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Ultimate Marvel Universe
 
For the 2023-present imprint, see Ultimate Universe.
"Marvel Ultimate" redirects here. For the video game, see Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.
"Ultimate Marvel" thematic stories
Cover to The Official Handbook of the Ultimate Marvel Universe: Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates.
Publication information
ScheduleVaried
Title(s)List of publications
FormatsVaried
Original languageEnglish
Genre
Publication date2000–2015
Creative team
Writer(s)
Penciller(s)
Editor(s)Joe Quesada

Ultimate Marvel, later known as Ultimate Comics, was an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and modernized versions of the company's superhero characters from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, later known as the Ultimate Universe. Those characters include Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Ultimates (the Ultimate Marvel Universe counterpart of the Avengers), the Fantastic Four, and others. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men in 2001, followed by The Ultimates and Ultimate Fantastic Four in 2002 and 2004 respectively providing new origin stories for the characters. The reality of Ultimate Marvel is designated as Earth-1610 as part of the Marvel Comics Multiverse.

The Ultimate Universe, as a part of a large-scale reboot of the All-New, All-Different Marvel Multiverse, ended at the conclusion of the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline, when select characters from the Ultimate Universe moved to the mainstream universe.[1] However, writer Brian Michael Bendis established at the end of the 2017 miniseries Spider-Men II that the universe and its superheroes still exist.[2]

Between June and September 2023, Marvel published the Ultimate Invasion miniseries written by Jonathan Hickman with art by The Ultimates co-creator Bryan Hitch. The events of the miniseries culminated in the establishment of a rebooted Ultimate Universe designated as Earth-6160, which serves as the setting for a relaunched series of books under the Ultimate Marvel banner, which began with the eponymous Ultimate Universe #1 in November 2023. The new Ultimate imprint also encompasses new versions of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, and The Ultimates, as well as a standalone Ultimate Black Panther story.

Publication history

Earth-1610 version

Background

In the late 1990s, the US comic book industry had declining sales. Annual combined sales from all publishers, which had been close to a billion dollars in 1993, had declined to 270 million. The bubble that held comic books as valuable collectible items burst. In addition, the poor reception of the Batman & Robin film cast doubts on the prospects of any other comic book cinematic adaption. Marvel Comics went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, many notable artists left the company, and their rival, DC Comics, topped them in sales. Brian Michael Bendis, who was hired to start the imprint, said that "when I got hired, I literally thought I was going to be writing one of the last — if not the last — Marvel comics".[3]

Comic book continuity, which had been a key to the success of Marvel Comics in its early years, turned into a problem for some readers. All stories had to fit into a sixty-year continuity, a bar that not all fans could reach and which scared away some new readers. The usual style of superhero comics with pages of garish colors, fantastical villains and convoluted plots was of little interest to young adult audiences, who preferred the style set by the Matrix franchise. Most superheroes were adults, even those that started as teenagers, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men.[3] Previous attempts to cut the long continuity did not work as expected: DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time caused several plot contradictions, and Marvel's Heroes Reborn was panned by critics and fans.[3] The Dark Age of Comic Books tried to counter the campiness of the Silver Age with violence and shocking content, but the trend was declining as well.[4]

Creation

The idea for the Ultimate imprint was developed by Bill Jemas. A lawyer who had worked mainly at the collectible-trading-card industry before that point, he had little interaction with the production of comic books. In his perspective, the main problem of Marvel Comics was that it was "publishing stories that were all but impossible for teens to read — and unaffordable, to boot".[3] He worked on an idea given by a CEO of the Wizard magazine: reboot the heroes to their original character premise. Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada preferred to start an imprint with new heroes, but accepted Jemas' proposal. The working title for the imprint at that point was "Ground Zero".[3] Unlike previous reboots, there was no in-story explanation for the existence of the imprint, and the standard comic books were still being published, unaffected by the new project. Thus, Ultimate Spider-Man would contain the stories of a new teenager Spider-Man starting his career, and the usual Spider-Man titles would still contain the stories of the adult Spider-Man with nearly forty years worth of continuity.[3]

Quesada then hired Brian Michael Bendis, an artist from indie publishers, for the first comic book of the imprint, Ultimate Spider-Man. One of the previous auditioners had made a word-by-word rewrite of the Amazing Fantasy #15 comic (the debut of Spider-Man), in a modern setting. Bendis preferred to avoid that writing style completely. Instead, he changed the narration style, so that it resembled a TV series more than a classic superhero comic book. There were no thought bubbles or long expositions, and the first issue did not feature any superhero costume. Jemas tried to bring more notice into the comic book by distributing it at chain stores like Payless Shoes and Walmart. The sales rose, and the comic book was acclaimed by critics.[3] The art was created by Mark Bagley, known for his work on Spider-Man and Venom stories in the 1990s. The Bendis/Bagley partnership of 111 consecutive issues made their partnership one of the longest in American comic book history, and the longest run by a Marvel creative team, beating out Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four.[5]

Ultimate X-Men was also launched in 2001. It was initially delayed by the search for a creative team, and even Bendis' proposed scripts were rejected. The new title was finally given to Mark Millar, who had a controversial run in DC's The Authority. The two authors had conflicting styles: Bendis sought to modernize the old superhero tropes, and Millar sought to critique them. While Bendis tried to write atemporal stories, Millar preferred to set his stories amid the political tensions of the time, with edgy, quick action-driven stories and making the relationship between humans and mutants more realistic and distrustful. The first issue of Ultimate X-Men sold 117,085 copies in a month.[3] Lacking previous knowledge about the characters, Millar based his general draft of the series on the 2000 X-Men film.[6]

Jemas and Quesada paired Millar with artist Bryan Hitch, who had also worked with The Authority, but in a run that did not overlap with Millar's. They would reimagine the Avengers, who were renamed as "the Ultimates". Unlike the simple updates of the Spider-Man and X-Men titles, the Ultimates were a complete reimagination of the Avengers, with very little in common with the mainstream title. Captain America got a rash soldierly personality, Hulk was written as a murderous and cannibalistic monster that kills hundreds of civilians, and Thor was ambiguously introduced as either an actual Norse god (as in the main comics) or a man with stolen weapons and a psychiatric disorder.[7] Nick Fury, originally a caucasian character in the Marvel-616 Universe, was modeled after the actor Samuel L. Jackson, and the new design eventually overshadowed the original one, being incorporated into the mainstream Marvel-616 universe and all new media adaptions of the characters.[7] The main premise was to write a comic that looked the way a superhero film about the Avengers should look. At that point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had not been created, and the prospect of a film about the Avengers was remote. The series was a huge success, and became the single best-selling comic of the year.[3]

The Ultimate Marvel imprint was benefited by the contemporary topics that took place. Terrorism resurfaced into the public perception as a clear, dangerous and complex menace, which reduced the credibility of the usual supervillains of superhero fiction. Fictional conflicts involving explosions and property damage became more ominous. The Ultimate Marvel comics incorporated those topics into their plots, which would eventually become commonplace in the whole comic book industry.[7]

Ultimatum

Jemas was fired from Marvel in 2004, and Millar and Hitch left the Ultimates after writing a second miniseries. Sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card wrote a miniseries, Ultimate Iron Man, which was poorly received and later retconned as an in-universe television show. In 2008, Quesada considered that the Ultimate imprint needed a big crossover event to keep the interest of the audiences, and hired Jeph Loeb for a third Ultimates miniseries that would lead to such event. This miniseries relied on shock value and gratuitous amounts of death and violence, instead of the political overtones of the first two. The art by Joe Madureira was standard superhero art, instead of the cinematic action provided by Hitch. The miniseries had decent sales, but was near-universally panned by critics.[3]

The series was followed by 2009's Ultimatum, a crossover between the Ultimate titles. In five issues, the story kills off thirty-four characters with an increased amount of graphic violence. The series was both a critical and commercial failure, and it has since been regarded as one of the worst comic books of all-time. The sales of the whole imprint were decreased, and never returned to their pre-Ultimatum figures.[3] After the crossover, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four were cancelled, with a last issue for each title named Ultimate Requiem to give closure to their plots.

Ultimate Comics relaunches

The Ultimate Marvel imprint was re-launched, as "Ultimate Comics".[8] Ultimate Spider-Man was renamed as Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, and the line was joined later by Ultimate Comics: Avengers and Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates. New Ultimates featured the reconstruction of the team, and was made by Loeb and Frank Cho. Avengers features a black-operations superhero team, and was made by Millar and several artists.

There was a new relaunch shortly afterwards, named "Ultimate Comics Universe Reborn".[9] Both teams met in Avengers vs. New Ultimates, where Nick Fury is reinstalled as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the teams merge again into a single team, the Ultimates. This team would then be featured in Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates, written by Jonathan Hickman. The Death of Spider-Man features the death of Peter Parker and his nemesis Green Goblin. An Afro-Hispanic teenager, Miles Morales, becomes the new Spider-Man. He was featured in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, still written by Bendis.[10] The X-Men were relaunched in the miniseries Ultimate Comics: X, which introduced Jimmy Hudson, the son of Wolverine. This miniseries was followed by Ultimate Comics: X-Men, written by Nick Spencer, who explored the X-Men mythos in a setting where both Charles Xavier and Magneto are dead.[11]

Initially, Marvel resisted the idea of crossovers[12] between the Ultimate and the mainstream universes (although the idea had been teased for what turned out to be the beginning of the Marvel Zombies series),[13] but eventually relented. The first crossover was the Spider-Men miniseries, between Miles Morales and the adult Peter Parker. It was made for the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man.[14][15] All-New X-Men, also written by Bendis, had a story where the main characters got stranded in the Ultimate universe and teamed-up with Morales.[16] However, Bendis and Fialkov agreed that crossovers should be done sparingly, to keep them interesting, and cited the creative decay in the Marvel/DC intercompany crossovers as a justification.[17]

The Age of Ultron crossover, between the mainstream comics, ended with Galactus displaced into the Ultimate universe. This premise started the "Cataclysm" crossover in the Ultimate imprint, which was followed by yet another new relaunch.[18] The Ultimates disbanded after the crossover, and were replaced by a completely different team, led by Miles Morales. This team starred in All-New Ultimates, by Michel Fiffe and Amilcar Pinna. Spider-Man was relaunched in Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, which included the revivals of Peter Parker and Green Goblin. Ultimate FF ("FF" standing for "Future Foundation", not "Fantastic Four") featured the "incursions", a multiversal threat that was being used in Hickman's run on the main universe's Avengers, and which would lead to the Secret Wars crossover. Ultimate FF was cancelled, alongside the Fantastic Four comic book, as a result of the disputes between Marvel and 20th Century Fox over the film rights over the characters.[19]

Conclusion

The 2015 Secret Wars storyline concluded the Ultimate Marvel imprint. In the plot, it was destroyed alongside all the other alternate realities in the multiverse, and then recreated as a region of the Battleworld. Ultimate End, set in such region, is the last story of the Ultimate imprint. It was produced by Bendis and Bagley, the team that started the imprint.[20] Miles Morales, a character that originated in the Ultimate Universe to take over the mantle of Spider-Man when the Ultimate Universe's Peter Parker died, was migrated to the Marvel-616 universe, along with his supporting cast, a development that saw his mother restored to life, following her death in a 2013 storyline.[21] The story, however, is largely a team-up of characters from the Ultimate and mainstream Marvel universes, with only a superficial relation with the plot of the crossover. Matt Little from CBR suspected that the story may have been conceived at some earlier point, and then slightly modified to serve as a tie-in for Secret Wars.[22][23]

Reuse of characters on Earth-616

Aaron Davis, Morales' uncle, makes his first Marvel-616 appearance in Spider-Man #234.[24] The Maker, an evil Reed Richards, is also restored to life and moved to Marvel-616, where he is a recurring villain in the Infamous Iron Man & New Avengers comic books. The hammer of Ultimate Thor (lost in the Cataclysm crossover) is found by Thor Odinson, who is not capable at the time to wield his classic hammer, owned by Jane Foster. He refuses to take the new hammer, which is then lifted by Volstagg in the Unworthy Thor miniseries.[23] Jimmy Hudson, the son of Ultimate Wolverine, is also revealed to be alive in the new continuity, though this was not explained at first,[23][25] but was eventually established that during the final incursion that caused the clash between Earth-616 and Earth-1610, with both universes' planets Earth acting as the collision point of this phenomenon, Jimmy Hudson, Quicksilver, Mach-II, Armor, and Guardian fell from their reality into the other. When the Multiverse was eventually rebuilt, these mutants became stranded in the Prime Earth, suffering from amnesia as a by-product of their transition from one reality to another.[26]

After Secret Wars, Marvel published a new comic book named Ultimates, though it bore no relation with the imprint beyond the name.[23] The Ultimates 2 #10, renumbered as #100 under the Marvel Legacy relaunch, features the Ultimates from the Ultimate universe.[27] Bendis left Marvel Comics in 2017 and moved to DC Comics. One of his last comic books was a second volume of Spider-Men II, featuring Peter Parker and Miles Morales. The miniseries ends with the Marvel-616 Miles Morales emigrating to the Ultimate Universe to be reuniting with his lost love, following the death of her Marvel-616 counterpart, confirming that the universe still exists. A brief glimpse of the still-extant Ultimate universe is provided by artist Mark Bagley, showing that Ultimate Peter Parker, who had been revealed alive in one of the last issues, has returned to the role of Spider-Man, and that he is a member of the Ultimates, as is Riri Williams and Hulk.[28] The return of the Ultimate universe was used again in 2019, in story arcs at the Venom and Miles Morales: Spider-Man comic books.[29][30]

Earth-6160 version

Main article: Ultimate Universe

In February 2023, Marvel Comics announced Ultimate Invasion written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Bryan Hitch. This story involves the Maker's attempts to bring back the Ultimate Universe, with the Illuminati reforming to try and stop him. Despite claiming that Earth-1610 would be revisited, the storyline went a different path and showed a new Earth called Earth-6160 and reshaped it into his own image before being thwarted by Howard Stark who operates as Iron Man. Afterwards, Earth-6160's Tony Stark (who takes up the name Iron Lad) and a Doctor Doom mask-wearing Reed Richards work to undo what Maker has done.[31][32]

Marvel Comics later revealed in June that following the end of Ultimate Invasion, a one-shot called Ultimate Universe #1, written by Hickman and drawn by Stefano Caselli, will release in November and set the stage for a new line of Ultimate Universe comics. The plans have been laid out by Jonathan Hickman, Bryan Hitch, and C.B. Cebulski.[33] In September 2023, Marvel revealed that one of these new titles would be a relaunch of Ultimate Spider-Man written by Hickman and illustrated by Marco Checchetto and will begin publication in January 2024.[34] This iteration of the story will focus on Peter Parker, having been bitten by a radioactive spider in adulthood as opposed to a teenager, balancing his heroics with his dedication as a family man towards raising his two children with his wife Mary Jane Watson.[35]

The following month during New York Comic Con, Cebulski and Hickman announced Ultimate Black Panther written by Bryan Hill with art by Caselli and a relaunch of Ultimate X-Men written and illustrated by Peach Momoko to begin publication following Ultimate Spider-Man in February and March 2024, respectively.[36]

Publications

Main article: List of Ultimate Marvel publications

Titles in this section are organized by approximate publication date and line title.

Earth-1610 version

Ultimate Marvel (2000–2009)

Ultimate Comics (2009–2011)

Ultimate Comics: Reborn (2011–2014)

Ultimate Marvel NOW! (2014–2015)

Ultimate Marvel characters

Timeline