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The Ultimate line certainly doesn't seem to have the oomph it once did...

I'm an X-Men fanboy and even I stopped reading Ultimate X-Men. The only Ultimate book I read anymore is Spider-Man, because I like Spider-Man, but not one that makes deals with the devil.

I've stopped caring about the Ultimate X-Men after Vaughan left.
I've stopped caring about the Ultimate Fantastic Four after Ellis left.
I've stopped caring about the Ultimates after Millar & Hitch left.
I've stopped caring about the Ultimate Universe as a whole with Ultimate Power. (Ultimate Galactus was fun, but not this.)

I still care about Ultimate Spider-Man (especially in the stories without Goblins or symbiotes). But I certainly could do without any of the other titles (and I have absolutely no interest in Ultimatum).

They still make Ultimate comics?

I don't know what you're talking about. That Gwen Stacy death doll is TEH AWESUM!!!11111!!!!!

Seriously. I want one.

I don't remember the Ultimate universe being anything amazing insofar as it could be called The Place Where Comics Was Really Happening. For me, it was Marvel 2099 Redux. I liked Spider-Man once the ball got rolling (and I think that by the end of Bagley's run, it was every bit as good as it was at the start). Ultimate Spider-Man may not have been as "special or unique or original" as '60s Marvel, but it was certainly as good. I kept up with X-Men for maybe five trades before I just couldn't maintain interest. Fantastic Four kept me for two trades. And I was very happy with Ultimates while Millar and Hitch were in the seat. Loeb doesn't interest me on this project.

So really, I've never held any great excitement for the universe. Just for a couple of the books. But isn't that kinda the way it should be? Buying into a brand instead of evaluating each product on its own merits just seems like a recipe for trouble.

Only ultimate spiderman. I think it's the only ultimate book worth reading.

The Ultimate line was a big deal when it was new. It's not new anymore. End of story.

Not that I ever cared about it. My attitude has been ambivalent at best (Ultimate Spider-Man) and overtly hostile at worst (Millar's Ultimates).

Once Ultimate X-Men introduced versions of Cable, Bishop, and the Six Pack, the jig was up.

How weird. No one has mentioned Magneto yet.

Someday I'm going to sit down and read all of Mike Carey's Fantastic Four in one sitting and very likely enjoy it quite a bit.

I completely agree about the jump the shark moment being the death of ultimate Gwen Stacy. They could have really done some different stuff with a living Gwen. The Kitty Pryde stuff was good, but I stopped buying.

I used to like the Ultimate Universe a great deal, because there was a bit of 'joy of discovery' going on- the readers had a vague notion what to expect, but the writers would throw you a curve every so often (like Ultimate Spiderman's telling MJ his identity in HS, Aunt May being a much more competent guardian, etc)...
also the characters themselves definitely had NOT 'been there, done that' before.

And once it started to seem like 'we HAVE to get stuff (characters, condensed plotlines, etc) in from the main-line Marvel continuity', then.. meh. When they basically decided 'clones!' on a sort of dare, I was out ot there.

I liked the idea of Ultimate Universe when it started, a more contemporary reboot of the Marvel Universe lacking all the snarled continuity issues. But they seemed to drop the ball with most of the titles. Ultimate Spider-Man has managed to avoid most of the problems that have plagued the other books, and I still read it to this day. The Ultimates (1 & 2) were fun, if over the top, reads, giving us a more "realistic" take on the Avengers. Ultimate Fantastic Four started out strong, but I've been very hot and cold on recent story arcs. Ultimate X-Men has been a complete disaster from the start, becoming a place to just tell the exact same story-lines we read 20 years ago with cellphones and the internet.

It's an intriguing idea which showed a lot of promise in the beginning, but squandered most of it in recent years. I'm still onboard for Ultimate Origins, but so far, it's failed to "wow" me.

I completely agree with the first poster, JD, in that the Ultimate books are/were only as good as their creators. I think that most people read the mainstream Marvel universe books because they have a genuine love for the characters and a lot of those fans will keep reading even if the creative team isn't doing a good job. It's about the characters, see? But the Ultimate books were launched on the names of big time creators like Bendis (fresh from his rise to stardom as the indie-comic darling writer of Jinx and Torso, not to mention Powers), Kubert (I forget which one drew Ult. X-men, but both brothers are long-time fan-favorite artists), Millar, and Hitch (both fresh off the Authority). The start of the Ult. line was like living in the 90s again, except reversed: books were selling at record numbers based on name recognition. This time it was the writers rather than the bombastic star artists of the previous decade.

For me, and I suspect a lot of the early Ultimate fanbase, the appeal came not from the characters themselves (although, of course, there is the obvious easy-entry aspect of a whole new continuity for beloved and widely recognizable characters), but from what these hot creators were doing with the characters. I think the reason why Bendis and Millar developed a following in the first place is because they had a reputation for doing ballsy things that wouldn't normally happen in a Marvel book. When Warren Ellis came along, it just cemented the fact that the Ultimate line was all about pushing the boundaries of what we'd come to expect from superhero books in general and from our treasured Marvel hereos specifically.

I think it's no coincidence that other writers brought in to broaden the Ultimate universe didn't do much to burn up sales. Guys like Chuck Austen, Greg Rucka, Ron Zimmerman, Jeph Loeb, Mike Carey, Robert Kirkman, and even Orson Scott Card are all talented and repected writers (well, not all of them ...) but I don't think any of them has ever been known as an "edgy" writer whose stories challenged people's ideas of what comics can do. I mean, come on, Mark Millar is one of the most flamboyantly loud-mouthed creators in the business, Bendis has perfected the art of the "aw shucks" ego stroke, and Warren Ellis is the head of an Internet cult. These guys sell books because most people just can't wait to see what they're going to do next. With all the love I have for Kirkman, Rucka, Carey, et al, I have to say that when Millar and Ellis left the Ult. universe, a lot of the fun went with them. As for Bendis ... I don't think I'm the only fan who noticed that Ult. Spider-Man has experienced a dramatic drop in excitement and interest. For me, the introduction of Carnage sealed the book's fate and most of what happened afterwards so closely mirrors what Bendis has been doing in the mainstream Marvel books that it's not worth bothering with. I think the symbiote war is the most glaring example of using the same story twice for twice the paycheck. Or really, three times because the same lot device is used in Ult. Spider-Man, New Avengers, and Mighty Avengers. Give me a break.

Again, let me repeat that I like and enjoy the works of Kirkman, Carey, Rucka, and even Zimmerman (I was probably one of the few die hard fans of Ultimate Adventures), but I think only Brian K. Vaughan came close to capturing the magic of the early Ultimate books. Not quite, but damn close.

So, long rant nearing its end: I think the Ultimate Universe was great because it showcased the daring imagination of hot creators. When the focus changed to continuity and perpetuating the lives of the characters, it became redundant. Why do we need this "fake" version of the Marvel Universe when we can just read the real thing?

Like JD said:
"I’ve stopped caring about the Ultimate X-Men after Vaughan left.
I’ve stopped caring about the Ultimate Fantastic Four after Ellis left.
I’ve stopped caring about the Ultimates after Millar & Hitch left.
I’ve stopped caring about the Ultimate Universe as a whole with Ultimate Power. (Ultimate Galactus was fun, but not this.)
I still care about Ultimate Spider-Man (especially in the stories without Goblins or symbiotes).
But I certainly could do without any of the other titles (and I have absolutely no interest in Ultimatum)."

I have to disagree about Ultimate Spider-Man, though. Bendis has been phoning it in for years. Don't even get me started on the wreckage of Powers ...

You know, there's no good reason to care about universes. There are only good reasons to care about good books.

Looking forward to the New Universe installment in this series.

My thought on the subject, and I've held this for three or four years, now, is everything that the Ultimates continuity did superior to the 616 continuity just got adopted by the writers of the 616 continuity. Added to this, the Ultimate titles have acquired the very same burdens that regular continuity titles have had - all of this absurdly complex backstory that you've got to read umpteen million comics (assuming you can get your hands on 'em) to grasp.

So, yeah, the Ultimates continuity is superfluous. What the Ultimates did "better" artistically than 616 has been adopted into regular continuity, while the Ultimates titles are now about as burdened with cumbersome backstory as the regular continuity.

I thought that Ultimate X-Men's peak was under Vaughan, where he did the opposite of Kirkman, with the interpretations of 616 (sorry) characters tearing down and making fun of the originals, especially the wonderful "crazy useless Mr. Sinister and his cheap-ass dummy version of Apocalypse." I like some of Kirkman's other work, but why he's want to "fix" that situation for such a couple of crap characters escapes me.

And Ultimates, my god... I know it's always being repeated, the fact that fans don't reflect the whole audience, but does *anyone* actually like this thing? How's it selling, I honestly don't know where to look that up, nor is it something I care to spend time getting into, but can anyone tell me? Please tell me sales reflect the drop in quality. Does Quesada just have to keep a fork jabbed in his thigh while he grins desperately and calls it a "great new direction?"

I liked the idea at first, and how there was a sort of "Anything could happen!" vibe. But it seems like it pretty quickly turned into "start redoing 'Ultimate' versions of everybody." Once you're getting down to the level of Ultimate Gambit, it starts becoming just a slightly more elaborate "What If?" or something, with slightly-different versions of all the same old stuff instead of truly new stuff.

I still get all the Ultimate titles... but...

Spider-man is the only one I read straight away...

Used to be Ultimates first (when it came out)... Ultimates 3 just seems like a completely different comic and is now read last, after UFF... Which keeps promising *something* but never quite delivering...

X-Men still has its moments, but there is such a high turnonver of writers and artists that it never really has any chance of developing... It really could use a Claremont/Bendis long-term writer...

Ultimate Human was rushed... Ultimate Iron Man is interesting but still quite middle-of-the-road
And Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine... um well. I'm running bets as to whether the next issue will be out before Planetary #27...

Ultimate Power was too messy, and the UUniverse REALLY needs Ultimate Nick Fury back... The various titles don't even seem to know what happened to him... (I mean honestly, I thought I remembered seeing Spider-mna in Ultimate Power.... why doesn't he remember that Fury didn't come back???? Or was that a clone???)

Ultimate Origins... too soon to say...

There is a lot of potential being wasted - kinda like the WildStorm Universe, but being handled worse, as I'm sure the UTitles sell better, making it a more obvious embarassment...

Maybe Ultimatum will sort things out... We can but pray... This really COULD be the Ultimate Comics Universe... handled properly...

The Ultimate Universe -- that's the one with Rob Liefeld and the girl Bucky, right?

Seriously, though, the only Marvel Universe I actually enjoy or care about anymore is Marvel Adventures.

Well, that and Mini-Marvels.

It's mostly the continuity for me. I was actually new to comics when the Ultimate line was new, so it was a much much better read for me than 616 stuff. The writing talent has dropped off and all, but the whole selling point to me was accessibility, which is now nonexistent.

I don't think this blog post is going to stir up as much controversy as the Wildstorm one Brad, because it seems most people posting so far (as well as myself) are in agreement with your main points.

The Ultimate Marvel line was premised as a streamlined comics entry point for people whose interest in the X-Men and Spider-Man were stirred by the films, although the books weren't set in the films' "universe." The lack of a pre-existing decades-old continuity was supposed to make it easier for comic book "civilians" to get into the story. But one could say that the seeds of the line's demise are built into its original purpose: After a certain length of time, and given how serial superhero comics accumulate continuity and how that affects how current stories are written, it was bound to happen that the line's backstory would eventually become just as imposing and intimidating to the novice reader as the regular Marvel comics continuity it's supposed to be an alternative to.

The only way I can see the Ultimate line continuing while achieving its original goal of presenting heroes in a novice-accessible format is for the line to regularly reinvent itself every few years, or simply focus on high profile creator-defined, non-canon, mini-series interpretations of classic Marvel characters and stories freed from the shackles of continuity, similar to DC's All-Star approach (which would be my preference actually... I'd love to see, say, Mike Mignola's take on Dr. Strange, Steven Grant have another go at defining The Punisher, and Hiroaki Samura doing a Wolverine mini-series).

Last year Marvel did two things that effectively killed off the Ultimate Universe:

--First they replaced "The Ultimates" with a new version that's just like "The New Avengers",

--Then they replaced the original "Amazing Spider-Man" book with a new version that's just like "Ultimate Spider-Man"

Now the two best-selling books in the Ultimate Universe are indistinguishable from their mainstream-universe counterparts. So what's the point?

" Bendis is still plugging away at Ultimate Spider-Man over in his own little corner"

And that's the way I like it. I read Ultimate Spidey every month and enjoy it, partly because it rarely includes the baggage of the other books, and if the FF or X-Men guest star, it's usually posited in a way that I can understand events without having read the other books. I have no interest in those other titles.

By me, the Ultimates line now has all the problems of the 616 line (fairly heavy continuity that the new writers aren't bothering to read), along with recycling half of it s story arcs, but, as has been pointed out, little to no of the emotional investment in these versions of the characters -- even the ones that are remotely likeable tend to change voice and motivation drastically from writer to writer. Even when I find myself looking at the books and going "Hn, now that's an interesting idea", I just see it as an interesting idea, not necessarily caring that it's something happening to these characters. And it's been a while since any of the Ultimate writers had any interesting ideas anyway.

Nice call, Matt Bird.

In addition, I'd say that the strength of Ultimate Spider-Man and The Ultimates was their emphasis on characterization (both in the writing and in the very expressive figure work from Hitch and Bagley), and how the action grew organically from the characters. (Of course Peter would spill the beans to Mary Jane; of course Cap would steal Jan from creepy Hank; etc.) And the central figures had some unexpected and fresh edges that kept the books lively.

Now they have the problem that all long-running series have: Even though you've exhausted the freshness of your concept, you still have to keep giving the audience what they expect. And it just goes stale. Peter still has to fight creepy super villains. The pseudo-Avengers have to keep squabbling and fighting would-be global dominators. These are merchandised properties, and you can't really do anything drastic with them. And you start repeating yourself.

And I agree that the original creative teams were so integral to the concepts of these books that they lose most of their vibrancy when the writers/artists change. I didn't realize how important Bagley was to USM until he left. He added so much personality to the characters, so many fun bits that weren't in the printed script, so much drama AND comedy, such a sense of JOY to USM, that the series just pales now to its former self. And he got out at the right time, because Bendis jumped the shark when he turned Mary Jane into Man-Wolf. Utterly ridiculous.

And Ultimates 3 makes my head hurt. It's all flash, no soul. A terrible disappointment.

I think it is all the creators.

If Mark Millar and David Finch were doing Ultimate X-Men and Millar and Hitch were doing Ultimates, people would care about the Ultimate Universe again.

And people still care about Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man.

I hear Ultimate Spider-Man is the #26 Top Marvel Character and had a pretty memorable 13th issue.

Can't vouch for any of that myself, 'cause it's all "Heroes Reborn" to me, but I have it on reliable authority.

It's kind of like "Heroes Reborn," except Captain America doesn't have boobs.

I started losing interest in the Ultimate line when Ultimate FF started up, and the first 6 issues dragged. I liked the Ellis issues, but he was only on the series for 12 issues. Ult. X-Men lost me when they turned Nightcrawler evil and got rid of Dazzler. Ultimate Spider-Man was cut when most of my monthly purchases were cut. I'd buy more Millar & Hitch Ultimates, but not Loeb & Madueira.

Brad, I think you should do a "Do people still care about..." post every week. You can start with, say, Wolfpack, and work your way up to Watchmen.

Am still reading the U. Spider-man, maybe to the end of the current storyline.
Reading Ultimate Origins.
Losing interest in the Ultimates 3 with each new issue. Won't bother with U.4.
Haven't read U. X-men for years.
Stopped U.F.4 around issue 50.

I hope that Marvel will be able to re-ignite the Ultimate Universe after Ultimatum.

Without me.
I'm more interested in newuniverse Ellis-style.

i think the obvous answer it to get the new exciting creator, like millar and bendis were five years ago, doing he ultimate books after ultimatum finishes. if marvel geniunely still has the balls it has at the beginning of the queseda era, lets have bryan lee o'malley on ultimate spiderman and the team behind phonogram on ultimate x-men. and maybe garth ennis on ultimates just for a bit of star power (or is that just wishful thinking)

I loved Ultimate Spider-Man, but dropped it shortly after Bagley left. I really like Stuart Immonen normally, but he just didn't work for me anymore.

What I would have loved to see, similar to those talking about having this as independent mini-series, would be for Ultimate Spider-Man to have an actual ending. We never get endings in mainstream super-hero comics (because they want to keep the franchise going), but it would be really cool to see Peter grow up, forgive himself for what happened to Uncle Ben, and not have to be Spidey anymore.

This would have been a cool place to try something like that, except it sells too well for Marvel to do crazy things like that.

I care about the Ultimate universe as long as Bendis and Millar are still writing it. Honestly, the point I stopped caring about each of the books (and didn't stop caring about USM) is directly linked to those guys.

Hmm, maybe the trick is to get Bendis and Millar writing only Ultimate titles, and stop screwing with 616.

Hmm, maybe the trick is to get Bendis and Millar writing only Ultimate titles, and stop screwing with 616.

I could see that happening if their books stop selling huge, but they are selling huge, and as such, they're here to stay.

I enjoyed Ultimate Spider-Man when it first came out. Then I dropped the monthly after #39 intending to keep up in trade form. Then I never bought any trades. Haven't really missed it either.

I did buy the first two (Real) Ultimates series and developed a grudging respect for the work, but I never could understand why Joe Madureira was considered a "Hot" artist and couldn't look at v3 seriously.

I think I lasted with X-Men until Millar left, and dropped FF before the first story was done.

The Ultimate line seems to be the first indicator of my growing disinterest with Marvel in general. But Guardians of the Galaxy is fantastic, and Captain Britain looks entertaining, so my interest is not completely lost.

When One More Day was announced, I secretly hoped they'd give the 616 Peter Parker and Mary Jane some sort of happily ever after and somehow bring Ultimate Spider-man into "normal" continuity.

Ultimate Spider-man is the only Spider-man comic I ever got into and the only Ultimate title that is truly justified (a teenage spider-man IS significantly different enough from an adult spider-man). If they do cancel the Ultimate books, I hope they pull a MC2/Spider-Girl and keep publishing Ultimate Spider-man.

I should add to what I said a few comments up, though, that I don't see that as a bad thing. I get that when Millar left each of his Ultimates titles, they were selling too well for Marvel to just stop publishing them or something, but at the same time, I'm quite happy to have those finite runs.

I'm less interested in the continued life of the Ultimate universe as a whole than I am in, you know, a good writer doing a good run of 20 or 30 issues (or 100-odd, in Bendis' case).

Never really cared about the Ultimate Universe to begin with. For one thing, I could never understand how Marvel simultaneously publishing two versions of the same characters made things MORE accessible to new readers. I really think most of the audience for the Ultimate books was just the same fanbase that wanted their superheroes with a twist.

I've tried to read Ultimate Spider-Man & The Ultimates, but neither one was my cup of tea. Bendis' stuff seems horribly padded & overwritten to me, and I couldn't find ANY characters to sympathize with in The Ultimates. I prefer my superheroes to be heroic.

So if the Ultimate Universe goes away, I'm perfectly okay with that.

The question is, did anyone EVER care about the Ultimate Universe? Seems to me that it was, as mentioned, a title-by-title thing as opposed to a MMMS-eqsue Uncanny Ultimate Undulating Unit thing. Of course, I'm sure there are those who ultimately love the universe, much as I assume there are advocates for baby-eating or Olympic gurgling, but the UU never really had a shot at challenging the DCU and MU in the U category.

I think for me, the magic went out of it when I realized it was going to keep going. I mean, at first, it seemed like a cool idea--a contemporary updated version of all the best Marvel storylines, leaving behind the lame stuff and jacking up the good stuff to even better heights. You got the Ultimate Green Goblin, and the Ultimate Magneto, and the Ultimate Kingpin, and the Ultimate Kraven, and...

And somewhere around the time Spidey hit Book Ten and X-Men hit Book Nine, I realized that they were just going to keep dredging through the classic Marvel back issues forever, looking for stuff to recycle, and that sooner or later, they were going to have to start bringing back the lame stuff. So I resolved to quit before they started doing "Ultimate Onslaught", or some crap like that.

I laughed when I saw the solicitations for the issue that not only did Ultimate Onslaught, but Ultimate Stryfe as well. At the same time.

I've only read the first TPB, but so far Ultimate Iron Man is up there with the early stuff for my tastes. Other than that, yeah I'm losing interest as much as everyone else.

They seem to be keeping Ultimate Spider-Man around after Ultimatum, but possibly canceling everything else? My guess is they're gonna reboot the rest of the line somehow, and start fresh like they did 10 years ago, with new continuity. The whole point of the Ultimate Universe was "what if the Marvel Universe were created today?" And 1998 isn't today anymore. If this is actually what they're doing and not just a random firing of my imagination, I think it's a great idea, depending on what creators they use of course.

I want to be Ultimate Spider-Man when I grow up.

They should scrap it already. I enjoyed Ultimates for the blockbuster-style comic that it was, but once I'd read it there was no poin picking up Ultimates 2, and you best believe I'm not going near Ultimates 3. I read the first few issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, but it was like extended deja vu with a stupid goblin thrown in.

Did they not think it through? "Let's relaunch our biggest characters in a new universe without the baggage of continuity so that they're more accesible to new readers." Seems like a great idea. Of course, once you've been publishing the titles for a few years, they've accumulated their own confusing continuity. Why the hell would I pick up Ultimate Origins or any of that other crap if I haven't been reading the Ultimate comics up to now.

Oh, and Magneto rules! Ultimate or otherwise. You just don't get him Curran. You better sleep with one eye open.

Oh, and the Wildstorm universe will rise again!

I agree about the point of the "raison d'etre" of the Ultimate universe being gone. If it's not a ground floor entry to hero books, then there's no reason to choose it over the 616 titles.

Sure, a long standing reader will keep coming back, but I read the Ultimates and a tiny bit of the rest of the Ultimate universe a few years ago, and when I walk in to the shop, there's nothing there to draw me to those books anymore than to the 616 titles. Why would I chose Ultimate FF over regular FF today, if I read neither yesterday? It's lost it's shine, and it should spool itself back.

I think that would be awesome, actually. Cancel Ultimate FF, cancel the Ultimates, and cancel any other stuff out there that's not Ultimate Spidey or Ultimate X-Men. In their place, launch a third title (something like Ultimate Two-in-One, or Ultimate Tales of Suspense) that features the Ultimates, or the FF, or whatever else you'd like to have in the MUU.

No, people don't nor should care about the Ultimate Universe anymore. Not only the current titles suck right now, but the writers have made way too many missteps when building it (Ellis must have been high when he decided to make Ultimate Galactus a bunch of space robotic insects).

So no, I don't care about any Ultimate title anymore. No, not even Ultimate Spider-Man. Or more like ESPECIALLY not USM. Because it is one of the most overrated pieces of shit I have ever had the misfortune to read.

"To be fair, I think my “jump the shark” moment on this stuff being different was when Bendis killed off Gwen Stacy. "

That was it for me, too. Bendis actually turned her into an appealing character, then killed her off to make CARNAGE of all stupid bad guys look more threatening. I was wavering on the book before that (it was decompressed to all hell for a couple of arcs before the Carnage storyline), and that's what ended it.

And, yeah, Kirkman's run on UXM drove me away from it. Vaughan had *got* what you do with the Ultimate characters - just tell good stories without continuity. Kirkman wrote the book as an Elseworlds, which didn't come off well at all.

I think Ultimate Spidey needs to stay, and Ultimate X-Men wouldn't be bad to keep around since I think you can still salvage it (unlike the main line X-Men, who are pretty much a lost cause at this point). Kill off Ultimates, which lost its way when Loeb came on board, and Ultimate FF should have been offed when Ellis left the book and its only purpose was for Greg Land to practise his tracing skills.

Actually I think Ellis's Ultimate Galactus was probably one of the better Ultimate versions...

It's one of the few Ultimate versions that is a NEW idea...

Maybe the problem is editorial control.

I'm not going to Quesada-bash or anything but logically speaking, when they launched the Ultimate Universe, it was this little experiment, lets reinvent these classic superheroes for the 21st century.
They had to be bold so that people wouldn't feel the Ultimate Universe is simply more of the same. They had to break rules so that people would care. They took relatively fresh creators and let them run wild in this little corner of the Marvel Universe that couldn't fuck up decades of continuity.

However, the Ultimate Universe is now a fairly established corner of the Marvel Universe. I fear it has become a cash cow. I feel that now that it was a huge success, Marvel Editor are pushing creators to do more of the same, keep the formula. I mean just look at Robert Kirkman's run on Ultimate X-Men. I feel that he did it half-heartedly. You could see that he wasn't doing the story he really wanted to tell so he wrapped it up as quickly as possible and left.

Then again, it's a natural response from a business like Marvel.
Why change the formula when it "works".

Back in the days, when the Ultimate line started, Marvel was struggling to keep going, they had to up the ante and make bold moves.

I never cared so much for the Ultimate Universe except for Ultimate Spider Man there have been some hits and misses in my opinoin, but I've really enjoyed Peter being a teen again and being in high school, I may have to lean towards saying I like USM as much as I do ASM currently. UXMen the first issues were good but after that I didn't follow so much, feel pretty much the same for the UFF. The Ultimates just no, these were not my heros. The Zombie stuff was fun but looks like it's being beat to death, being on mini series 3 and tied to another comic title,isn't the zombie universe part of the Ultimate Universe?

Technically the Marvel Zombie universe is another universe altogether...

Though Ultimate Dr Doom went to the Marvel Zombie (MZU??) Universe to end the plague...

Did he ever come back??

Did he ever appear in any MZU titles??

I know He was in Army of Darkness vs. Marvel Zombies, but I assumed that was MZU Dr Doom , not Ultimate Dr Doom...

I'll stop there, my head hurts...

The best parts of the Ultimate Universe involve departures from the "616" universe. For example, Kitty Pryde and Spider-Man: here are two characters that suddenly have a friendship, a relationship, that doesn't exist in the 616. Of course, the Ultimate Universe became a victim of its own success, in a way. Once people were going crazy for the first appearance of Ultimate Spider-Man, the creators had no reason to do anything other than introduce Ultimate Everyone and Their Brother in a bevy of hype.

Ultimates was, arguably, the most successful Ultimate line comic because it provided a drastic departure combined with the absence of "old-school" Avengers stories in the 616. You didn't see Millar (and now Loeb) writing the Ultimate Korvac Saga, or having the Ultimate Masters of Evil laying siege to Ultimates Mansion. Meanwhile, Bendis was launching his Disassembling, and giving us New Avengers. There is still a significant fanbase that would like to see Cap, Thor, and the rest yelling "Avengers Assemble!" and leading the way into the good fight instead of Bendis' Secret Defenders.

Ultimate Spider-Man, likewise, was about single high school nerd Peter Parker while Amazing Spider-Man was about married high school teacher Peter Parker (and the weirdness that JMS brought, for good or ill).

This is something that, to my knowledge, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate FF never provided. They have small points of differentiation (Ultimate Colossus is gay, Ultimate Reed and Sue are horndogs), but not enough to provide a legitimate alternative to the mainstream Marvel U.

Millar actually did have the Ultimate Masters of Evil lay siege to the Ultimate Mansion, he just changed each concept enough so that it wasn't obvious.

With all this talk of creators leaving, I think it is also worth noting the departure of Bill Jemas which was a very big blow to the Ultimate line, which was his baby, specifically and to Marvel in general. Marvel took a lot of interesting chances when he was around that they don't anymore.

xo
Kevin (secret identity: Bill Jemas' mom)

What Matt Bird said.

There is little point in a young Ultimate Spidey now that Quesada made standard Spidey into a young guy again, and little point in the Ultimates when they made the regular Avengers into a fractured, contentious bunch too. There is little point in a harder-edged Ultimate Universe when the regular Marvel Universe became harder-edged too.

"And people still care about Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man."

The thing is, do as many people care about it as they did 5 years ago?

Since the regular Marvel titles are now as 'edgy' as the Ultimate Universe is or was, and as the Ultimate Universe is no longer new and fresh anymore, it seems the only people who will care about it any more are long time fans.

The Ultimate Universe didn't seem to pan out like it was supposed to. The Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-man were easily accesible to newbies, but now the whole line seems like a distaction, too. Why do they need this big Ultimate Crossover, they need to concentrate on the main books.

I always considered the Ultimate universe to be a series-long What If? only instead of "What if this change happened to this character?" it was more of a "What if this character in this era had been written by Y instead of X?" So, I never really invested in any of them, emotionally. It was more of a writing exercise, published for our amusements.

Here's the really funny thing. Because this is how I approached it, I really only read Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men. A friend had told me that Ultimate Spider Man was using the Byrne origin, so I skipped it. And, I casually looked at Ultimate FF and gave it a miss as well. So, I was perfectly willing to believe that the Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Iron Man movies were based on the Ultimate versions.

I believed this to the point that after seeing Iron Man, I went and bought the first few issues. I couldn't find the TP, so I shelled out about $7 each for the first four. And, yah, they are nothing like what I expected. I should have looked online for some spoilers. Even just a Wiki search would have saved me $30. I expected "What If Iron Man had a public identity?" and instead I got "What If Tony Stark was Circuit Breaker?"

There's being different, and there's making a new character and pasting an established character's name on it. Both can be good. See DC's Tangent series. But, UIM was just so what I was not looking for that even if it was good, I couldn't see it .

Theno

I stopped caring about the Ultimate Universe before the first issue was published.

Yeah, I'm among the "never cared" crowd. A friend of mine got me the first Spidey trade, which was pretty good and I could see how that could still be going strong, but the whole clone thing was still a freshly confusing wound and my heart just wasn't in Spidey comics any more.

I definitely think there are some interesting ideas based on what of it I've perused, but I don't see why you can't just bring the ideas into "continuity" if they're good. If it sucks, lord knows you can always retcon it or kill it off. Plus, it gets cumbersome to say "ultimate" before everything (as in "...Ultimate Masters of Evil lay siege to the Ultimate Mansion...").