Tag: Jonathan Hickman

NYCC | Marvel’s Ultimate Universe will end next year

Each series will end between December and April, with the final battle with the Maker coming in ‘Ultimate Endgame.’

For the second time, Marvel’s Ultimate Universe will come to an end.

During Marvel’s Next Big Thing Panel at NYCC, Head of Marvel Comics and Franchise Dan Buckley, Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski, Senior Editor Wil Moss, The Ultimates writer Deniz Camp and Ultimate Wolverine writer Chris Condon confirmed that the finite story, as it was conceived by story architect Jonathan Hickman, would wrap up in 2026.

“It’s hard to talk about without getting emotional,” said Camp. “It really is the culmination of everything Jonathan began. Everything from my book and everyone else’s book are all converging. It’s gonna be definitive, it’s going to be big, it’s going to be emotional, there’s going to be death…it’s just wild.”

Marvel previously announced this past summer that December’s Ultimate Spider-Man #24 would be the final issue of that title, and have confirmed that Ultimate Black Panther, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates will all end with their 24th issues. Ultimate Wolverine will end with issue #16. The showdown with the Maker will conclude with the previously announced Ultimate Endgame, the five-issue miniseries that kicks off in December and concludes in April.

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SDCC | ‘Ultimate Endgame’ begins in December as ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ ends

Details were shared at the San Diego Comic-Con this week.

Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s final issue of Ultimate Spider-Man will arrive in December, just as the Maker returns in Ultimate Endgame.

Hickman attended the Marvel Comics: Ultimate Universe Panel at San Diego Comic-Con today, sharing that the story he and Checchetto have been telling was always meant to end with issue #24.

“This was everything that I pitched,” Hickman said. “Nothing has deviated. It’s been really nice to execute the plan well and everything culminates into this issue. Fans of the Ultimate Universe are going to love it. It’s been a real pleasure being the writer of Ultimate Spider-Man.”

It was almost two years ago that fans were introduced to the Ultimate Universe version of Spider-Man — an older Peter Parker married to Mary Jane and father to two kids who had never been Spider-Man. As the maker tried to supress the hero community, Tony Stark had found a way to bring them back, and one of the first heroes he contacted was Peter Parker.

And now that story will come to an end. Here’s a look at the final cover by Checchetto:

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Dan Abnett returns to Marvel to assemble ‘Imperial Guardians’

The former writer of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and other cosmic titles teams with Jonathan Hickman and Cory Smith for an ‘Imperial War’ tie-in.

Dan Abnett, who alongside Andy Lanning helped redefine the Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova as the characters we know today, will return to Marvel’s cosmic arena with Imperial War: Imperial Guardians, a one-shot he’ll co-write with Jonathan Hickman. The duo will be joined by Cory Smith on art.

“It’s great to be back telling cosmic stories as part of the Imperial event,” Abnett said. “My time spent with Nova and the Guardians back in the day was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in comics, and Jonathan’s orchestrating exactly the kind of epic-SF-scale, character-driven and drama-packed epic I love to sink my teeth into. This is quite some ride, and the Galaxy—and the Guardians—won’t be the same again! I’d say it’s the best jumping-on point for Marvel Cosmic since the original Annihilation.”

Imperial Guardians is the fifth one-shot accompanying the Imperial miniseries that finds several cosmic empires dealing with a conspiracy/murder mystery. It will follow issues spotlighting other players in Imperial, including Black Panther, She-Hulk, Nova, and Professor X and Lilandra.

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‘Amazing X-Men,’ ‘Longshots’ + more will debut in October

Jonathan Hickman, Gerry Duggan, Jed MacKay, Mahmud Asrar, Stephanie Phillips, Giada Belviso and more will usher in a new era of X-Men titles.

Following their announcement last week of an Age of Apocalypse-style event for the X-Men line called Age of Revelation, Marvel has revealed the first five reimagined titles that’ll kick off the event.

Like the 1990s event — which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year — Age of Revelation will show us an alternate world and bring the relaunch of several X-related titles for the duration of the event. The titles are all somewhat new yet familiar, and the first five to debut will be Amazing X-Men, Binary, Longshots, World of Revelation and Laura Kinney: Sabretooth.

Many of the titles can be mapped back to the current line, with Jed MacKay writing Amazing X-Men, featuring Cyclops and many of the characters we’re seeing in the current X-Men title — plus interior artwork by Mahmud Asrar. Phoenix writer Stephanie Phillips will write Binary, which is about the Phoenix force, and Erica Schultz will continue to write Laura Kinney, albeit with the character taking on a different (but familiar) name. Longshots, meanwhile, is the odd one in the bunch, as it is about Longshot and Mojo, but also features Kraven, Wonder Man, Bishop, Hellcat and Rhino in a story written by Gerry Duggan and former Krakoa-era architect Jonathan Hickman.

Here’s more details on the first titles Marvel has revealed, with more expected in the coming days.

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Nova + the X-Men enlist in ‘Imperial War’

Professor X’s X-Manhunt story continues in a tie-in one-shot for ‘Imperial,’ while Nova tries to preserve the Xandarian Worldmind.

Marvel has announced two additional one-shots to spotlight some of the players in Jonathan Hickman’s Imperial miniseries. Imperial War: Exiles and Imperial War: Nova Centurian will both arrive this fall.

In case you missed it, Imperial is the latest project from Hickman, the architect of Marvel’s Ultimate Comics relaunch, the Krakoa era of the X-Men line and more. He’s working with Iban Coello and Federico Vicentini to redefine Marvel’s cosmic characters in Imperial, which kicked off earlier this month (I thought the first issue was pretty awesome myself). Marvel will publish five one-shots that tie into the event, starting with Black Panther and She-Hulk, and followed by two more in September.

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Hickman, Vicentini + Coello reach for the stars in ‘Imperial’

The trio will redefine Marvel’s cosmic titles in a miniseries that blasts off in June.

Jonathan Hickman, the architect of Marvel’s very successful Ultimate Comics relaunch, will next turn his attention to Marvel’s cosmic characters in Imperial, a four-issue miniseries that kicks off in June.

Hickman will be joined by two artists, Federico Vicentini and Iban Coello, who will present new takes on everyone from Nova to the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as exploring the legacies of Planet Hulk and the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.

“I’m very excited about this project as I’m obviously a huge fan of all things Marvel Cosmic,” Hickman said. “The goal here is to kind of do what we did with the recent Ultimate line for all of our space titles, except having the setup book be more of an event than a world building exercise. The art team is killing it, and we’re all just very excited for what’s happening in this special corner of the Marvel Universe.”

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Slugfest | Wolverine seeks ‘Revenge’ in Marvel’s August solicitations

We run through Marvel’s August solicitations, which include Venom War, Phases of the Moon Knight, Blood Hunters and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you, with this edition focusing on Marvel’s August 2024 announcements. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel’s solicitations for August landed late last week, right before the long weekend here in the U.S. (which I made even longer!) so let’s catch up on all the new stuff they plan to release in the last month of the summer. Just like I did with DC, I’ll hit the titles I haven’t previously covered. You can read about Spider-Society, the Iron Fist 50th anniversary anthology, Storm joining the Avengers and Rob Liefeld’s final Deadpool comic elsewhere on the site.

Now let’s get to it …

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‘Older, grittier’ Avengers will face off with the Xenomorphs in ‘Aliens Vs. Avengers’

Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić will bring the two Disney properties together in a four-issue miniseries.

“Game over, Iron Man, Game over.” Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić will introduce a new take on the Avengers to battle the Xenomorphs from Aliens in a new miniseries coming this summer.

Aliens Vs. Avengers, or “AVA,” as the cover suggests, will be set in a new timeline many years in the future. As the Xenomorphs make landfall on Earth, they’ll find a grittier version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes ready and waiting.

“Probably one of the coolest things about the project is how we’ve found really fun ways to ‘Avengerize’ Aliens and ‘alien-up’ Avengers,” Hickman told Entertainment Weekly. “I think fans will be surprised at how elegantly some of those things fit together. It really turned out to be a chocolate-and-peanut-butter situation.”

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Deniz Camp + Juan Frigeri relaunch ‘The Ultimates’ in June

A familiar title returns as a part of Marvel’s new Ultimate Universe line.

Marvel’s new Ultimate Universe line will get a familiar addition this summer, as The Ultimates, featuring an Avenger-esque team with Iron Lad, Captain America, Thor, Sif and more, will debut from the team of writer Deniz Camp and artist Juan Frigeri.

The title joins Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Black Panther as part of the Jonathan Hickman-architected line-up of what could arguably be called Marvel’s most exciting launch in quite awhile.

“The new Ultimates line is the most exciting super hero comics event in years, and it’s humbling to be a part of it,” Camp said. “We are reinventing these classic characters and archetypes to be as surprising and vital as when they were first introduced. Our Ultimates is an evolution not just of the Avengers, but of the whole super hero team concept; from the grand and operatic to the small and personal, The Ultimates will feel like no Avengers or Ultimates comic ever before! That’s our ambition, anyway; tune in to find out if we succeed.“

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Doctor Doom battles Galactus in Hickman + Greene’s ‘Doom’

The one-shot arrives from Marvel in May.

Jonathan Hickman and Sanford Greene will team for a battle for the ages, as Doctor Doom battles Galactus “to save all that is and to try to attain a cosmic status that he’s only ever dreamed of.”

The one-shot Doom will arrive in May from Marvel, based on a story idea by the Bitter Root co-creator.

“Growing up reading Marvel Comics, I became fascinated by Doctor Doom and how he potentially is the center of the entire Marvel Universe!” Greene said. “He is one of my bucket list characters and this story is somewhat a love letter to Doom and Marvel.”

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Spider-Man is older, ‘wiser,’ a husband + dad in ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’

Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s new series will give Spider-Man’s marriage more than one more day.

Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man will “zag” instead of “zig” when it debuts in January. Instead of taking the approach of the original Ultimate Universe, where Spider-Man was rebooted as a teenager, they plan to present an older Spider-Man, who is married with a family.

So it’s more Renew Your Vows, less Miles Morales.

“When we decided that we were going to do a book about an older Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man, we really wanted to lean into him starting his super hero life from a very different place than what’s traditionally expected,” Hickman told Marvel.com. “Peter and MJ being married is one of many decisions we made that underline this being quite a ‘different’ kind of Spider-Man story.”

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Marvel announces three more ‘Ultimate’ titles for 2024

Peach Momoko, Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli and more will contribute to the resurrected Ultimate Universe.

Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, which was reincarnated in the recent Ultimate Invasion miniseries, will grow next year with three new titles, following the Ultimate Universe one-shot coming Nov. 1.

Spider-Man, Black Panther and the X-Men will get new Ultimate titles in this “world outside your window” approach architected by Jonathan Hickman.

“What made the Ultimate Universe originally really interesting was that it was a reflection of the world outside your window, in the moment that you were living in. What does it look like in the world we’re living in now?” Hickman said back in June. “It’s kind of shocking how much the world has changed in that period of time. The idea of what it would be like to see the genesis of super heroes in a brand-new world is a really fascinating exercise.”

Hickman himself will write one of the titles, Ultimate Spider-Man, while Bryan Hill will write the first-ever Ultimate Black Panther series.

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