The Future of Marvel Ultimate Universe

Miles Morales Returns to the Marvel Ultimate Universe Line-Up This Week!

The Marvel Ultimate Universe was in a very precarious place not too long ago, and to much chagrin and celebration (depending on who you are), the end of the world did not occur during the big Cataclysm crossover event. While the Ultimate Universe did survive, the lay of the land will never be the same for the remaining heroes in this alternate timeline.



"The lay of the land" is really different in two major ways. First, in the books, the world is drastically different. Galactus came and destroyed half of Manhattan amongst much more destruction that wasn't geographically specified, but it had to be bad, because he had a giant planet eating machine drilling into the planet's core. On top of that the array of Marvel Ultimate Universe comics is now much slimmer than before. The only books coming out on the Ultimate U side of things now are The All-New Ultimates, Ultimate FF, and Miles Morales The Ultimate Spider-Man. This is pretty slim pickings by comparison to the many other versions that have come before 2014. For me, this only leads to speculation about how much longer this imprint will continue to publish new stories.

Earth-1610 has been through many cancellations and reboots, but it still manages to hang on somehow. If a world-ending crossover event wasn't enough to put this world to rest, then it may have a healthy future ahead of it for sometime. With that being said, I'm excited for the release of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #1 this Wednesday (May 7th). While there will always be controversy over a Spider-Man that is not Peter Parker, I for one cannot get enough of the work that Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez put out together. Don't get me wrong, I've heard all the complaints about Bendis, and they aren't necessarily wrong, but Bendis is the true visionary behind the Ultimate Universe. I think his relationship to this imprint goes a long way toward some great storytelling.

One of the most fruitful of Bendis's creations, in my view, is the new team of youngster Ultimates, aka The All-New Ultimates. This team had been slowly coming together over many issues of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man and with Marquez leading the art on the final issues of that book, it was a really exciting story arc to read. Now that the team has been formalized in its own series, I'm excited to see what will come of this ragtag team of teenagers. Unfortunately, I have not been a big fan of the art on that book, but Bendis and Marquez are back on Miles Morales, and frankly I can't wait to get my hands on it.

[caption id="attachment_104" align="alignnone" width="650"] Norman Osbourne returns in Miles Morales #1[/caption]

As for the one remaining book in the Marvel Ultimate Universe that I haven't discussed, Ultimate FF has the most potential, but that can go both ways. This book is based on a high concept that Earth-1610 is in dire dimensional straights. The new team of Iron Man, Sue Storm, Falcon, and Machine Man are working to stop dimensional bubbles that continue to appear from tearing their home dimension apart. While the art style is strong, and the concept is very intriguing, it once again leads to the ultimate conclusion (no pun intended) that this universe is headed to the grave. It has killed nearly all its big heroes and now the dimension itself is falling apart. I really don't know how long you can keep a series going based on the premise that the fabric of reality itself is going to shit. Either the crew wins their race against the dimensional decay and save the universe and the book ends, or they don't and the whole universe ends. The stakes are high either way, but I can say at least, for now, they've got me interested. Here's to new comic book Wednesday!

Catch a preview of the new Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man over at Comic Book Resources: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=21468