Ultimate Marvel / YMMV

Adaptation Displacement: Many elements from Ultimate Marvel are much better known these days than their counterparts from classic Marvel, mostly due to the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which takes heavy cues from it.
- In its early days, the Ultimate titles were a big success and overshadowed the original titles. This was especially the case with the Ultimates, which had far greater success than the relatively obscure Avengers (remember that there was no MCU at this point yet). In fact, let's just say that the first two Ultimates miniseries, the most beloved ones, coincide with the Avengers' Audience-Alienating Era under Chuck Austen. The process was eventually reverted in later years, mainly by the work of Bendis (in New Avengers) and Mark Millar (in Civil War).
- Ultimate Nick Fury has completely overshadowed the original white version due to his deliberate Comic-Book Fantasy Casting as Samuel L. Jackson, which became reality when Jackson started playing the role in the MCU. He has been used in all adaptations of the character since then (for reference, the last Marvel adaptations with a white Nick Fury were the Marvel Ultimate Alliance duology and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe). In the main universe, there is a son of the original Nick Fury who also uses that name and who looks this way (so, for all purposes, it's like having Ultimate Nick Fury around).
- Ultimate Hawkeye's suit looks like sportsman gear instead of the classic purple suit with the Wolverine mask. Ever since it was used in the MCU, it has carried over to the Avengers Assemble TV series and finally the main universe.
- Ultimate Captain America's suits are much more "tactical" with padded armor in contrast to classic Cap who still essentially wears mostly tights. As with Hawkeye, the MCU took heavy inspiration from this for most of movie Cap's suits.
- Hobbie Brown, the original Prowler, has long faded into obscurity. Ultimate Prowler is Aaron Davis, Miles Morales' uncle, and was eventually moved to the prime Earth as well. In either universe, Davis is THE Prowler nowadays. He also appears in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
- Have you ever heard about the original Bombshell? No? A blonde and muscular stoic terrorist, who used actual bombs? Not ringing any bells? Don't worry, she only appeared in the short-lived Hawkeye miniseries in 1983, and then suffered the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. Bombshell only took the name and the explosions motif from her, and nothing else. She was brought to the mainstream comics alongside Miles' cast and joined the Champions in 2019. And no, nobody asked about the "original" Bombshell during this.
Bizarro Episode:
- Spider-Man and Wolverine have a "Freaky Friday" Flip two-parter, and they both go through several bizarre things. Bendis himself appears at the start of final issue, forcing then assistant editor Nick Lowe to say it was his idea, and assuring readers that not even Brian Michael Bendis could milk more than two issues out of this.
- In one of the last issues of Ultimate FF we learn about an alternate universe, which seems to be basically the same as the Ultimate one, except that the local characters are Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptations. It's as bizarre as it sounds and then some.
- Ultimate Adventures. It was an odd Batman and Robin parody and was never referenced by any other Ultimate titles.
- Ultimate Iron Man ended up being so contradictory and just plain weird (Tony is revealed to basically be a Brain Monster in human form, for example) that subsequent stories retconned it into being nothing but a Show Within a Show.
Complete Monster: See here.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Ultimate Nick Fury, so much that he is currently better known than the Caucasian mainstream version; he was even used for the movie adaptations.
- The Ultimate Jessica Drew became a pretty big one.
- Pyro, probably due to his interesting design.
Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans like to pretend that Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum never happened.
Harsher in Hindsight: When Magneto returned, Nick Fury started setting up defenses in the White House. "The White House is gonna be a virtual fortress by the time I'm finished with it. Absolutely secure against both post-human and nuclear attack". And it did work... until the Maker blew up all of Washington DC.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- When the Ultimate Universe was first started, there were some rumblings and rumors among fans that Marvel was going to use it to reboot/replace the mainstream universe. Years later, this ended up basically happening over at DC.
- Hela forces Thor to have sex with her to free Valkyrie, eventually conceiving a son with him. Come Thor: Ragnarok, the two are made siblings.
Once Original, Now Common:
- After the line's huge success in its early days, Marvel started incorporating some of its stylistic trademarks (e.g the more cinematic pacing and storytelling) into its main universe (under the pens of Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis to boot), thus leaving the Ultimate Universe without a distinct voice. This is one of the main reasons that led to Ultimate Marvel's sales decline in the mid-late '00s.
- Another initial positive aspect of the Ultimate universe was that it was a fresh start, without the Continuity Lock-Out that the mainstream Marvel universe had after so many decades. This aspect was lost simply by the passing of time, as the Ultimate universe would eventually get to a Continuity Lockout of its own.
- The attacks of Magneto in Washington DC and Hulk in New York were not treated as standard superhero conflicts, but as 9/11 type of disasters, where Nothing Is the Same Anymore after them. This served as Genre Deconstruction, as they explored the consequences that those attacks would have if Plot Armor, Conveniently Empty Building, No Endor Holocaust and the like were turned off. However, later writers could not keep up with the deconstruction aspect of the Ultimates.
Narm:
- Ultimate Power, being drawn entirely by Greg Land, has a lot of his... "unique artistic touches" present throughout.
- Reed Richard's Face–Heel Turn in "Ultimate Enemy", and his explanation for his motives in particular at the end of the trilogy, comes across less as an emotionally fragile genius having a breakdown as much as him throwing a tantrum.
Older Than They Think: The Maker is a villain who is a Knight Templar who works For Science! and is willing to establish a scientific utopia by any means needed, no matter how evil and destructive. Although the most successful and popular one, he was not the first character in the Ultimate Marvel universe to fit this description: George Tarleton from Ultimate Vision was another contender.
Only the Creator Does It Right: Too Bleak, Stopped Caring aside, the stuff written by Mark Millar or Brian Michael Bendis (maybe also Warren Ellis) seem to be the only Ultimate books that were consistently successful and what got new fans on board. This is lampshaded in Ultimate Comics: Avengers where Nick Fury comments on how much shit had gone down the minute he left.
Saved by the Fans: Marvel canceled the Ultimate Marvel line in 2015, during the Secret Wars event. Some fans did not like this and wanted it to come back, so Bendis brought it back in Spider-Men II.
The Scrappy:
- Most fans had really bad reactions toward Ultimate Deadpool, due to him being a psychopathic human supremacist rather than the Crazy Is Cool Anti-Hero character from the mainstream.
- Similarly, Ultimate Wolverine is also widely hated by both fans of his mainstream counterpart and of the Ultimate Universe for his creepy sexual acts and obsessions. See Values Dissonance below for more details.
Seasonal Rot: The Jeph Loeb era (from Ultimate Power until the end of Ultimate X) in general and Ultimates Volume 3 and Ultimatum in particular, and the start of the rot period, and most definitely the height of it. It's easy to see why Marvel relaunched the line as Ultimate Comics afterward. Ultimate Spider-Man is usually exempt from this, though, and hasn't ever really had been hit with the trope, with the worst of it being volume 3's Broken Base regarding Miles Morales.
Signature Scene: The climactic fight between the Ultimates and the Liberators, specifically for showcasing almost every hero in Ultimate Marvel up to that point. It's even used as the page image for Ultimate Marvel itself.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The portrayal of the X-Men and especially Magneto was heavily disliked since the majority of them were all made into jerks with very few likable characteristics and this ended up making their role as the "good" mutants problematic. Specifically, Magneto being made into a genocidal psychopath with none of the redeeming elements the mainstream version had was seen as a waste of a good villain, and which likewise made Professor X's mercy and willingness to try and redeem him seem especially pointless and suicidal. The twist at the end of Ultimatum, that the mutants are not a product of evolution, is likewise seen as a cheapening of their entire mythos.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Ultimate Captain Marvel. A Kree soldier who defects to try and save Earth from Gah-Lak-Tus because he thinks we're interesting, showing himself to be smart, snarky (well, he was created by Warren Ellis), but openly good and decent, a rarity in the Ultimate Universe. But he was not incorporated as a regular character in any of the ongoing series, and just had roles in some crossover events. He was eventually killed in the "Hunger" miniseries.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- Carol Danvers as head of S.H.I.E.L.D., given she was an air-force officer not used to running an intelligence agency, but she's far less morally compromised than Nick Fury. And then the writers proceeded to do absolutely nothing with that idea, and she was eventually booted out in favor of having Fury back in charge. She also never became a superhero like her mainline comics counterpart.
- After Ultimate Power, Zarda of Supreme Power travels over to the Ultimate universe to "keep an eye" on the Ultimates. She proceeds to do nothing of any real value, before leaving again at the end of New Ultimates. Making this all the more baffling was that Jeph Loeb was the one who brought her there and then wrote her out again (a decision which, rather infuriatingly, meant that they screwed up the plans for Supreme Power for nothing).
- Ultimate Jessica Drew is the female clone of Peter Parker, a heterosexual man, and has his exact mind, memories, and feelings. Peter likes women, and so does she. As discussed by Spider Talk, this would open the door to an interesting exploration of gender topics, but it was never used beyond some limited scenes. Of course, she was a secondary character, and to treat the topic with the required depth she should have had a comic book for her own.
- While its status as canon tends to flip-flop, Ultimate Origins reveals that Richard and Mary Parker were killed by the Hulk after Banner's first transformation. Peter never finds this out and the dramatic potential of him confronting Banner/Hulk about this is never explored.
Unexpected Character
- At every issue of Ultimate FF. But the last one takes the cake: Miles Morhames? The Ultimate Spider-Ham?
- In the later third of Ultimate Power, a mishap causes the original Squadron Supreme to show up.
- Who would have expected the fight between Wolverine and Hulk to be interrupted by Ultimate She-Hulk?
- The Ultimate Galactus Trilogy featured Ultimate Misty Knight, a character who had not been used by Marvel since the 1970s. After this appearance, she was brought back into the mainstream Marvel universe as well.
- Probably nobody expected the cops in All-New Ultimates to turn out to be the Ultimate take on Terror Inc. (and few were even aware that such a team ever existed).
Unintentional Period Piece: The line as a whole, but especially any part written by Mark Millar. Constant references to mostly now-forgotten celebrities and events, Comic-Book Fantasy Casting all over the shop, and most famously, the "You think this letter on my head stands for France?" moment, when America was disdaining France for not joining in the Iraq War (just a few years later, public opinion turned strongly against the war, and Ultimate Cap even expressed regret for saying it).
Values Dissonance: The edgy sexualization of the comics was intended to update the characters but it ended up going in the other direction in a few stories:
- Ultimate Wolverine's creepy seducing of teenage and adolescent girls was intended to paint him as a "bad boy" and ladies' man, but especially after the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, he comes across as a creepy sexual predator and pedophile. His seduction and fixation on Jean Grey, who at the very least was of legal age, was bad enough but he later frags Cyclops to Murder the Hypotenuse and then lies about doing so to Jean. His behavior when he is trapped in Peter's body (a situation caused by Jean Grey because he tried to creep on her again) has him trying to take advantage of Peter's relationship with MJ to apparently do something lewd with her, making him come across as an attempted rapist. And shortly before his death, in the lead-up to Ultimatum, he tried to sleep with the similarly underaged, and Peter's and MJ's former classmate, Liz Allan.
- This also applies to Tony Stark who openly seduces and sleeps with his interns and co-workers and where Wolverine at least gets some pushback, this is glorified as Ultimate Tony's usual playboy schtick, when today that kind of stunt would be seen as red flags and unbecoming of a supposed superhero.
Win Back the Crowd:
- At the end of the '90s, Marvel declared bankruptcy and their comics were underselling as a result of a general Audience-Alienating Era that had gripped the Marvel Continuity since the '90s. Ultimate Marvel, especially under the pen of Brian Michael Bendis provided a refreshing spin and change of scenery, as well as a proving ground for alternative takes on familiar characters that were tentative experiments on the direction Marvel could go in the future.
- Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum, by Jeph Loeb, were widely panned as bad works. It did not help that he was still coping with the death of his son and that he was not familiar enough with Ultimate Marvel. His work improved with New Ultimates and X, and the Ultimates and X-Men finally returned to their great quality when written by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer.

YMMV / Ultimate Marvel

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