Fandoms in the Marvel Ultimate Universe
We have reviewed the complaints many of you have had about the Marvel Ultimates nominations. Due to the confusion surrounding the decisions we’ve made regarding this particular fandom, after consulting with tag mods familiar with the fandom, we’ve decided to elaborate on the process behind it and its review.
First of all, a note on the Archive canonicals: at the time of the nominations, the Archive was using Marvel Ultimates as a metatag for all the Ultimateverse titles, not just those about the Ultimates team. Since many of you have pointed to this being misleading, we have now asked the tag wrangler for the fandom to amend the tag structure, so that the metatag for Earth-1610 is now Marvel Ultimates Universe (the Marvel Ultimates being a subtag of it).
We’ve received nominations under two fandom titles: Marvel Ultimates and Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) (both were nominated by over 5 people each). The idea to merge all the Ultimate Universe comics came about due to some of the nominations being made via the metatag rather than a single fandom. The characters nominated under the fandom Marvel Ultimates were not just characters from the Ultimates titles, but also many of those only appearing in one or more of the Spider-Man titles in the Ultimate verse; the characters nominated under Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) were a mix of people appearing in two of the Spider-Man titles in this ‘verse. In other instances, we have been rigorous in accepting only single titles (and their characters) as fandom nominations instead of meta-categories, but we’ve considered that making an exception here would be the better option for the users--since otherwise we would have had to either disallow this fandom and its nominations because of its width, or cut it down to the format we’ve been accepting in 616. The decision was also influenced by our desire to save as many of the characters nominated as possible.
However, since the broader, merged fandom has raised objections, we’re separating them back into two groups in which they were originally nominated, and saving them as single-title fandoms, same as in 616.
The characters originally nominated under Marvel Ultimates will be accepted as Ultimate Comics Ultimates, provided they appear in that title at least once. Similarly, the characters nominated under Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) will be accepted under Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, provided they appear in it at least once. As a result, however, any character not appearing in either will have to be cut. These two titles were chosen from the ones covered by the wide fandoms used, because they included the majority of nominated characters. Unfortunately, there is no non-umbrella fandom that would cover all nominated characters in either fandom. We considered a character eligible for a fandom even if they only appeared in one issue of the title.
Character lists for the reinstated fandoms:
Ultimate Comics Ultimates: Carol Danvers, Janet Pym, Johnny Storm, Monica Chang, Pietro Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff.
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Aaron Davis, Ganke Lee, Jefferson Davis, Jessica Drew, Johnny Storm, Judge, Kate Bishop, Maria Hill, Mary Jane Watson, May Parker, Miles Morales, Rio Morales, Susan Storm, Tandy Bowen, Tyrone “Ty” Johnson.
ETA: Given all the comments asking the same questions, we have decided to address it here, rather than answering separately. In Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, only Gwen's clone appears, not Gwen herself. Thus she is considered a separate character. Therefore this decision stands.
First of all, a note on the Archive canonicals: at the time of the nominations, the Archive was using Marvel Ultimates as a metatag for all the Ultimateverse titles, not just those about the Ultimates team. Since many of you have pointed to this being misleading, we have now asked the tag wrangler for the fandom to amend the tag structure, so that the metatag for Earth-1610 is now Marvel Ultimates Universe (the Marvel Ultimates being a subtag of it).
We’ve received nominations under two fandom titles: Marvel Ultimates and Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) (both were nominated by over 5 people each). The idea to merge all the Ultimate Universe comics came about due to some of the nominations being made via the metatag rather than a single fandom. The characters nominated under the fandom Marvel Ultimates were not just characters from the Ultimates titles, but also many of those only appearing in one or more of the Spider-Man titles in the Ultimate verse; the characters nominated under Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) were a mix of people appearing in two of the Spider-Man titles in this ‘verse. In other instances, we have been rigorous in accepting only single titles (and their characters) as fandom nominations instead of meta-categories, but we’ve considered that making an exception here would be the better option for the users--since otherwise we would have had to either disallow this fandom and its nominations because of its width, or cut it down to the format we’ve been accepting in 616. The decision was also influenced by our desire to save as many of the characters nominated as possible.
However, since the broader, merged fandom has raised objections, we’re separating them back into two groups in which they were originally nominated, and saving them as single-title fandoms, same as in 616.
The characters originally nominated under Marvel Ultimates will be accepted as Ultimate Comics Ultimates, provided they appear in that title at least once. Similarly, the characters nominated under Spider-Man (Ultimateverse) will be accepted under Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, provided they appear in it at least once. As a result, however, any character not appearing in either will have to be cut. These two titles were chosen from the ones covered by the wide fandoms used, because they included the majority of nominated characters. Unfortunately, there is no non-umbrella fandom that would cover all nominated characters in either fandom. We considered a character eligible for a fandom even if they only appeared in one issue of the title.
Character lists for the reinstated fandoms:
Ultimate Comics Ultimates: Carol Danvers, Janet Pym, Johnny Storm, Monica Chang, Pietro Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff.
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Aaron Davis, Ganke Lee, Jefferson Davis, Jessica Drew, Johnny Storm, Judge, Kate Bishop, Maria Hill, Mary Jane Watson, May Parker, Miles Morales, Rio Morales, Susan Storm, Tandy Bowen, Tyrone “Ty” Johnson.
ETA: Given all the comments asking the same questions, we have decided to address it here, rather than answering separately. In Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, only Gwen's clone appears, not Gwen herself. Thus she is considered a separate character. Therefore this decision stands.