Marvel Comics laid out their roadmap for the next dozen months or so at SDCC, something about Doctor Doom taking over all of 616 and how this would be permanent and everything would change forever, statements we’ve grown jaded to as they’ve been broken over a hundred times before. But it was their statement about the future of their new Ultimate line that got our attention. Specifically, they said Ultimate Spider-Man would end with issue 24 in November, marking a run of just two years.
They sounded serious. They claimed it was the plan all along, and it well might have been. But Ultimate Spider-Man quickly became the company’s best-selling title after launch, and sales haven’t cooled at all — it still outsells the original ASM (which has been a dumpster fire for a long time) in both floppies and trades. If you were Marvel, would you cut that gravy train off, despite being obviously desperate for any gravy train you can find?
Marvel also plans to launch the Ultimate universe’s first big crossover event, Ultimate Endgame, around the same time. It will present a situation that all the Ultimate heroes with their own books will need to reunite to resolve. And once they do it will have a “big impact” on both the Ultimate and Main universes, at least until the next big event a few months later.
Our guess is that Ultimate Spider-Man’s end is about as permanent as the “death” of Ms. Marvel was (already forgot about that, didn’t you). They will make a big scene to the press about the end stories, and after all that is over, they will reveal a new Ultimate Spider-Man #! with a new creative team. Happens every time.
Just….let’s not have the “big impact” of this crossover be that the universes merge. That’s getting old and it also feels way too early. Can’t an AU just remain an AU anymore?
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