Gang, I gotta be honest—its been a pretty shit year so far. 2025 started off pretty bad for me personally, and just when I thought I was getting myself sorted out, the fabric of my nation began to erode from within, and the rot runs deep. But that got me thinking: you know what other place is devoid of hope and crawling with cynicism and cruelty? Marvel's Ultimate Universe!
We all have our weird little fascinations, and the Ultimate Universe is one of mine. For those unaware, the Ultimate Universe was a publishing line launched in the year 2000 designed to effectively reboot the Marvel comics universe while running alongside its main continuity. This resulted in a smaller, but more grounded and modern take on Marvel's classic heroes. This post will mostly be me waxing poetic about a universe I've hardly read and, quite honestly, don't really like, yet am compelled by anyhow.
(I'll try to keep the comic book jargon to a minimum, but consider yourself warned.)
For the get-go, I've always been into short-lived publishing lines that were never long for this world but really tried to be something. DC is all about this. Young Animal, We Are Heroes, and the New Age of Heroes are examples just from the past few years. Their "All-In" initiative, being more akin to what Marvel was doing post-Secret Wars (2015) with "Marvel Now!." Most recently, they've created the Absolute Universe, which, by copying the Ultimate playbook, gives it more juice than a standard line-wide push.
The point I'm trying to make here is that while I do fancy these in-continuity pushes that the Big Two like to do simply for novelty's sake, very rarely do they produce something iconic. There's always one straggler, like Sideways, that squeak into the very small and short memory of contemporary readers, but its always something like The Terrifics, which takes pre-stablished characters, that makes an impact. Just look at the cast of James Gunn's Superman movie. Mr. Terrific and Metamorpho are there, and we have a Plastic Man movie on the way. That's 3/4 of the team right there. See what I mean? The Ultimate Universe, while creating some characters of its own like Miles Morales and Jimmy Hudson, mainly stuck to remixing characters and concepts from its main continuity. (Sorry for the Terrifics tangent, they've just been on the brain lately.)
I can't discredit the Ultimate Universe' premise when discussing why I like it so much.The idea of a small, self-contained Marvel universe that gives itself the room to make changes to classic characters and take big swings in terms of story and line-wide repercussions will always be interesting to me. When I first got into reading, I was similarly enamored with tie-ins. It blew my mind that a story happening on one side of the world could affect another. On Earth 616, Dr. Strange might have to deal with the blowback from a decision Daredevil or Spider-Man made, but on Earth 1610, Wasp might getting fucking eaten alive by the Blob during a line-wide crossover, or half the cast of Ultimate X-Men can be killed. Life is cheap in the Ultimate Universe, and you learn that quickly.
Another reason why the Ultimate Universe fascinates me is because it was just before my time. Launching in 2000, it took off before my own launch in 2004, and by the time I actually began reading comics, Secret Wars had already put the Ultimate Universe down like Old Yeller. 2000's nostalgia is something I'm fascinated by, since while I did grow up during this period, I was too young to remember the decade in any real way. Reading the Ultimate Universe is cultural excavation by way of comic books. Because its so of its time, its hard for me to separate the art from its era. Its the most recent era of comics that I can read while still calling them "classic."
The Ultimate U's heyday was the near entirety of the 2000's, and without reading the bulk of its titles from the beginning, I can't honestly speculate on the real reason for it's decline, but many agree it was Ultimatum (2009). I alluded to it before, but nothing can really prepare you. Its is a huge demarkation point in the Ultimate timeline, not just in its events, but for quality. Ultimatum killed off so many characters and derailed so many stories that it honestly looks like a public execution of the universe itself. Its the bleakest, most myopic point in a universe that was primarily defined by how bleak and myopic it could really be. I think the comic-going audience was attuned to a decent amount of gore and Nihilism, but there's just something perverse about watching Ant-Man bite off the Blob's head, or abiding the incestuous relationship between Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. It wasn't just that this universe was "grounded" or "realistic," Ultimatum made it mean. Vindictive. Unfortunately, this is one of the things that compels me about it.
With my own world becoming so much more bleaker thanks to [CURRENT EVENTS], I can only come to one conclusion: The Ultimate Universe is a terrifying place because is so much like my own.
The theme of the U.S. government having their hands in nearly all superpowered phenomena is everywhere. It contributes to this very specific genre area that it wades in, which I call "military horror," (although you could call it "thriller," I suppose). I don't just find it "thrilling" that the entire 20th and 21st centuries have been dominated by the scientific advancement of super soldiers, I'm absolutely horrified. Of course, my relative inexperience with the universe does lead me to overinflated its malevolence, but from what I have read, namely the later "Ultimate Comics" era, nowhere in this world is safe. The Maker decimates Europe, wipes out Asgard, and blows up Washington D.C., which makes the U.S. descend into civil war among multiple factions. Oh, and a Stark-tech bomb destroys part of China just so a bunch of yuppies can inflate their stock values. I find it genuinely disturbing how quickly and readily this world falls apart despite the presence of superheroes.
"Its just like real life!"
Despite technically being made pre-9/11, the Ultimate Universe has the overall stank of something made in the shadow of 9/11. The Ultimates is the most major source of this, as we're meant to see this elite force of American world police as a good thing, but even later material, like Ultimate Comics: Ultimates and the Divided We Fall, United We Stand (2012-2013) event are concerned with the destruction and then subsequent salvation of America by good guys in the government. Its trite, but man would I take even this Captain America over the President we have now.
Marvel has always been America-focussed, but reading these books in 2025 is a real insight into the political landscape. All the talk of "unification" feels so dated from where I'm standing that its almost quaint. The Ultimates, led by President Captain America, defeating the bad guys with big stick diplomacy is nauseatingly naive, but Thor murdering his one and only son, Modi, who was provoking the civil war, has that classic Ultimate edge that I had been looking for. The shock of disturbing violence straight up out of nowhere is a classic Ultimate move.
I know its chic these days to be over the whole gritty, grounded, too cool for school attitude that the Ultimate Universe had, but it manifested in some interesting ways. Sure, stripping down some character's costumes to just military gear, like Falcon and Black Widow, is lame, but I think changing Galactus to a fleet of interstellar robotic drones is kinda neat. I even like some of the superficial changes, like grey Hulk, Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury, and a visually distinct Spider-Woman.
In a way, the original Ultimate Universe satisfied the need for a superhero world with just a little more bite to it. It definitely went too far at times, but I can't help but respect that it got up to in its later years. Miles Morales and President Captain America were making national headlines and we got Reed Richards as the Maker. Many believe that it was past its prime by then, and they're probably right, but Miles and Maker are 1610's lasting legacies in 2025. And if you want to argue with me, check Marvel Rivals right now. You can buy a Maker skin. 'Nuff said.
Given my unfortunate affection for these stupid books, of course I was pumped when Jonathan Hickman brought back the Ultimate Universe in 2023. I've been kinder to Ultimate Invasion—the introductory mini-series building up to the new line of titles—than most because I found Hickman's return to the Maker to be electric, the new Ultimate versions of Doom, Tony, and Howard Stark to be gripping, and the new world building for earth 6160 to be filled with endless potential. A full year into the new Ultimate Universe, I can say that its still got me. I've written plenty about it over at Halftone, but I will repeat that this is the most exciting thing happening in superhero comics. Once again, the Ultimate Universe is pulling things off that it never could in the main continuity, namely having Spider-Man settle down with Mary Jane and having kids, as well as the political edge that the new Ultimates has.
I won't pretend like every title is perfect, however. Peach Momoko's Ultimate X-Men is slow going, and its characters are pretty thin, but I see its potential and I'm intrigued. Ultimate Black Panther's first issue failed to impress me, and if Twitter is any indication, it hasn't moved much in the intervening 11 issues. Deniz Camp's Ultimates, though, has consistently delivered on every issue, expanding the world and scope of the universe with each new release. Most recently, Ultimate Wolverine has provided a glimpse at the familiar mutants we know, but seen through the lens of a brutal civil war in Russia. One of my favorite issues so far is the One Year In one-shot following Nick Fury inside H.A.N.D. and the Maker's council. This line is in good hands with Camp at the helm. That is, until the inevitable return of the Maker, which could be done by Hickman himself.
If the original Ultimate Universe was about how one oppressive force (the U.S. Government) was responsible for most superpowered phenomena, then the new one is about how one oppressive force (The Maker) is responsible for snuffing all superpowers out. I think both lines are working at the same kind of commentary just from either side of the spectrum. Where the original line can be accused of being U.S. propaganda, the new one can be accused of being anti-U.S. propaganda. (For the record, I think this absolutely rocks.) I'm surprised Marvel has let Deniz Camp get away with what he's been up to with Ultimates, and I'm hoping he can get away with a good deal more.
My comparison isn't to say that the old Ultimate Universe didn't touch or handle political topics, because that's not true. Ultimate Comics: X-Men is a pretty visceral, although slightly cartoony, look into the horrors teenagers experience during times of political upheaval and genocide. For a few issues, its a story about survival, not about superheroes. During that later period, where everything is falling apart, the Ultimate Universe was a story about pushing ourselves to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and try to build something better despite the entropic arc of the universe working to hold us back. That's powerful stuff, but ever so dated thanks to, well, everything else about the Ultimate Universe. This new universe doesn't throw up its hands and blame unseen cosmic forces; it names the system as what holds us back from our truest selves and tells you to wake up and fight for your right to realize your potential.
Before the new Ultimate Universe came to be, I was attracted to post-Secret Wars 616' attempts to reckon with their merging. Miles was firmly and definitively a 616 character now, but Jimmy Hudson Wolverine showed up in X-Men: Blue (2017), the name "Ultimates" was revived for Al Ewing's 2015 series, Maker appeared in Al Ewing's New Avengers (2015) as well as Donny Cates' Venom (2018), and Saladin Ahmed's Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2018) featured a character named Ultimatum, who is supposedly 616's version of Miles (as if anybody cares). Put together, these brief asides look like a lot, but they were few and far between. Integrating the two earths was really an excuse to get rid of the dwindling Ultimate line and poach its highest profiles gets.
As of now, Jimmy has resurfaced in a TVA series. As one of the 3 Jimmy Hudson fans, not even that will get me to pick up a blatant MCU tie-in cash grab book like that. Hope to see you soon, Jimmy. You adoring fans miss you.
The new Ultimate Universe is excelling in introducing new characters. Maystorm, Doom, and Charli Ramsey Hawkeye are the most high profile, but Ultimate Black Panther will soon be introducing an original villain, the Progenitor. There will always be new supporting and background characters, but new heroes and villains is what I want, like the original universe's Spider-Woman and Jimmy Hudson. Its also made great use of characters that have been off the board for a while, like Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, and Jim Hammond as the Human Torch. Getting these character back in play makes this new line of books distinct from the main one, but also reminds the audience that they exist, and its a signal from Marvel that they remember those characters exist.
Okay, I'm finished now. I've got it out of my system.
Marvel's collecting the first 12 issues of the original 4 (Spider-Man, X-Men, Ultimates, and Fantastic Four) in Epic Collections this year and I will be there no matter what. I'm hoping to one day read most of, if not all, of the original Ultimate Universe, even tho I know it won't all be pleasant. All the while, I'm trying to keep up with the new Ultimate Universe. I genuinely believe that Ultimate Iron Lad and Doom are modern icons in the making, and I'm glad to be witness to it. The old Ultimate Universe might be relegated to a special interest of mine, but its progeny firmly stands on the cutting edge of what superhero comic books can be in the modern age.
