series comes out to divert our time and money, considering that Ultimate outsold Amazing for the first 11 months after it released. If you did enjoy Ultimate Spider-Man and are looking for more Earth-6160, go check out the other Ultimate X-men and Ultimate Black Panther. 

Works Cited

MARVEL. “Ultimate Spider-Man (2024 - Present).” Marvel.com, 2024, www.marvel.com/comics/series/38809/ultimate_Spider-Man_2024_-_present. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

“Top 50 Comics - March 2024.” Icv2.com, icv2.com/articles/markets/view/56659/top-50-comics-march-2024.