- Written by: Jonathan Hickman
- Art by: Marco Checchetto, David Messina
- Colors by: Matthew Wilson
- Letters by: VC’s Cory Petit
- Cover art by: Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson (cover A)
- Cover price: $5.99
- Release date: February 18, 2026
Ultimate Spider-Man #24 (Marvel, 2/18/26): Writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Marco Checchetto & David Messina finally deliver a brutally focused finale where Peter Parker fights to save his family as Kingpin’s empire collapses in a high-stakes “last stand” mode. The execution is emotionally powerful and visually stunning yet infuriatingly reminds you this level of clarity and momentum arrived far too late, Verdict: Worth reading, but it exposes two squandered years.
First Impressions
This finale lands with a visceral punch, confidently staging Spider-Man’s showdown with Kingpin while Richard, Felicia, and Venom wrestle with a terrifying, adaptive vault defense that feels genuinely dangerous. The issue reads like the series Hickman should have been writing all along, briskly plotted, thematically sharp, and anchored in family-driven stakes that finally justify the “adult Peter” premise instead of circling it.
At the same time, every clever beat and heartfelt flashback carries a bitter aftertaste because this precise, emotionally literate storytelling arrives in the last possible chapter, practically screaming that the first twenty issues coasted on vibes instead of structure. You close the book satisfied with this specific story while still feeling mildly cheated as a monthly buyer who paid for almost two years of slow setup to get one phenomenal issue and one strong lead-in at the buzzer.
Recap
Ultimate Spider-Man #23 set the table with a coordinated plan to expose Kingpin while threading in the Maker’s shadowy Council. Otto revealed a device that could wipe the Parkers from the Maker’s surveillance grid, but it had to be physically installed deep inside Kingpin’s infrastructure, so Richard left with Felicia to infiltrate Fisk Tower while Peter scrambled in after them. Otto, Ben, and Jonah orchestrated a global media blitz built around three timed broadcast bursts that would hijack every screen on Earth to reveal Kingpin’s true nature, just as Mr. Negative confronted Fisk with knowledge of James Wesley’s secret identity as Mysterio and forced a tense alliance when Green Goblin and the unified Mysterio crashed the party. By the end, Peter was brutally battered, Richard and Felicia were fighting adaptive defenses near the vault node, Harry was cornered by Captain Britain of the Maker’s Council with impossible choices about loyalty, and the world had just heard a chilling monologue about who Kingpin really is, promising a bigger reckoning to come.
Plot Analysis (SPOILERS)
The issue opens in the thick of the confrontation as Mister Negative coolly suggests restoring Peter’s free will before Kingpin finishes him, only for Fisk to coldly reject any notion of honor or fair play while monologuing about wanting enemies dead rather than dignified. Spider-Man cheekily twists the command not to fight by webbing up Mister Negative and using him as a very literal human shield, letting Kingpin’s empowered punch take Negative out of the equation in one savage blow. With the mind control effectively broken and the pretense of civility gone, Peter and Kingpin square off in a brutally physical duel that feels like the final exam for everything Peter has fought for over the last two years.
Far below, Richard and Felicia remain trapped in the vault as the defense matrix’s white tendrils bind them, prompting Richard’s symbiote suit to expand aggressively and reveal that the material around them is highly adaptive and disturbingly complex nanotech. Felicia claws her way free long enough to reach the control systems and start working the node that will make the family invisible to the Maker’s grid, even as the defense matrix digs into Venom’s code and begins evolving into a monstrous white counterpart. A vicious brawl erupts between Venom and the rapidly multiplying white creatures while Felicia frantically hacks the vault door, and Venom bluntly admits he would prefer retreat to protect Richard even as the boy insists on pushing forward.
The narrative periodically flashes back to a lab briefing where Otto explains a small device designed to neutralize the biotech circles embedded in Kingpin’s body, essentially depowering him the way it could a Bullseye, and Peter quietly pockets the tool for a future confrontation. Back in the present, Kingpin smugly monologues about betting everything on fathers and sons dying while Peter wordlessly reveals the device, then lunges in and viciously stabs it into Fisk’s neck to level the playing field. The fight escalates with a blistering montage of Spider-Man pummeling Kingpin while narrating a pointed manifesto about power, fear, and the lie of singular rulers, all intercut with a broadcast exposing Fisk’s empire to the public.
In the vault, Venom fights a losing war against the nanotech tide as Felicia starts to be overwhelmed, forcing Richard into a desperate sprint through the killing field to slam Otto’s device into the node and finally render the Parkers invisible to the system. The cost is immediate: Black Cat is consumed by pixelated energy in front of him, Venom is swarmed, and Richard’s sacrifice lands as both heroic and terrifying while Peter stands over a broken Kingpin who still grins through the blood and taunts that Peter is too late to save his son. A brief, dark coda shows Kingpin later baiting a ruined ally into a mutual fall from a skyscraper, sealing their fates in a nihilistic echo of his philosophy, while the world reads headlines about the Kingpin’s death and Jonah and Ben dryly debate whether crusaders like them ever really get to retire.
The epilogue shifts to the human fallout as Harry learns from Gwen-as-Mysterio that the city now “belongs” to Mysterio under the Maker’s sanction, which protects the Parkers so long as they do not cross her, even as Harry realizes their marriage has effectively died with Gwen’s fragmented consciousness. Harry confesses to Peter that he feels like a total failure, haunted by a cruel lingering A.I. echo of his father, while Peter plans to wipe his own father’s A.I. from existence to finally let go of the past. A final flashback to young Peter and MJ deciding to keep a surprise pregnancy and marry on their own terms dovetails into the present-day couple quietly revisiting their old apartment, reaffirming that Peter’s real “missing piece” was never powers but the family he built, and the last page closes on the Parkers together on a rooftop, fully framed as a hard-earned, imperfect but hopeful family unit.
Writing
Hickman’s pacing here is impressively tight, juggling the Kingpin brawl, the vault siege, the global broadcast, and the domestic epilogue without the aimless wandering that bogged down earlier issues. Scenes transition cleanly on thematic echoes rather than arbitrary cuts; monologues about power and fear line up smartly with images of Richard’s sacrifice and Kingpin’s fall, giving the script a cohesion it frankly lacked for most of the run. The problem is that this precise structure arrives as a sudden spike instead of a curve, so the finale reads like the third act of a beautifully planned movie grafted onto the back of a meandering TV season.
Dialogue is sharply tuned and character-appropriate, with Peter’s quips landing naturally alongside his more reflective narration, and Kingpin’s speeches managing to feel chilling rather than indulgent. Richard and Felicia’s exchanges stay light enough to humanize their desperation without undercutting the danger, while the flashback conversation between young Peter and MJ about marriage and parenthood is quietly heartfelt and efficient. Thematically, the issue finally articulates a clear thesis about resistance, responsibility, and recognizing that family can be your anchor in a violent world, yet that clarity underlines how often previous chapters buried those themes under abstract philosophizing and table-setting.
Art
Checchetto and Messina’s art is consistently clear and dynamically composed, using bold panel layouts to guide your eye smoothly through both the rooftop brawl and the claustrophobic vault sequence without confusion. Kingpin’s hulking presence is rendered with weighty, almost oppressive staging, while Spider-Man’s movement feels fluid and kinetic, especially in the multi-image pummeling sequence that visually sells Peter’s relentless resolve. Facial expressions are carefully nuanced, from Harry’s exhausted despair to MJ’s quiet joy in the flashback, giving the quieter scenes as much visual punch as the big hits.
Wilson’s colors do a lot of heavy lifting in modulating mood, with cold blues and harsh whites emphasizing the clinical horror of the nanotech vault and warmer sunset tones bathing the final rooftop embrace in earned, not cheap, sentimentality. The contrast between the electric blues of Kingpin’s biotech and the red, bruised tones on Peter’s costume makes the fight read as both superhuman and brutally grounded. Crucially, the art team sells every big beat with confident clarity, which again drives home how much of this series’ perceived inconsistency came from scripting choices rather than visuals, because the visual storytelling has been ready to support a finale like this from day one.
Character Development
Peter finally feels fully realized here as a man who chooses family over mythology, using his powers strategically while grounding every decision in protecting his kids and honoring the promise he made to MJ years ago. His narration about power, responsibility, and resistance feels earned because it now sits next to a concrete history we see in flashback, rather than just referencing an unseen past. Richard comes into his own as a reckless but deeply caring teenager whose willingness to run into the vault at the worst possible moment reads as impulsive, believable, and painfully on-brand for a Parker.
Harry’s arc hits a quietly devastating note: he is “safe” under Mysterio’s rule, yet emotionally gutted, still defined by a dead father’s abuse and a wife who now exists as a consensus consciousness that cannot love him the way he remembers. His conversation with Peter about how Peter keeps going while the world grinds them down is a smart, grounded way to contrast two broken adults making different choices in the wreckage. The sting comes from realizing how rich these dynamics are and how little page time they enjoyed across the broader series, which makes this late-game development feel more like a tantalizing proof-of-concept than the payoff to a fully cultivated ensemble.
Originality & Concept Execution
Conceptually, the book delivers on its promise of “adult Peter with a family in a controlled world” more cleanly here than in almost any previous chapter, fusing superhero spectacle with pointed commentary about surveillance, manufactured power structures, and inherited responsibility. The use of a global broadcast to dismantle Kingpin’s myth while Peter physically dismantles his body is a clever, thematically resonant device that smartly literalizes the idea that power is as much narrative as muscle. Richard’s invisible-to-the-system gambit, paid for with a terrifying plunge into the defense matrix, gives the Maker’s world an impersonal, algorithmic menace that feels chillingly modern.
Where the issue stumbles is not in originality but in timing; this feels like the natural climax of a ruthlessly plotted twelve-issue maxi, not the emergency landing of a twenty-four-issue run that spent too long circling the runway. The finale proves the concept absolutely works when executed with discipline, which ironically spotlights how much of the earlier run treated the premise as a luxury hotel lobby instead of a pressure cooker. As a single issue, the concept execution is strong and satisfyingly bold; as the capstone of a line, it partially redeems the experiment while confirming that Marvel gave Hickman too much rope and he used most of it to slowly tie the series to a ticking clock he could only cut free at the very end.
Pros and Cons
What We Loved
- Fiercely choreographed Spider-Man vs. Kingpin fight that visually and thematically dismantles Fisk’s illusion of power.
- Emotionally resonant Peter and MJ flashback that firmly re-centers the series on marriage and parenthood.
- Tense, intelligently staged vault sequence where Richard, Felicia, and Venom battle adaptive nanotech defenses.
Room for Improvement
- Big emotional and thematic payoffs arrive abruptly after years of comparatively meandering setup.
- Harry’s heartbreakingly fragile status quo deserved more gradual build rather than a compressed late-game dump.
- Maker and Council presence remains abstract, blunting the larger conspiracy that supposedly shaped this world.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.Follow @ComicalOpinions on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
The Scorecard:
Writing Quality (Clarity & Pacing): 3.5/4
Art Quality (Execution & Synergy): 4/4
Value (Originality & Entertainment): 1/2
Final Verdict
Ultimate Spider-Man #24 is absolutely worth your time and money as a single, beautifully executed finale, but it also quietly indicts the run that led here by showing how sharp, emotional, and propulsive this book could have been all along. If you have been buying monthly, this issue finally delivers the cathartic, data-backed return on investment you were promised, even as it confirms that you subsidized a long, indulgent warmup to get there. In a limited budget, this finale earns a firm yes, but it also stands as Exhibit A that Marvel and Hickman waited far too long to make Ultimate Spider-Man feel this essential.
8.5/10
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