Ultimate Spider-Man: Married With Children (Comics) | Review

Most Spider-Man stories throw you into the deep end with teenage angst and radioactive spiders. This one asks a different question: what happens when the hero's journey starts after the mortgage is signed, when responsibility has already been your reality for years?

Recent reboot by writer Jonathan Hickman (House of X, Infinity) strips away everything you know about Peter Parker and rebuilds it from scratch. This series follows an older Peter who becomes Spider-Man for the first time in his mid-30s, already a father to Richard and May, already married to Mary Jane Watson-Parker.

The timing matters because every choice Peter makes carries weight that goes beyond his own survival and into territory most heroes never face. There's no bachelor's freedom here, no room for reckless heroics when your kids need you home for dinner.

The story emerges from the Ultimate Invasion plotline, where Peter's Aunt May has recently died as one of the casualties of a false flag attack orchestrated by the Maker's Council. That's the Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe, now playing puppet master across an entirely new reality he's meticulously constructed.

The setup is simple but devastating: Peter never got bitten by that spider as a teenager. He lived a normal life, built a family, paid his bills on time, watched the world get darker without ever knowing he could have stopped it or made any difference at all.

Then everything changes. Peter finally gets his powers in his mid-30s and suddenly he's juggling parent-teacher conferences with learning how to web-sling. The first villain arrives right on schedule but this isn't about punching bad guys until they stay down. It's about protecting what matters most in a world designed to crush hope.

It's about a man who finally has the ability to protect his family in a world that's been rigged against ordinary people from the start, where heroes were systematically prevented from rising and the Maker's Council controlled every aspect of society from behind closed doors.

J. Jonah Jameson's investigation into who's pulling the strings of this new Ultimate Universe leads to a shocking revelation, connecting Peter's personal transformation to the larger conspiracy controlling Earth-6160 and shaping humanity's fate.

The Maker's influence runs deep, woven into the fabric of this reality since its inception and Peter's late-blooming heroism puts him directly in the crosshairs of something much bigger and more dangerous than street crime or costumed villains he could ever imagine facing.

What makes this work is the restraint. Hickman doesn't rush Peter into the costume or manufacture artificial drama about keeping secrets from MJ. She's in on it from the start because that's what functional marriages look like, built on trust and honesty rather than convenient plot devices that create unnecessary conflict.

The tension comes from real places: how do you explain to your children that daddy's new hobby involves fighting people who can level city blocks? How do you balance saving strangers with protecting the people who depend on you most, the ones waiting at home?

The emotional core hits differently when you're watching a man who spent 15 years wondering if he made the right choices suddenly get a chance to be more than what life handed him. There's no Uncle Ben guilt driving him because Ben's still alive here.

Peter chooses this path knowing exactly what he's risking, fully aware of the potential cost to his family and their peaceful life and that choice carries more weight than any origin story retread ever could or ever will in the entire Spider-Man canon across multiple universes.

Artwork by Marco Checchetto (Daredevil: Doing Time, Daredevil: Know Fear) does the heavy lifting where dialogue can't. His Peter looks tired in the right ways, weathered by parenthood rather than tragedy. Action sequences flow with kinetic energy but quiet moments land harder: Peter watching his kids sleep before patrol.

Checchetto understands that faces tell stories and every panel choice reinforces the emotional stakes Hickman builds into the script. The coloring deserves special mention for establishing mood without overwhelming the linework or distracting from the storytelling.

Hickman's writing strips the quips and nervous energy that define Spider-Man. This Peter talks like someone who's lived real life, with natural dialogue. Pacing breathes when needed, letting moments develop without rushing toward action beats. When script kicks into high gear, payoff feels earned because you understand the stakes.

This isn't your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and that's exactly why it works so well for mature readers. Hickman and Checchetto have built something that respects the character's legacy while refusing to retread the same ground Marvel's covered for 60 years.

The connections to Ultimate Invasion and the broader Ultimate Universe give the story room to grow beyond Peter's immediate concerns, setting up conflicts that matter on both personal and cosmic scales while establishing a foundation for long-term storytelling.

If you want a Spider-Man who cracks wise while swinging between buildings, stick with the main universe but if you're ready to see what happens when heroism collides with real adult responsibility, when powers arrive too late to fix the past but just in time to change the future, this is the Spider-Man story that 2025 actually needed.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Married With Children is collected in Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 1, available in paperback at comic shops, bookstores and major online retailers. Digital editions can be found on Amazon Kindle, ComiXology and Marvel Unlimited.