Ultimate Marvel is an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and updated versions of the company's superhero characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men. The characters have new origins, freeing them from the sometimes convoluted back-histories of the original versions which were thought to turn off new readers unfamiliar with their extensive histories. The universe has been designated as "Earth-1610"[1] within the Marvel Multiverse, which comprises an infinite number of alternate universes.
The entire Ultimate Marvel imprint has been relaunched after the conclusion of the Ultimatum event, under the "Ultimate Comics" brand.[2] However, it seems this slight renaming has been silently dropped after a few months, as new issues in the line are once again just being referred to as "Ultimate...".
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Overview
History
The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of Ultimate Spider-Man, followed by Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates in 2001 and finally Ultimate Fantastic Four. Prior to the launch, the imprint was under the working title of Ground Zero. While some of the series (including Ultimate Spider-Man) were seemingly aimed at younger readers than most Marvel titles, others (such as Ultimates) seem written for an older audience. Nevertheless, the Ultimate imprint as a whole was intended to attract and serve new readers beyond the existing Marvel fan base, although long-time fans have generally embraced the line.
The stories and characters of Ultimate Marvel have been adapted to reflect the differences between the present and past continuities, most of which were created in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, Ultimate Spider-Man gains his superpowers from a genetically-engineered spider rather than a radioactive spider, and his alter ego, Peter Parker, originally a photographer for the Daily Bugle newspaper, now has a part-time job as the paper's webmaster. Another noteworthy aspect of the Ultimate Marvel universe is that many of the characters are more youthful than their regular-continuity counterparts. In some cases, this is simply a result of taking the characters back to their origins—Spider-Man, the Human Torch, and the X-Men were teenagers at the beginning of their respective series—but other cases involve more striking changes. In particular, the backstory of the Ultimate Fantastic Four has been compressed so that they gain their powers when Reed Richards is only twenty-one years old.
The characters in this line exist outside of the regular Earth-616 Marvel Universe and therefore do not interact with their original version counterparts. Marvel once hinted that a crossover was planned between the two worlds. This crossover was to have occurred in Ultimate Fantastic Four #21 (July 2005), although it turned out that this was misdirection on Marvel's part, as the continuity that they crossed over into in the issue was not that of Earth 616, but a similar one taken over by zombies. Since then, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada has reiterated his earlier claim that the two universes will not cross over as that would signify that Marvel had "officially run out of ideas".
In the Ultimate imprint's first few years of existence, some readers speculated that its great popularity might prompt Marvel to declare the Ultimate universe the "official" Marvel universe, replacing the traditional continuity. However, the strength of this rumour has diminished over time, as Marvel has shown no sign of cancelling either continuity. However, in December 2005 through early 2007, Marvel published a print ad campaign in titles across their company that showed all Ultimate titles and had the slogan, Ultimate Marvel: The Gold Standard.
Writers noted for their work in the line include Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, Orson Scott Card, and Mark Millar. Joe Quesada and former president Bill Jemas were also deeply involved in the creation of the line. The original idea came from an idea written by Warren Ellis in an article in 1997, describing the 4th movement of comics and the use of the past to reinvent new tales. Where he envisions writers taken a more modern approach on the Fantastic Four while using the past as an idea spring board. Grant Morrison was also involved in the conception of the imprint, but did not write any titles for it; he was most involved in the creation of Ultimate Fantastic Four and was at one point set to write the series, but his departure from Marvel and exclusive contract with DC Comics made this impossible.
See also
References
- ^ Ultimate Universe, Marvel.com, "The Basics: Universe: Earth-1610 (Ultimate Universe)"
- ^ Khouri, Andy (2009-02-07). "NYCC LIVE: Cup O' Joe". Comic Book Resources.com. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19918. Retrieved 2009-05-24. "Quesada then clarified that the entire Ultimate line will be cancelled, sent off with a number of "Requiem" specials, and re-launched as Ultimate Comics"
External links
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