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'The Ultimates' kicks off Marvel's Ultimate relaunch
Look out, world: The Ultimates are back.
Marvel Comics is relaunching its entire Ultimate line beginning with Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates on Wednesday. The universe - a tweaked version of the usual Marvel continuity - will continue to fill itself out in the subsequent Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye six-issue miniseries (in comic shops Aug. 31), as well as Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man (Sept. 7) and Ultimate Comics: X-Men (Sept. 21).
The first The Ultimates series began in 2001 with writerMark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch's contemporary take on the classic Avengers origin. The new series will star the likes of old favorites such as Iron Man, Thor, Nick Furyand others, but writer Jonathan Hickman says hisUltimates with artist Esad Ribic will be the center of the Ultimate universe with much tighter continuity.
For the past few years, Ultimates has been released as a series of individual arcs, but this time around "we're in full-throttle, ongoing-series mode," says Mark Paniccia, a senior editor at Marvel.
Like the original Ultimates back in the day, the new series will reflect the political and cultural time we live in on an international scale.
"There isn't a Cold War on between the U.S. and Russia. There are no white hat/black hat conflicts going on around the world, unless you count these overthrowing of dictators going on in some very isolated places in the world," says Hickman, who was the writer on Marvel's Ultimate Thor series last year.
"What we're trying to reflect is the very gray dynamic right now globally. Nobody has any real friends, nobody has any real enemies. It's just complex, and that's what we're going for."
There will be some straight-up villains, though, "because we have to have that," Hickman says. "We're not going for on-the-nose, bwah-hah-hah villainy." It will also be "big" in scale: The first issue alone has Iron Man flying into battle from a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and Captain Britain and the Excalibur team running into Thor in Asgard.
Captain America won't be a part of the Ultimates team, Hickman says. Feeling overwhelming guilt because of the death of Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, he's "turned in his shield and walked off into the sunset," according to Paniccia. This doesn't rub Fury well, naturally, since it's the worst time to be without one of his most valuable assets.
Does this mean we'll never see Cap again? Paniccia says no. "Jonathan has this really crazy idea for bringing him back into the fold. Something you'd never expect, and the ramifications will be felt across the line."
The new Spider-Man won't be around much either - Hickman says writer Brian Michael Bendis will be building up the world of Miles Morales in his own book. But for the guys who will star in The Ultimates, there will be some serious tension.
"Everybody's going to have different opinions about what should or shouldn't be done, especially considering the fact that it looks like a whole bunch of stuff is going wrong to start off with," Hickman says. "Of course questions are going to be asked about decisions that were made and prioritizing and whose fault it is."
You can't have the Ultimate version of S.H.I.E.L.D. without Fury's right-hand man, Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, who gets his own book written by Hickman with art by Rafa Sandoval. (The character, played by Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner, will also be showing up in The Avengers movie next summer.)
The regular Marvel Universe version of the longtime Avenger began as a quasi-criminal and circus marksman, but Ultimate Hawkeye comes from a more military background.
"Ultimate Hawkeye is more an amalgamation of Hawkeye and Bullseye with a little bit of Punisher thrown into the mix," Paniccia says. "He's deadly with everything. He can stop the bad guy with an arrow, a pencil or a paper clip. But I think the biggest difference is that he's a much more tragic and lonely character than the original."
His origin will be told in the issues of Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye, although not in the beginning. Actually, according to Hickman, the first issue will feature a story with a bunch of characters from Jeph Loeb's Ultimate X series. "You'll pretty much see right away why it's going to impact the X-Men portion of the Ultimate universe," Hickman says.
And for those wondering, the Hawkeye series will be just as action-packed as The Ultimates.
Hickman's writing will give readers a sense of grand scheme and cohesion between both his series, Paniccia says. "As you'll see in Ultimates, Nick Fury is dealing with an overwhelming amount of crisis-all hitting at the same time! Hawkeye's mission deals with one of the hot spots and he'll be getting help from other characters that Fury has alliances with, so look for some cool guest stars in the Ultimate Hawkeye.
"All this helps create a shared universe like never before in the Ultimate line."
All of this comes out of Hickman's "uber-document" for what the new Ultimate universe should be like, he says. "This is where we should be headed with the Ultimates, mutant stuff, the S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff, what's going on in the world. All of it ties together.
"After the first arcs of every book, you should have a pretty good idea of what we're doing, what the general plan is."
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