Personally, I like all the Ultimate titles. I’ve been reading and enjoying them. But I have to wonder how long Bendis and Millar can keep it up. If you look at the big picture, they’re not really doing anything original - they’re basically just strip-mining fifty years of continuity for their ideas. At some point, they’re going to run out of interesting characters and plotlines to “inspire” them. And the question will be how sharp will the drop-off be? Again, I don’t mean this as a knock against either man - they’ve both shown in other titles that they are fully capable of creating original ideas.
I’d have to say that I agree with you. I was really enjoying Ultimate Spider-man up until Gwen Stacy died. Not so much because it seemed out of left field or was done in a really unsatisfying way but because it revealed to me that the most originality that is going to be seen is going to be minor variations on old characters. There’s not really anything original being done and reading normal Spider-man comics let you know how it’s all going to turn out, so what’s the point? I know now that as long as it goes on Ultimate Spider-man’s just going to go through the classic rogues roster beating them all up again for the first time and of course doing the comic book thing of never really defeating anyone.
There’s just no sense of accomplishment.
Um… as the Marvel Universe stands, it’s just a little over 40 years old. Before 1961 it was Atlas Comics and Timely before that.
From Wikipedia: “Marvel Comics was founded in the 1930s under a constantly changing set of names, the most cited being Timely Comics. Its first major publication was Marvel Comics #1 (1939), featuring the first appearance of the superhero The Human Torch and the anti-hero The Sub-Mariner. During the 1940s Timely was also known for publishing the patriotic hero Captain America.”
Stan Lee was well aware of the heritage of the company he took over creative management of. But most people date the “Marvel Universe” as it has existed for the last 40 years or so to his institution, nearly simultaneously, of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, using their success to re-institute or create the other main characters that have populated it in the decades since. Effectively, the original Human Torch, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America were remembered by only a few comics buffs when Reed Richards, his wife and brother-in-law, Ben Grimm, and Peter Parker had their unusual encounters with radioactivity and underwent their transformations.
I was thinking the same thing. It seems to me as though on top of just re-using stories from the regular Marvel U, they’re going through everything too fast. Ultimate Spider-Man has been going on for, what, four or five years so far? And they’ve already introduced Venom and Carnage, killed Gwen Stacy, etc.
I think the titles will fizzle out either when they run out of old ideas to upgrade, or what continuity becomes tangled enough that the purpose of Ultimate titles in the first place is defeated.
Wikipedia is wrong.
The entitity known as “Marvel Comics” didn’t exist until Fantastic Four #1. circa November, 1961 (give or take). Prior to FF #1, no comic had a “Marvel Comics” logo (the fact that there was a comic called “Marvel Comics” is irrelevant), the name of the company didn’t exist (I thought I’d read somewhere that they actually incorperated under the new name) and after that, some titles were still published under the “Atlas” logo/name until Marvel had clearly won. Case in point, Amazing Adult Fantasy#12-14 were published well after FF #1, but were Atlas comics. It wasn’t until Amazing Fantasy" #15 that the title switched to the Marvel logo from the Atlas one.
Timely Comics was founded in late 1939, and Atlas was founded later. The two merged (or, IIRC, Timely was purchased by Atlas) but both became Marvel and pretty much ceased to exist the same way that Quality, Fawcett and Charleton did when DC subsumed them. .
It would be like saying “Citigroup” was founded in 1861 (made up year), because that’s when one of the companies it’s bought out and merged with was founded.
Or, to use a comic-book example. if DC purchased “Tower Comics” (which lasted from about 1964 to about 1967), it would still be incorrect to say that “Tower Comics” was founded in 1939 with the publication of "New Fun Comics #1 (DC’s first title, IIRC) even though DC owns Tower. Heh…or, better, if (God help us) Image Comics (founded circa 1988 or so, at a guess) purchased DC Comics, you couldn’t say that Image was founded in 1939.
Fenris
It’s all about the money. As long as the Ultimate titles consistently show up among the top sellers, the Ultimate universe will remain viable. The three core titles are consistent top ten sellers, Ultimate Spider-Man is the best selling Spider book, and Ultimate FF is outselling the core universe title nearly 2 to 1.
I think it’s premature to think they’re going to run out of stories and characters from the core universe to export to the Ultimate universe anytime soon. There are over 1000 Spider-Man comics in the core universe from which to adapt stories and characters, with similar numbers available for the FF and X-Men. In addition, the modern trend of expanding stories means that a one issue story from the 60’s may take three to six issues now.
I think the two universes can easily exist side-by-side. The Ultimate Universe is much more accessible to new readers than the core. Ultimate X-Men, in particular, is much easier to follow than the 20 or so core universe X-Books, with their labyrinthine backgrounds and history so convoluted it makes a tv soap opera look like a straightfoward narrative. As long as Marvel keeps the Ultimate U small and accessible, it should prove to be profitable and thus, viable.
So we should be fine until we see the Clone Saga start, right?
You guys nitpick much? If you look back at the OP you’ll see what I wrote was “they’re basically just strip-mining fifty years of continuity for their ideas”. No mention of it specifically being Marvel Comics ™ continuity. In fact I didn’t actually mention the word Marvel in the post. So arguing about the duration of Marvel Comics the company vs Marvel Comics the comic book series is a little ridiculous.
Captain America is a major character in the Ultimate titles. Is there anyone who’s going to argue that his character does not date back more than fifty years?
They’ve done themselves in by rushing things as well.
The entire point of the Ultimate universe was to entice new fans by scrapping continuity and restarting all the characters in the present.
By rushing things the new characters are rapidly getting back to the point of having convoluted pasts that are innaccessible to new readers.
Off the top of my head the Ultimate version of Spider-man has, in 60 odd issues: lost uncle Ben, fought the Green Goblin (twice), hooked up with Mary Jane, met Gwen Stacy, had GS die tragically, met most of the X-men, fought the Lizard, fought Docter Octopus (twice), fought Venom, fought Carnage, etc, etc.
Sorry, but this is just wrong. Cite?
Timely/Atlas/Marvel are the same company, that company being the company founded by Martin Goodman back in the 1930s and sold to Cadence in the 1970s. In fact “Timely” and “Atlas” weren’t even the company names, just logos really, and ones that were not always consistently applied. This explains it pretty well: Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Timely Comics and Atlas Comics
Marvel and the Marvel Universe as we know it do date from November 1961, and the company celebrated it’s 25th anniversary in 1986. But the company itself consistently published comics from 1939 to the present day under a variety of names, and Stan Lee worked for that same company the whole time.
Hmmm…looking for a cite to show that Goodman actually incorporated under the Marvel name in 1961, it appears that he didn’t…
Also, FF#1 does not have a Marvel logo (actually it doesn’t appear to have any publisher’s logo, unless that tiny little “MC” under the Comic Code seal means “Marvel Comics”)-neither does Hulk #1 or Amazing Fantasy #15 or Journey Into Mystery #83 (I’m looking at the cover reprints in “Origins of Marvel Comics”)
I’d been under the impression that they’d actually created a new company that was seperate from Timely–ala the Touchstone/Disney thing. Apparently that’s not the case. They appear to have just started publishing stuff as “Marvel” and then changed their name.
Fought Dix…
(sorry, but Blazing Saddles just came to mind…)
RikWriter Johnson’s right. If he hadn’t said it, I was going to.