Marvel's Ultimate Comics - Cross-title Continuity?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been reading Marvel’s reboots of their more popular comic lines under the Ultimate rubric, and I’ve been wondering if all these comics are happening in the same “Ultimate” universe. I noticed in the first The Ultimates that The Hulk’s first rampage was brought to a halt by Spider-Man. I’m only four TPBs into Ultimate Spider-Man, and that hasn’t happened yet. I assume it’s coming up later, yes? So, Spider-Man predates the Avengers in this universe. Was that how it was in the original comics?

I’ve also noticed that, in one issue, Peter mention Reed Richards. Except in the Ultimate Fantastic Four book, Richards is a teenager in a special government school when he gets his powers, and it appears that the UFF book came out much, much later than the Spider-Man books. Is this just being ignored? Does UFF start earlier in the timeline than Spider-Man? Are they in totally seperate continuities? Or is there an actual explanation?

If there is cross-continuity, what’s the time-line for these books? Which events happen before which other events? For that matter, what order were these comics released in? I assume Spider-Man’s been around a lot longer, based on the dozen TPBs I’ve seen v. only one or two for most of the other series.

Thanks for your help!

2

Ultimate Spider-man and X-men came out around the same time. They all have cross-continuity with each other but originally there were a bunch of Ultimare books, like cross-overs and Ultimate Team-ups and stuff that seem to have been dropped.

Early on Ultimate Spider-man meets up with the Fantastic Four and has a Reed Richards science building. The concept of the Ultimate FF being formed as teenagers was done a couple of years later so the early USM interactions were “forgotten” if you know what I mean.

Sum up: they do have continuity but it can get very sloppy as to what’s actually happened.

3

I think the Hulk fight happened in Team-Up, not USM. I think. It’s definitely not in any of the USM I have.

Another continuity glitch is a reference in USM to Captain America.

A year before SHIELD found him off the coast of Newfoundland and thawed him out.

Even allowing for compressed comic-book time, it’s out of sequence.

4

I’m amused by this optimistic hope for Marvel’s fabled reverence for continuity, of any sort, in any universe, for any book…

5

Yeah, the Hulk/Spidey thing happened in Team-Up. The Hulk looked and acted nothing like he did in Ultimates.

I strongly suspect that Iron Man’s appearance in Team-Up doesn’t jive with what we saw in the Ultimates, but I don’t remember Ultimates well enough. Can anyone confirm?

I liked Team-Up a lot, but I thought it was an awful idea for the time. If you’re trying to create a new, less complicated universe, the last thing you want to do is introduce a completely new character into it every month.

And yeah, Spider-Man appeared in the MU proper before the Avengers. I think Spidey was introduced in '62 and the Avengers at a team not until '64, but don’t quote me on it.

6

The mentions of Captain America and the Fantastic Four in USM occurred before the decision was made to put the Avengers and Fantastic Four into their own books, so yeah, in retrospcect, those are continuity gaffes. In the Ultimate Fantastic Four, Johnny is about 17, Reed and Sue are in their early 20’s, and Ben is three or four years older, and they just very recently got their powers.

They still haven’t gone public as the FF, but both Reed and Sue are superstars in the science world (Reed in physics and chemistry, Sue in biology), so it’s reasonable to think that maybe science geek Peter was thinking of Reed Richards physicist. In a recent issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter speaks about Sue Storm with awe, telling Johnny that he’s read her work.

Spider-Man has been around the longest (about six years), X-Men came about a year later, Ultimates about two years ago, and Ultimate FF about a year ago. Unlike in the original ASM, Peter hasn’t aged at all; he’s still apparently 15 years old after six years of comics. In the original run, Peter started out at about 16 and aged in real time for the first few years–he started college around issue 37 or 38, I think.

The core Marvel universe as it exists now started with FF #1 in 1961, and it was wildly successful. It was followed by the Hulk in 1962, with Iron Man, Thor, and Ant Man being introduced in Marvel’s anthology titles the same year. Spider-Man came out in Amazing Fantasy #15 in August 1962, and was given his own book in March of 1963. Just about the first thing he did was try to join the Fantastic Four, who rejected him because he wanted to get paid. The Avengers was the last of the core books to come along, in August of 1963, and included all of the second tier characters (Thor, Hulk, Ant Man, Iron Man) that had become popular enough the previous year to earn their own titles.

So the chronology originally was Fantastic Four in 61, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Spider-Man in 62, and the Avengers in 63.

7

What bugs me is that the “ultimate universe” was meant to be a clean slate so new readers wouldn’t need to know decades of past history to start reading.

In 6 years there’s now enough back story that the “ultimate” universe has the same problems as the regular one, with Spidey having now teamed with the the x-men, wolverine solo, met the Fantastic Four, Daredevil… there’s really no need for it to be ultimate anymore.

I think they should have had the Ultimate Spider-man stories set in a real clean slate world where the other marvel characters didn’t exist, and do the same with all the Ultimate properties so that each one was in its own world.

8

Does anyone know if there are any plans for future Ultimate titles? They obviously have most of the core titles already but what about The Incredible Hulk or some second tier titles like DareDevil, The Punisher, or Doctor Strange?

And a tangentially related question: Has Namor had his own book at any time in the recent past or does he just drop into various titles occasionally? (or at all?)

9

The Hulk seems highly unlikely given his treatment in the Ultimates–he’s killed hundreds of people and continues to do so every time he’s allowed to manifest.

Daredevil has made guest appearances, and appeared in Ultimat Daredevil / Elektra, a miniseries that explored their relationship in college.

The Punisher showed up very briefly in USM, and like he does with all normal humans, Peter made short work of him. He doesn’t seem like a good candidate for an Ultimate book.

Namor had his own on-going series that ended earlier this year after 12 issues. It was one of the titles in Marvel’s recent shotgun approach to starting new titles. They’re starting a large number of books, not really promoting or supporting them initially, and waiting to see what picks up an audience and what doesn’t. Namor didn’t, and pretty much nothing without an X in the title is doing well.

The newer titles have been pretty lackluster overall, with the notable exception of She-Hulk, which has had some tight, witty writing and passable interior artwork along with some really top-notch covers.

10

Was the Namor run a 616 title or a MU title?

And I assume Dr Strange gets the same treatment as the Submariner? There whenever anyone needs him but otherwise ignored?

11

Ultimate Iron Man, written by Orson Scott Card, is starting at some point in the near future.

12

They’ll probably wait for sales to start slipping before introducing anything else - as it is, the Ultimate universe is getting pretty crowded and the stacks of books don’t seem to move much at the stores I go to (excepting USM of course).

Also, given how freakin’ poor the UP introduction was - Bendis, really. If you’re not going to try, then don’t bother.

The intro of course being, “cop who decides that the law doesn’t go far enough and so takes up killing criminals.” As opposed to, “Marine who decides that law doesn’t go far enough and so takes up killing criminals.” Punisher 2099 already had that cop who is a vigilante on the side.

Hell, Ennis did a better job of this in his “Raider” story for Judge Dredd.

Ah, Judge Dredd, speak of something where continuity has no meaning.