Ultimate Deception: Mysterio Makes His Move as Hickman’s Chessboard Expands in Ultimate Spider-Man #16

Layers of illusion and strategy collide as Hickman deepens the mystery behind one of Spider-Man’s most enigmatic foes. SPOILERS BELOW

Okay, first things first I totally put off writing this review. #1 because I’m busy closing on a house and #2 is because there is A LOT going on in this issue and I wanted to spend some time thinking on it before putting pen to paper (digitally of course). I haven’t spoken about it on the site before but Ultimate Spider-Man is one of my favorite books coming out at Marvel right now. If I were to have a top 3 (in no order) it would be Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimates, and Fantastic Four. I love each of them for different reasons, but Ultimate Spider-man is the perfect Spider-Man book for the modern day.

For those just joining in, this story follows a world where Peter was never bitten by the radioactive Spider as a teenager, and instead is given the choice to be bit by the radioactive spider as a 40 something adult. Peter here is married with kids when he decides to jump into a superhero world. You just gotta read. It’s fantastic and AMAZING and fun, and I highly recommend it. Stop reading this website and download Marvel Unlimited and catch up! Anyway here we pickup where we left off from Ultimate Spider-Man #14. Gwen is standing at Harry’s grave after his supposed death by Kraven, and we take a break from the main story to get the backstory on Gwen.

A lot of people were able to predict it but yes Gwen is Mysterio, but it’s more complicated than that. What I really liked here is that while Hickman is answering questions about who Gwen is and what happened to Harry, he’s also adding to the mystery of it and setting more things up.

Gwen is technically Mysterio but it’s revealed that Mysterio is now a group of 5 different people, who each take turns being Mysterio on some kind of cycle involving a magic amulet.

Art Marco Checchetto, Colors Matthew Wilson

It feels very deliberate in the fact that we only see the identity of one other member of the Mysterio group besides Gwen, and that is the familiar face of Quentin Beck. The man we know as Mysterio from the main universe. And with the cycle who has the amulet it gives Hickman the opportunity to have the reader wonder who is Mysterio in which circumstance, which is really clever and fun.

One of the highlights of this issue is also getting more background on Gwen and Harry’s relationship. They are both snarky and clever and have what feels like a genuine love for each other. It would have been easy to have Gwen be this secretly villainous persona but instead she’s actually more aligned with Harry now than we thought before. They are both on this same crusade to make things right with the world and its corrupt system. In fact Gwen has been in this war and fighting for this cause even longer than Harry has.

The way this shown is super interesting in the way that we end up following Gwen and what she has been up to for the past 15 issues. While Harry and Peter have been fighting Fisk and The Sinister Six on one side, Gwen has been waging her own secret war. She had reasoning in working with Ben and Jonah over at their new newspaper, and it wasn’t as nefarious as we the readers would have suspected.

Art Marco Checchetto, Colors Matthew Wilson

We also get to see Gwen find out about the insurance protocols Harry mentioned in Issue #13 which resulted in her firing Otto and yeah that’s totally going to explode in her face. My first thought is that Otto is going to join Fisk’s Sinister Six and sell out Harry, but I wonder if Hickman is clever enough to subvert those expectations.

Towards the end of the issue we finally get the reveal that Gwen did indeed save Harry, and revealed her alter ego to him in the process. I’m really glad Harry isn’t dead for good, because I have really been enjoying his dynamic with Peter and hope we get to see the two of them reunite soon.

Art Marco Checchetto, Colors Matthew Wilson

Honestly this is one of my favorite issues of the run so far. Where Hickman and Checchetto spend time character building Gwen and recontextualizing the readers relationship with her, as well as the relationship between her and the other characters as well. Wait did I just say that one of my favorite issues of Ultimate Spider-man is the on one of the ones with no Spider-Man at all? Yes, it’s that good. Hickman is cooking something special here and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for what comes next. Which peeks at solicits looks to be an all war on the Sinister Six with Spider-man in the crosshairs.