Ultimate Spider-Man Just Reintroduced a Marvel Icon – and They Are Absolutely Terrifying

The new Ultimate Universe is unleashing a whole new breed of Spider-Man, and they're a lot more Venom than they are Peter Parker.

Ultimate Spider-Man #12 finds the Parker household and their loved ones caught in a whirlwind of family drama during what would otherwise be a nice if somewhat chaotic Christmas party at home. When the festivities are interrupted by a panicked phone call from Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane can't help but wonder if Peter knows what has happened to the now missing Harry Osborn. Unfortunately, Mary Jane's husband is nowhere to be seen, either, although the oozing, sentient A.I. that has taken his form has been right alongside her the entire night.

Ultimate Spider-Man #12

• Written by JONATHAN HICKMAN
• Art by MARCO CHECCHETTO
• Colors by MATTHEW WILSON
• Letters by VC's CORY PETIT
• Design by JAY BOWEN
• Main cover art by MARCO CHECCHETTO & MATTHEW WILSON
• Variant covers by PEPE LARRAZ & MATTHEW WILSON, JEEHYUNG LEE, and PACO MEDINA & JESUS ABURTOV

The seemingly malevolent artificial intelligence posing as the Peter Parker of Earth-6160 was created back in Ultimate Spider-Man #7 by none other than Doctor Otto Octavius. This wasn't done out of any nefarious means, but rather as a way of further enhancing Peter's Picotech Stealth Suit which he has worn as Spider-Man since receiving it from Tony Stark. By copying Peter's own brainwaves and setting them as the baseline for the Picotech Stealth Suit's preexisting artificial intelligence, Otto gave rise to a new A.I. that was more proactive than anything before it.

Rather than merely operating and maintaining the Picotech Stealth Suit as a piece of software, the Peter Parker A.I. quickly took on a mind of its own. The earliest sign of this was the A.I. offering its own well-wishes to Peter's children on their birthday. Eventually, Peter and the A.I. began discussing the limits of what the suit and its new sentient software are truly capable of, although the details of these conversations haven't been made clear to readers quite yet. In more recent months, Peter traded in the Picotech Stealth Suit for a more simple spandex Spider-Man costume, largely due to concerns of it falling into the wrong hands otherwise.

While the Picotech Stealth Suit and the Peter Parker A.I. are a far cry from alien symbiotes, the suit's oozing response to Mary Jane's touch and the blacked out eyes it displays are fairly clear homages to Marvel Comics' very own Lethal Protector - Venom. The Venom symbiote is one of the most iconic and indelible pieces of the Spider-Man mythos, with beginnings that stretch all the way back to the original Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars. Over the years, Venom has gone from an overt villain to an unlikely antihero to a cosmic force of nature. With the conclusion of Marvel's Venom War, the symbiote superhero has taken on a new host, as well as a new look, with the mystery surrounding the former taking center stage in the pages of All-New Venom by Al Ewing, Carlos Gómez, Frank D'Armata, Carlos Lao, Jay Bowen, and VC's Clayton Cowles.

Ultimate Spider-Man #12 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.

Source: Marvel Comics