We’ve heard it all before: radioactive spider-bite, Uncle Ben, great power, great responsibility. These are events and ideas that have been retold so many times that fans got tired watching them on the big screen.
But in a new universe – one filled with minute but significant changes – the job was to play the hits without sounding too much like the originals. In the first Ultimate Universe, it was necessary to recreate origins with just enough variation to legitimize the publishing initiative in the first place, and Ultimate Spider-Man was the high-stakes testing ground.
What writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley managed wasn’t just a cover set of the hits, it was an oddly moving medley of them, weaving together major aspects of the character and his rogues gallery so that they supported one another.
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It’s important to remember that the original Marvel Universe came together spontaneously, issue by issue. Major heroes didn’t debut fully formed, and their relationships were uncovered as time went on. Major villains didn’t appear off the shelf; on Earth-616, the Green Goblin didn’t appear until issue #14 of Amazing Spider-Man, and his connection to Peter Parker was somewhat tenuous.
In the Ultimate Universe, the Green Goblin is inherently tied to Spider-Man’s origins; his role as Spidey’s Big Bad is woven into the narrative from the jump, so much so that the first issue of Ultimate Spider-Man not with Peter Parker but with Norman Osborne.
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Other aspects of the Spider-Man mythology are made more immediate, such as establishing Mary Jane as Peter’s best friend; Peter’s job at the Daily Bugle is introduced early, and with a firmer position (no longer a freelance photographer, Peter is now managing web design). Other details are embellished and extended. Uncle Ben’s death, originally detailed in a handful of panels in Amazing Fantasy #15, is pushed to the end of the fourth issue. This gives space to establish Ben and his role in Peter’s life, allowing for his death to resound with more gravity.
Mark Bagley, who spent the 1990s as one of the defining artists on the mainline Spider-Man titles, loosens up his artwork, giving the book a more Saturday Morning vibe than he developed earlier. Peter and MJ are wider-eyed and more reactive, and villains like the Goblin and Wilson Fisk are made to tower over the scrawny Spidey, absurd monoliths whose shape belies fantasy over realism.
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By the end of Ultimate Spider-Man Epic Collection: Learning Curve, the book even relieves some of the more tedious narrative aspects of Peter Parker’s life by having him confess his identity to Mary Jane; no longer burdened by isolation, Peter would not be plagued by guilt over lying to her.
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By tying major events together, allowing major moments their proper gravity, and lightening Peter’s load, Ultimate Spider-Man allowed for a more streamlined version of the character, one whose bouncy antics felt tone-appropriate. The artwork allowed for brighter antics even under tragic circumstances, and developed a more dynamic range of villainy.
Most importantly, it established a wide-open tone for the Ultimate Universe to come – one uncluttered with disconnected plotlines and the narrative baggage the Universe had been invented to shrug off. This was a brighter, more pliable Marvel Universe, one made more profound and more fun by way of those minute changes.
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