Forged by Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch in the recent Ultimate Invasion limited series, Marvel's new Ultimate Universe will be home to radical transformations of our favourite heroes, and nowhere will this be more apparent than in the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man.
Written by Hickman and illustrated by acclaimed artist Marco Checchetto, this is the first ongoing series of the new Ultimate line and presents a startling twist to the Spider-Man mythos. After the Maker used time travel to create a world without heroes, Peter Parker lived a relatively normal life, marrying Mary Jane and building a family which includes two children.
Now, it’s time to set things right! Learning the truth behind his reality, Peter will step up to become the Amazing Spider-Man the world didn't know it was missing. However, he'll do so as an adult rather than a 15-year-old kid!
We've known for a while that the new series will include the Green Goblin; however, unlike his Earth-616 and Earth-1610 counterparts, he'll neither be dressed in a garish costume nor become a monster. Instead, whoever is beneath the mask will don armour similar to what we saw in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.
Oh, and they'll be a hero as well.
"Spider-Man sizes up the new hero Green Goblin!" reads the solicitation text for next March's Ultimate Spider-Man #3. "As they team up to fight a new super villain, secrets about the corporations running North America are revealed...And you'll never guess who discovers Spider-Man's secret identity!"
This is an intriguing development, albeit one which we probably shouldn't be too shocked by given how drastically different Earth-6160 is to every other Marvel Universe we've spent time in over the years.
If you read Ultimate Universe #1, then you'll recall that Norman and Emily Osborn were among the supposed victims of a terrorist attack which is also believed to have wiped out Captain America, Iron Lad, and Thor, meaning it's likely Harry who has become the Earth-6160's Goblin.
"When we decided that we were going to do a book about an older Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man, we really wanted to lean into him starting his super hero life from a very different place than what's traditionally expected," Hickman previously said of his Ultimate Spider-Man plans. "Peter and MJ being married is one of many decisions we made that underline this being quite a 'different' kind of Spider-Man story."
With the first issue set to arrive next month, we'll soon have a much better idea of what to expect from this new approach to the wall-crawler. Needless to say, we don't expect the Goblin to stay good for very long...