Ultimate Spider-Man is a superhero comic book series that was published by Marvel Comics from 2000 to 2011. The series is a modernized re-imagining of Marvel's long-running Spider-Man comic book franchise as part of the company's Ultimate Marvel imprint. Ultimate Spider-Man exists alongside other revamped Marvel characters in Ultimate Marvel titles including Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Iron Man, The Ultimates, Ultimate Six and Ultimate Origins.
Orphaned at the age of six, Peter Parker is an outcast and withdrawn teenage science prodigy, who lives in Queens, New York. While attending a field trip to a scientific corporation, he is bitten by a genetically-modified spider and as a result, begins to develop spider-like superpowers, including enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina, durability and reflexes, along with the ability to crawl solid surfaces and a sixth sense, which warns him of imminent danger, all of which he decides to utilize for personal gain. When an armed thief, whom Peter had encountered earlier and refused to stop out of spite, later murders his foster father/uncle in a robbery, a guilt-ridden Peter is later driven to use his abilities to atone for his partial responsibility in his uncle's murder, as the costumed vigilante Spider-Man. Now equipped with a responsibility to do good and help others under his Spider-Man alter-ego, Peter struggles to balance high school life and studies, his job as a web designer for the Daily Bugle, his relationship with his girlfriend Mary-Jane Watson, his family life with his widowed aunt, and his double life as Spider-Man, as he faces off against both superhuman and criminal threats to his home of New York City and contends with the hostility of the general public and the police authorities.
Ultimate Spider-Man first saw print in 2000 under veteran Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley and writer Brian Michael Bendis, who expanded the original 11-page origin story into a 180-page, seven-issue story arc. This duo continued to collaborate until issue #111 when Mark Bagley left the book and was replaced by Stuart Immonen.
The series was an unexpected commercial success, selling roughly 20 million copies worldwide and received critical acclaim from readers and critics, with Bendis' writing, characterization, character development and narrative progression being widely praised, along with Bagley's and Immonen's artwork and the fresh, unique and modernized, yet faithful and familiar re-imagining of the classic Spider-Man mythos. Bendis and Bagley's run on Ultimate Spider-Man set the record for the longest continual run on a Marvel Comics series by two people, an honour previously held by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four. After issue #133, the series was relaunched, still written by Brian Michael Bendis with art provided by David Lafuente. This relaunch was short-lived. It resumed the Ultimate Spider-Man title with issue #3 and continued with the original numbering with the 16th issue (#150) even though the series was again cancelled with #160. It is relaunched as Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man and features Miles Morales and a new artist named Sara Pichelli. The direct edition of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is a highly sought-after comic book and is considered to be one of the most valuable comic books of the Modern Age.
