Ultimate Spider-Man - Characters

Characters

• Peter Benjamin Parker/Spider-Man is a shy, intelligent high school student who lives in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker. He is fifteen years old when the series begins. On a science field trip to Osborn Industries, a spider exposed to the drug OZ bites Peter. Instead of dying as expected, Peter begins to inherit various superhuman powers. During a fight at his school, Peter blocks a punch from Flash Thompson, and this thrust of the punch breaks Flash's hand. He earns money to pay off the resulting medical bill by wrestling professionally in a costume the promoters provide. On his way home, Peter crosses a market. While he walks through, a burglar runs towards him from the market with cash. Peter lets him go, since he was upset from being fired from wrestling. The burglar later kills his Uncle Ben. Wracked with guilt, he modifies his wrestling costume and dedicates his life to fighting crime. He manages to complete his father's research on adhesives, creating a formula used to create artificial webs. Peter tries to balance school, a job, a girlfriend, his Aunt May and his life as Spider-Man, which proves to be difficult. Peter is killed in 'The Death of Spider-Man' storyline, in a battle against the Green Goblin.
• May Parker is an independent woman in her 50s who works as a secretary and regularly sees a therapist to deal with the death of her husband Ben. May used to hate Spider-Man because she believed he had no regard for innocent bystanders and hid his face behind a mask. In Ultimate Spider-Man #99, she learns Peter's secret identity, something that initially makes her angry, but after some time she accepts it. Aunt May seems to be scared of the idea of Peter risking his life on a constant basis, but supports him anyway. After the death of her nephew, she and Gwen Stacy emigrate to France.
• Ben Parker is Peter's intelligent uncle who is killed by a burglar early on in the series.
• Mary Jane Watson is Peter's girlfriend and next-door neighbor. She is the first person Peter reveals his identity to, and the one who often fixes his costume and treats his injuries. Although Peter and Mary Jane love each other, Peter's life as Spider-Man is often a burden on their relationship. She was once transformed into a creature similar to Norman Osborn's Goblin and Harry Osborn's Hobgoblin, except for long red hair all over her body. She has apparently been cured of this condition by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.
• Harry Osborn is the troubled son of Norman Osborn. Having witnessed the accident that turned his father into the Green Goblin, he was trained by a psychiatrist to repress these memories. Disturbed by recurring images of his past, Harry develops his father's aide Shaw as a second personality, who serves as Harry's guide to becoming the Hobgoblin. After transforming into the Hobgoblin, Harry is defeated by S.H.I.E.L.D., much to the dismay of Peter. As the Hobgoblin, his powers are similar to the Green Goblin's. He is murdered by his father in Ultimate Spider-Man #117.
• Peter works at the Daily Bugle newspaper as a web designer. His boss is J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief who hates Spider-Man and runs a smear campaign against him, which stems from the death of his son John. His most important employees are his right-hand man Robbie Robertson and Ben Urich, the Bugle's star reporter whose articles helped to take down the Kingpin. Betty Brant is one of the secretaries. Ned Leeds also works there.
• Gwen Stacy is a street-wise girl who befriends Peter and Mary Jane. Mary Jane is initially jealous of Gwen for the time she spends with Peter, but Gwen ultimately reveals that she loves Peter only as a surrogate brother. Her father is NYPD Captain George Stacy. He is killed by a criminal in a Spider-Man suit, and she blames the real Spider-Man for his death because he became someone criminals could copy in order to hide their identities. Aunt May opens her and Peter's home to Gwen after her mother refuses to take her. While living with the Parkers, Gwen is killed by Carnage, which instills in Peter even more guilt. In Ultimate Spider-Man #98, Gwen Stacy appears again mysteriously, alive and well, and in Ultimate Spider-Man #100, she is revealed, in a hideous twist of fate to be the new Carnage, along with being a clone of the original. In Ultimate Spider-Man #128, the Carnage symbiote was absorbed back into Venom (Eddie Brock) and an examination of Gwen by Tony Stark reveals that Gwen is a 'molecular copy' and is essentially the real Gwen come back to life. The examination has also revealed no trace of the symbiote.
• Liz Allan is Mary Jane's best friend. For the majority of the series she's mutant-phobic. It was recently revealed that she herself is a mutant due to her mother being impregnated by Blob. She eventually becomes Firestar. Peter revealed to Liz shortly after that he was Spider-Man.
• Fred "Flash" Thompson is a bully who torments Peter Parker, and apparently had a crush on Gwen Stacy. He was the last of the recurring characters to discover Peter's identity as Spider-Man (after his death).
• Kenny "Kong" McFarlane is a former bully of Peter, who now has an on and off friendship with him. Initially a big fan of Spider-Man, Kong eventually figured out that Peter is secretly Spider-Man. He dated Kitty Pryde for a short period, they are ostensibly broken-up. Kong hasn't been seen for a number of issues and may have moved out to the Midwest.
• Kitty Pryde is a member of the X-Men who dates Peter after he breaks up with Mary Jane. As her identity is public, Kitty wears a green and yellow masked costume when she fights alongside Spider-Man to avoid giving away his identity. Their relationship is hard as they live quite far away from each other. Their relationship is silently torn apart when Kitty sees Peter kissing Mary Jane. In Ultimate Spider-Man #106, at the end of the issue, Kitty turns up as the new student at Midtown High, following her leaving the Xavier Institute in the wake of Professor Xavier's death. Despite her breakup with Peter, she still retains strong feelings for him. After Peter's death, Kitty leaves with Bobby Drake (Iceman) and Johnny Storm (Human Torch) to join Karen Page (Jean Grey)'s new X-Men group.
• The Black Cat, Felicia Hardy, blames her father's death on the Kingpin. Taking revenge, she steals a priceless artifact that he was going to use on his comatose wife. Hardy is interested in Spider-Man romantically, but in Ultimate Spider-Man #85, when she sees that he is a 15-year-old boy, she vomits on his costume out of embarrassment.
• Nick Fury, the tough, powerful, and connected head of S.H.I.E.L.D., wants Peter to join the Ultimates when he is an adult. In Ultimate Spider-Man #27, he tells Peter that he becomes property of S.H.I.E.L.D. when he turns 18 whether he likes it or not, but later replies that he will work with the Ultimates when that happens. It is unknown whether Fury will hold on to his promise as the Ultimates have broken off from S.H.I.E.L.D. At the end of the "Hobgoblin" arc, he personally told one of his subordinates that he wanted everything figured out about OZ, and after witnessing him angrily responding to Harry becoming the Goblin, Fury says "I think it's about time Peter Parker loses those Spider powers". During the "Ultimate Clone Saga", it is revealed that Fury had the Tinkerer create the Spider Slayers that were created to 'handle' Peter if he lost it. After the "Ultimate Clone Saga", Nick Fury has become more supportive of Peter. However, in Ultimate Power, he was taken to another universe, removing him from Peter Parker's universe. He later returned during the events of Ultimatum, to finish off Magneto with the help of the X-Men.
• Dr. Curt Conners is a professor at Empire State University who sponsors Eddie Brock's Venom project. He tries to re-grow the arm he lost in the Vietnam War with lizard DNA, accidentally becoming the Lizard. Using a sample of Peter's blood, he inadvertently creates Carnage. Conners turns himself into the police afterward for his creation of Carnage, which resulted in the deaths of many people.
• Jeanne De Wolfe was a captain in the NYPD. She offers support and comfort to Spider-Man whenever the strain of being a crime fighter becomes too much for him. She was secretly working for the Kingpin, and was rumored to have been his lover as well. The Punisher killed her in Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #2.
• Richard Parker is Peter's late father. A brilliant biochemist, he was selected to be part of Nick Fury's team to redevelop Captain America's lost super soldier serum. He and Mary were injured in a related lab accident when Peter was an infant, which led to his adamant refusal to allow his and Edward Brock Sr.'s anti-cancer super suit to be weaponized by Trask Industries later in life. It was during the legal battle with Trask when Richard, Mary, Edward Brock, Sr. and Edward's wife died in a plane crash. Recently, Richard resurfaced; allegedly back from the dead, claiming he did not get on the plane because he did not want involvement in the Venom (anti-cancer) project anymore. Since that time, he has been working as an underground scientist for the CIA to combat Nick Fury if and when he one day got out of control. After Gwen Stacy returns to the Parker's old house, he reappears to try to clear everything up. In Ultimate Spider-Man #103, Sue Storm tests Richard's DNA to confirm that he is really an aged clone of Peter. He is last seen in Ultimate Spider-Man #104 aging more rapidly and dying. Before he died from old age, "Richard" requested Sue Storm and the rest of the Fantastic Four to look after Peter. The real Richard Parker is still deceased. Richard was also the source of Spider-Man's "web fluid." Before his death, Richard was working on a "molecular adhesive". Peter finished the formula after becoming Spider-Man and uses it to fight crime (see Powers and abilities).
• Mary Parker Mary Parker is May Parker's sister, and Peter's mother. She died in the plane crash with her husband while Peter was a child.
• Spider-Woman: In Ultimate Spider-Man #98, while investigating Mary Jane Watson's disappearance, Spider-Man encounters a mysterious masked woman who knocks him unconscious. The character is able to shoot organic webbing out of her fingertips, without the need of web-shooters. During a panel discussion at the New York Comic Con, writer Brian Michael Bendis mentioned that the Ultimate version of Spider-Woman would make an appearance during the "Ultimate Clone Saga", which ran in Ultimate Spider-Man #97 – 104. In Ultimate Spider-Man #102, she rescues Peter from being arrested, and reveals that she is Peter's female clone, called Jessica Drew, but still retained all of his memories. She leads Peter to an Oscorp building in an effort to find MJ, where they end up finding the truth about Peter's clones. Jessica also discovers, much to her disgust, that her creator is none other than Otto Octavius. Together, they manage to defeat him. However, whereas Peter is ready to turn himself in to Nick Fury, Jessica promptly leaves to escape incarceration. Peter eventually finds her again, who tells him she has finally decided to embrace her Jessica Drew identity. After Peter updates her on MJ, Nick Fury, and Aunt May, and she gives him "the most awkward hug in the history of the planet." In Ultimate Spider-Man #129, she made her public debut as a superhero. At the conclusion of the Ultimate Doom story arc, she enlists in SHIELD as an agent
• Miles Morales is a 13-year-old half-Black/half-Hispanic youth who was also bitten by a genetically-altered spider and gained similar powers to Peter Parker. He takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Peter dies. See Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man