Trivia / The Ultimates

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Mark Millar actively pushed for Marvel to create an Ultimate Marvel version of the Avengers, of which he was a huge fan.
• Executive Meddling: Millar was not allowed to actually use the name "Avengers" due to Marvel believing that the brand recognition was dead in the water at the time. Millar even stated that Marvel tried to offer him an Ultimate Wolverine book in an attempt to dissuade him. However Kurt Busiek would later reveal that he requested that Marvel not use the Avengers name so his work on the mainstream title would not be overshadowed.
• Follow the Leader: The Scarlet Witch started with her usual powers. In Ultimates 3 it turns out that she's a Reality Warper, so strong that she could bring dinosaurs from the past! This is probably the result of Avengers Disassembled and House of M, which redefined her powers in the main continuity in the same years the first volumes of the Ultimates were produced.
• Schedule Slip: Four storylines were illustrated by Bryan Hitch (Ultimates, Ultimates 2), Joe Madureira (Ultimates 3) and Frank Cho (New Ultimates) all suffered from this.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Millar and Hitch were working on a story titled Civil War. Then Millar got the chance to write Marvel's crisis crossover of the year, so he declined that project, and adapted some of his ideas to the Civil War (2006) comic instead.
  • Millar considered Race Lifting Steve Rogers into a black man.
  • The writers did not actually consult with Samuel L. Jackson to use his likeness in the comics for Nick Fury. If they hadn't been able to work things out amicably, the series would have very likely resulted in being Screwed by the Lawyers.
• Working Title: Ultimate Avengers but the name couldn't be used as Kurt Busiek didn't want the series to overshadow his work on Avengers.