I can’t believe I totally missed the debut of Ultimate Prowler in this weeks new Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch! The thief who broke into the crumbling Osborn Industries, who brought test spider #42 out into the world and may be Miles Morales’ Uncle Aaron, is the Ultimate Prowler! I thought the thief was just wearing some stupid Deadpool-esque mask, that he was nobody important.

But take a gander, Hench-fans, it’s the Ultimate Prowler!

Love the costume!

Who is the Prowler, you may ask. Why am I getting so worked up about this? Well, I’ll tell you! He may not have been on my list of My 6 Favorite Comic Book Characters, but I absolutely love the Prowler! He’s a superhero who is one of Spider-Man’s amazing friends. He’s an ally to Peter Parker, but he only exists in the Spider-Man family of comics. Spidey is friends with the Fantastic Four, with Captain America, Daredevil, etc…but they all have their own comics. The Prowler is only known for being Spidey’s pal. He’s a small time hero who was never popular enough to get more than a mini-series. So he’s only ever been Spidey’s ally.

Surprisingly, that’s pretty rare. Spider-Man has far more villains than allies.

Prowler's classic, non-Ultimate costume

The Prowler is Hobie Brown, a mechanical genius who wanted to use his gadgets for personal gain. But in his first outing as a bad guy, he got defeated by Spider-Man, who instead of turning him in, gave Hobie some advice. Hobie took it to heart and became a hero instead. Once he even impersonated Spider-Man so that Peter Parker’s friends could see Peter and Spidey together. Hobie’s a great guy.

So my interest in the new Ultimate Spider-Man has just jumped considerably.

Yep, definitely Deadpool-esque