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| Ultimate Marvel | |
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Cover to "The Official Handbook of the Ultimate Marvel Universe: Vol. 2 #1: Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates"
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| Publication information | |
| Schedule | Varied |
| Title(s) | |
| Formats | Varied |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | 2000 – 2015 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | |
| Penciller(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Joe Quesada |
Ultimate Marvel, later known as Ultimate Comics, was an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring re-imagined and updated versions of the company's superhero characters from the Ultimate Universe. Those characters include Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men, providing new original stories for the characters.
The Ultimate Universe, as a part of a large scale reboot of the All-New, All-Different Marvel multiverse, ended at the conclusion of Secret Wars, when select characters from the Ultimate Universe moved to the mainstream universe.
In the late 1990s, the US comic book industry had declining sales. Annual combined sales from all publishers, which had been close to a billion dollars in 1993, had declined to 270 million. The bubble that held comic books as valuable collectible items ended. The poor reception of the Batman & Robin film cast doubts on the prospects of any other comic book cinematic adaption. Marvel Comics went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, many notable artists left the company, and their rival, DC Comics, topped them in sales. Brian Michael Bendis, who was hired to start the imprint, said that "When I got hired, I literally thought I was going to be writing one of the last — if not the last — Marvel comics".
Comic book continuity, which had been a key to the success of Marvel Comics in its early years, turned into a problem for the readers. All stories had to fit into a sixty years worth of continuity, a bar that very few fans could reach and which scared away new readers. The usual style of superhero comics, with suits of bright colors, corny names and convoluted plots, was of little interest to young adult audiences, which preferred the style set by The Matrix franchise. Most superheroes were adults, even those that started as teenagers, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men. Previous attempts to cut the long continuity did not work as expected: DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time caused several plot contradictions, and Marvel's Heroes Reborn was panned by critics and fans. The Dark Age of Comic Books tried to counter the campiness of the superhero genre with violence and shocking content, but the trend was declining as well.
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