Trivia / Ultimate Spider-Man (2000)

• Fandom Nod: In Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, after much fan complaint over the way Lafuente drew Peter's hair, Bendis decided to write up a scene with Mary Jane, Kitty, and Gwen forcing Peter to get a haircut, using several arguments fans used to bash his hairstyle.
• Technology Marches On: This comic was made in the 2000s. Peter still used a camera with film, not to mention the pre-2007 cellphones, bulky CRT computer monitors, and the use of compact discs as a major storage medium.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Spider-Man: The New Animated Series was originally going to be an adaptation of this comic series. Instead, it was changed into being a sort of follow-up to the first live-action film. Some of the episodes were written by Bendis however and one moment recreates a scene from the comics (Peter slipping into class, changing clothes on the roof and returning in time to answer the question from the teacher in mid-sentence).
  • Spider-Men, the first crossover between Ultimate Marvel and the 616 Universe, actually wasn't conceptualized as a crossover at first. The real purpose was actually meant to introduce the official Earth-616 Miles Morales, who was meant to become a supporting character in Spider-Man's main title but would go on to become an antagonist in the Spider-Men II crossover. Bendis also said that early on, someone pitched an idea for a crossover between 616-Peter and Ultimate Peter, but he decided against it especially since one of the subplots was Ultimate MJ developing a crush on the older Peter which he felt went into a creepy direction^note An allusion to this is when 616 Peter gets a glimpse of Ultimate MJ, but she out of her grief during the "Death of Spider-Man" arc runs away, and of course the actual cross-over happened Post-OMD when initially it would have had a married Spider-Man crossing over and wasn't actually interesting in terms of character mashup.
  • Peter Parker was also meant to be one of the many deaths in Ultimatum. Bendis decided at the last second that he didn't want the character to die yet because he wanted to tell more stories with him. It was during the writing of the relaunched book, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, that Bendis would conceptualize Peter's Legacy Hero, Miles Morales.
• Word of Saint Paul: After being asked if the comics would show what happened to [the resurrected] Peter Parker and his happy ending with Mary Jane, an editor stated that Ultimate Peter has been dead and gone for a long time, clearly ignoring the most recent plots at the time. This is later proven false, as Peter is shown to not only be alive and well but to have come out of retirement in the final issue of Spider-Men II.
• Write Who You Know: Kong's face is visibly similar to that of Bendis. The character, however, is not an Author Avatar, as he's just a minor background character and never breaks the fourth wall.
• Writer Revolt: At the very least, the series provides the page image for the trope since the second part of the "Freaky Friday" Flip two parter begins with Bendis furiously strangling his assistant editor for suggesting the arc in the first place.

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