Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #7-10

 Ultimate Spider-Man #7-10

Originally released in 2024

Written by Jonathan Hickman

Art by Marco Checchetto

After their attempt at intimidating the Kingpin, Peter and Harry work with Doctor Otto Octavius to unlock new features for their suits, as it turns out that they've been running in "safe mode" all this time.  This includes picking brain patterns to base their onboard AIs on - Peter picks himself, and in a move that seems like it's going to backfire spectacularly, Harry picks his late father.

With the Daily Bugle taken over by the Kingpin, J. Jonah Jameson and Ben Parker look to Robbie Robertson as their man on the inside.  Considering that this is the Kingpin we're talking about here, I have a bad feeling about Robbie's chances of survival since this is an alternate universe, though maybe he'll be luckier than I thought.

Meanwhile, Kingpin meets with Captain Britain, a member of the Maker's council, who offers to help Kingpin by letting him use a bunch of soldiers wearing uniforms that resemble Bullseye.  Instead, Kingpin hints that he's forming this universe's incarnation of the Sinister Six.

Peter and Harry spar to test out their upgrades, which goes as well for Harry as you'd expect with Norman's constant criticism in his head.  Tony Stark arrives at the end of the issue, asking if his plan worked and if they're heroes yet, though the next issue jumps forward a month. (The countdown to the Maker's return being in realtime works well as a countdown for the audience, but it does seem like it would cause problems from a writing standpoint) Thankfully, issue 8 does flashback to the rest of the conversation.

Issue 8 starts with Peter preparing for a birthday party, only for his musings to be interrupted by his suit.  The upgrade gave it the ability to speak out loud, and despite it being based on Peter's personality, it acts extremely creepy. (Between that and the all black colouring when it's in its natural state, it seems to be an adaptation of the Venom symbiote)

The flashback reveals that Peter's suit was the last thing that Howard Stark invented before his apparent death, and Tony gave it to Peter because Peter was at the top of the Maker's list of people to remove from his new world.  Meanwhile, Harry bought the suit rather than Tony sending it to him, Tony has no idea who Harry is, and Harry wasn't even on the Maker's list, which seems like it would sting.

In the lead up to the party (for Richard and May, Peter's kids), Ben offers Peter a job at their newspaper, The Paper. Peter has his reservations about the idea, though Ben does his best to convince him.

As the birthday party is happening, Wilson Fisk is gathering his Sinister Six, who are his lieutenants that run operations in the five boroughs and the area around it.  Some are mainstay villains - Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and Mister Negative.  The Black Cat is part of the group, but it's Walter Hardy, Felicia's father. The last member isn't even a Spider-Man villain, though with the Maker's interference preventing the Fantastic Four from existing, it makes sense that some of their villains (ones whose origins didn't involve the Fantastic Four) would wind up taking on other heroes instead.

With the Mole Man rounding out the group (the Kingpin being the sixth), they plan to take out Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, with Kingpin suggesting that they turn it into a game. The first person to play is the Black Cat, who tries to take out Spider-Man as soon as possible.

Harry launches Walter Hardy off of a building; Walter survives, but there's tension between Peter and Harry about how to handle these sorts of situations. (Though they still consider each other to be friends)

Meanwhile, The Paper is growing in popularity, but much to Ben and Jonah's disappointment, most of it is due to photos of Spider-Man rather than any hard-hitting journalism.

They get their wish granted in issue 10, which largely focuses on the two of them as they try to track down who bought Stark/Stane Industries.  Following that trail leads them to Gwen, and when Harry shows up to stop them from revealing Gwen's purchase to the world, they explain that they're confident that she did it for a good reason and accurately conclude that the purchase of Stark/Stane Industries and someone flying around in a modified Iron Man suit isn't a coincidence.

Harry gives the two reporters everything that Oscorp has on the Kingpin and his superiors in the Maker's council, which they publish under the pseudonym of Ben Reilly.  Considering that Ben Parker used to work at the Daily Bugle, and he tried to get an interview with the Kingpin's lawyer, I have a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.

I'm enjoying this take on Spider-Man, and I'm invested in these new interpretations of the characters.  It's interesting to go into this knowing so much about the Spider-Man mythos and being unsure if they're going to stick to major points in Spider-Man's history like Harry turning evil and Uncle Ben and/or Gwen dying, or if they're going to go in a completely different direction. The relatively short length of the series (24 issues, if I recall correctly) is a little disappointing, but hopefully it means the story is planned out thoughtfully.