Earlier today, Marvel Comics hosted the first of four press conferences scheduled for this week to help spread the word about what they are dubbing, The Ultimate Comics Universe Reborn.
Coming off the heels of the Death of Spider-Man event and the Fallout mini-series (which comes immediately after the Death of Spider-Man, artwork by Mark Bagley to the right), the Ultimate Comics universe will be relaunching with new titles and new creative teams. The first title and creative team announced today was Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Esad Ribic. Both Hickman and Ribic were present on the conference call along with editors Mark Paniccia and Sana Amanat.
When asked to provide the set up for the book, Hickman explained that in the Ultimate Universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. is a massive organization with global reach, despite it's affiliation with America. When we join the book, The Ultimates are at their breaking point and the cast which will include long time Ultimates Nick Fury, Iron Man and Thor as well as new members like Spider-Woman and the Hulk, will be dealing with that. Hickman stressed that Captain America is not on this team of Ultimates, which may play into the first arc which is titled The Republic is Burning. Picking up on the political overtones of that title, Hickman was asked how political the book will be versus being a super hero book? "Well, it's a super hero book, so we will do that. I think one of the things that make Ultimates a success early on was that it was a reflection of the times. The name of the first arc as The Republic is Burning is direct commentary on the rise and fall of the USA. Don't take from that title that I feel one way or another about it. It's going to have that pervasive, seems like things are barely holding together feeling that permeates our society...we can use that to tell engaging and fantastic stories. Situations like that require super heroes."
Positioning of The Ultimates in this new launch of books is key for Hickman. "The Ultimates is setting up a lot of stuff that will be used in the other Ultimate books moving forward," Hickman explained, "one of the most interesting things we're doing is building a cohesive universe." With the books so tied into each other, the creative teams that are working on these books (and will be announced through the week) are all excited to work on what is a massive rebranding but rebuilding of the Ultimate Universe.
When asked about what attracted Hickman to the Ultimate Universe, he spoke very complimentary of the first 2 volumes of The Ultimates, " I think The Ultimates Volume 1 is about as perfect as big event mainstream comics can be done. Our goal is to match or eclipse that."
Part of the way they'll approach matching or surpassing previous work on The Ultimates will be with the artistic talents of Esad Ribic. Ribic explained his approach to the book with one word: Scale. "The book needs to have a big scale, ultra high budget style stories. Art-wise it's a major step for me, adding more scale to the layouts and the book." Ribic further explains that he sees nothing wrong with the current character designs, rather focusing on enhancing the world around them and making the technology used more futuristic.
Editor Mark Paniccia added that while previous versions of The Ultimates, while highly regarded, had sporadic release schedules. Now The Ultimates is a monthly book, with the other Ultimate Universe books playing off of it and each other. Hickman elaborated that while they're haven't nailed down the exact shipping schedule, they plan to ship more than 12 issues over the upcoming year and he has the first 4 or 5 story arcs planned out, but in a different approach to his previous work for Marvel, "I'm not coming into this with a Fantastic Four or Secret Warriors style structure. I don't have an end point. The goal is to great a monthly Ultimates event book. I know where I'm going to be for the next year...I could tell you what the first 4 or 5 arcs are and I'm excited about it."
Some fans may be wondering what how this relaunch is affected by Death of Spider-Man and Fallout? Hickman explained that Fallout is meant to be the bridge book from Death of Spider-Man and the current Ultimate Comics line and this new, relaunched line. Even though there's some continuity in the Ultimate Universe to deal with, Hickman isn't worried about that explaining that the Ultimate Universe has less dense continuity to deal with, which excites him. "The same thing that gets me going when I talk about S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Marvel Universe, the opportunity to build books with hydrogen. It's not a book that's saddled with decades of continuity, and what continuity quadmire there is, it's pretty navigable. I get to be myself on the book and let loose."
When asked about the "ultimatizing" of Marvel characters we know from the standard Marvel Universe, Hickman confirmed that there would be some, along with some totally new characters that exist only in the Ultimate Universe. Hickman felt very strongly about the line between the standard Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe, "The Ultimate Universe shouldn't be a direct reflection of the Marvel Universe. We should tell stories that we're not telling there and characters shouldn't be the same in both" he explained.
To sum things up, Hickman explained that while readers don't need to read every book in the Ultimates Universe, "The Ultimates is the Ultimate world book. I don't think people will get it until they see what we're trying to accomplish."
Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates #1, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Esad Ribic ships in August, 2011 from Marvel Comics.
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