It's the year 2000 and Marvel has come to you to head the brand new ultimate universe. How do (You) do things differently.
It's the year 2000 and Marvel has come to you to head the brand new ultimate universe.
It's the year 2000 and Marvel has come to you to head the brand new ultimate universe. How do (You) do things differently.
I never let Mark Millar work on anything
zero edgelord storyline mandate
keep characters in the spirit of the OG but update shit for modern day, some twists are ok but need to be argued for.
characters can die but not just for shock value
NO MULTIVERSE/TIME TRAVEL
no retcons because you fricked up the story, plan shit out and think about it
No, keep the edgy shit. Just keep it inspired and not moronic. I like stuff like Spider-Man villains having no idea who he is and talking down to his as a kid, which he is. Or Jean Grey being forced to kill a scientist and live with it while working for Weapon X.
But then there's really stupid stuff, like the first couple of Ultimate X-Men arcs do stuff like a fakeout Beast death just a few issues in (as if anyone would give a shit that early on). That's moronic. And in the next arc they introduce Rogue as a villain but quickly reveal her to be not that bad. That's moronic too. You had a whole universe full of new possibiltiies and you immediately started aping shit from the OG universe? Keep Rogue as a villain at least for a while you morons.
I can agree on no retcons though.
>No, keep the edgy shit. Just keep it inspired and not moronic. I like stuff like Spider-Man villains having no idea who he is and talking down to his as a kid, which he is. Or Jean Grey being forced to kill a scientist and live with it while working for Weapon X.
thats not edgy tho, i mean shit like blob eating wasp then giant mean eating blob.
or hulk screamin hes gonna rape and eat everyone
You can do edge but it doesn't have to be cannibal Hulk or Blob eating Wasp
If you can’t have time travel/multiverse then how do you justify the existence of the maker?
Actually give Ultimate Reed a long form character arc that builds him up into becoming the maker.
For an overall change, I'd have time actually move along side the real world like how 616 used to be. So lets say by Issue 30 of USM Peter would have been now about to or have already graduated high school
This
I would not give Miller any property. Instead while still being set in a realistic world. Stuff like Ultimates would take on a more hopeful tone. It be a story about a black and white Captain America coming into a modern cynical grey world and showing how the values of truth and justice will always prevail against those who try and corrupt the message
Ultimate X-Men would have the biggest change, the series would start with scientist Nathaniel Essex discovering the mutant gene and revealing it to the world. Xavier along side his adopted teenage son Scott, had spent years trying to keep the existence of mutants secret (MiB style). But with mutant fear and hate on the rise, Xavier puts together what is part superhero team/part PR team and creates the X-Men. As much as the story is about typical X-Men stuff. It would also largely focus on a more loner version of Scott learning how to break down the walls he's put up around himself since the presumed death of his family and learn to be apart of a family again. I'd also have Havoc and Magneto parallel Scott's and Xavier's relationship
Ultimate Spider-Man: don't wait until #160 to kill Peter Parker and replace him with Miles, do it in #1, and sort of make Pete a spiritual mentor to Miles, leaving some sort of diary or pre-recorded holograms (like in Miles' video game) that will give us some flashbacks about how and why the old Spider-Man was defeated so the new Spider-Man won't repeat his fate. Also, Peter is supposed to be in his early 20s when he is killed and is in a relationship with Black cat after MJ fled to LA (Gwen's dead). Give the first 20-30 issues to Kevin Smith, then give it to Mark Waid. Bagley's art was great back in the day, so have him draw this version as well.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: make them all students, not high school students, and throw out the "Reed was a kid who was bullied" crap. Put Joss Whedon on it, I guess.
Ultimate Avengers/The Ultimates (I like the latter option better): as wrote, let Captain America be a man of the old days, not the arrogant boomer that Millar wrote him to be, who's trying to fit into a world full of gray tones instead of b/w morality of his times. Make Thor look like the deities from Gaiman's American Gods, not some crazy freak. Less edginess, less scenes like that fight between Hank and Janet, less personal drama. I like the structure though, so let it be 13-episode volumes. Give the first volume to Brubaker and the second to Fraction, maybe.
Ultimate X-Men: just give it to Brian K Vaughan from #1 and let him do whatever he wants. Like the costumes and characters' look in Millar's version, let em stay.
Ultimate Daredevil: bring in Frank Miller and let him do whatever he wants, as long as it's not a direct sequel to his 80s DD. And have JRJR draw it.
Ultimate Dr Strange: make it as close to the original version as possible, but make the Ancient One an enemy in the future. Have Jason Aaron write it and Hitch draw it.
Ultimate S.H.I.E.L.D: just some cool spy and special forces anthology, let Greg Rucka handle it.
Is the plan to roll these out gradually? Cause Jason Aaron didn't get in comics till he won that marvel contest in 2001 and didn't get another published comic till 2006 with The Other Side
No way would he be writing an ongoing for Marvel in the early 00s
>Is the plan to roll these out gradually?
Yes, exactly in that order. USM and UF4 in 2000, The Ultimates in 2001, UXM in 2002, UDD in 2003, UDrS and Ultimate S.H.I.E.L.D in 2004.
>No way would he be writing an ongoing for Marvel in the early 00s
Well, in my universe he would write Ultimate Dr Strange in 2004. Or maybe I'll write the first 1-2 arcs myself, if OP is fine with that condition, to lay the foundations and origins the right way, and then give it to him. Either way, thanks for the tip.
Thinking about it, maybe there should be another title, something like Ultimate Team-Up or Ultimate Stories launched in ~2002, introducing lesser known characters or giving "alternativee takes" on those already established heroes of the Ultimate Universe, written and illustrated by new talents, both Aaron and Fraction could start here first.
I would’ve given him until issue 100 but yeah they NEEDED to get pete out of high school
I punt Bendis out of the industry.
No Millar, no Ellis, no Benis. No moronic edgelord nonsense, no wifebeating, no incest, no Wolverine seducing teenagers, no cannibal mass murder Hulk.
Keep all of the books broadly separate for at least 2 years (they mostly did this anyway, the only real difference would be just introducing Wanda and Pietro in Ultimate Avengers and dropping them from being in X-Men completely), let stories run as long or short as they need to rather that making everything paced and plotted for the trade, and bring things to an end after about ten years at most. Not an ending in a big event where lots of characters die, just each book reaches it's own individual conclusion. Then wait a year or two and do a new modern-day reboot aimed at new readers.
>no Wolverine seducing teenagers
Maybe a little of Wolverine seducing teenagers?
>ITT a lot of ideas that would’ve had the Ultimate Universe DoA
It should have been DoA, really, because in the long term it ruined the entire comic book industry after they (unsuccessfully) tried to "ultimatize" Earth-616 with all those "soft reboots" (BND, Marvel NOW), and after DC (also unsuccessfully) tried the same trick with the New 52.
I'd rather Marvel go completely broke financially in the early 2000s and shut down, let the superhero genre slowly rot as a whole, and DC focus more on Vertigo stuff and give its writers and artists more creative freedom to compete with Image, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, and other publishers.
>I'd rather Marvel go completely broke financially in the early 2000s and shut down, let the superhero genre slowly rot as a whole, and DC focus more on Vertigo stuff and give its writers and artists more creative freedom to compete with Image, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, and other publishers.
>implying any of those publishers would survive without Marvel propping up the entire industry
Keep Bendis
Find someone else for Ultimate X-Men
Kill petey in comic 2. Rest of the series till they oust me is just me fricking kitty on traditional 9 panel layouts(splashpages budget pending)
How is this different from what Bendis did other than him waiting longer
Creative and Editorial Changes:
>No Bendis
>Books are numbered in volumes so every "season" can serve as a jumping on point for new readers.
>2000AD style "real time" universe. 1 year IRL = 1 year in the books
>These books are issues NOT chapters; season-long arcs are okay, but each issue needs its own story to tell as well. Two and three parters along the way are fine but should be the exception not the rule.
Narrative changes
>Wait until two or three years in to introduce SHIELD
>Plan line-wide events WITH the writers and far enough in advance to avoid stepping on the ongoing story's toes
Business changes
>Cut ties with Diamond and strike up a deal with someone like Random House so comics get back into the eyes of the general reader.
>Have kids titles like Power Pack or Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur be published in quarterly digests by Scholastic so kids can buy them at the book fair
Ultimate was really good in the beginning a clear rip off of the Top Cow comics but unlike DC they not only employed the guys but they didn't come up with hypocritical ''Anti hero bad''. But things went downhill really fast because all the comics were on edge because of 9/11 which is in my opinion the last era of mainstream American comics.
Ultimate Spider-Man ages every year.
Ultimates are called Avengers. Mostly the same, Iron Man has his 616 origin and Hank Pym has a mental breakdown but doesn't beat his wife. Also ultimate Black Widow and Hawkeye don't turn bad and Scalet Witch isn't fricking Quicksilver.
Ulltimate FF are adults, but keep Sue being a biologist or whatever.
Ultimate X-Men have the Morrison letterman jackets.
Just tell rule of cool "realisitc where it works" stories about superheroes doing superhero shit in a hyperpoliticized realm
Write them like 616 characters in a world where they can actually punch Netanyahu/Putin/Xi in the face like back in the old days.
>Ultimate Spider-Man ages every year.
Meh, you can only write 2-3 stories in 12 issues, that's not enough, besides, he'd be what now, 40 or something? ~16 in 2000 + 24.
>Ultimates are called Avengers. Mostly the same, Iron Man has his 616 origin and Hank Pym has a mental breakdown but doesn't beat his wife. Also ultimate Black Widow and Hawkeye don't turn bad and Scalet Witch isn't fricking Quicksilver.
OK, I guess that's fine, but then what's the difference from 616 version?
>Ulltimate FF are adults, but keep Sue being a biologist or whatever.
Young adults, in their early-to-mid 20s, with Reed and Ben slightly older than Sue and Sue slighty older than Johnny
>Ultimate X-Men have the Morrison letterman jackets.
Yep.
>Just tell rule of cool "realisitc where it works" stories about superheroes doing superhero shit in a hyperpoliticized realm
That's just any ordinary 2000s X-Men book then.
>Write them like 616 characters in a world where they can actually punch Netanyahu/Putin/Xi in the face like back in the old days.
That happened in post-Ultimatum comics afaik, and readers didn't like it.
>Meh, you can only write 2-3 stories in 12
Who told you this? If you can't tell a cohesive story in 21 pages you're a fricking moron
>OK, I guess that's fine, but then what's the difference from 616 version?
The whole point of Ultimates originally was it was supposed to be the superheroes everyone knows minus forty years of continuity. They weren't supposed to be psychopaths.
>Young adults, in their early-to-mid 20s
late 20s/early 30s. Reed has phds, Ben is an accomplished fighter pilot, Sue should be at least 25 and 10+ years older than Johnny, who should be around Pete's age.
>That's just any ordinary 2000s X-Men book then.
Pretty much New X-Men and nothing else.
>That happened in post-Ultimatum comics
It really didn't. It moved into absurdity. I'm talking about a story with the fidelity of Watchmen but the optimism of a Fleischer Superman cartoon.
All of the heroes are Satanic cannibals with a preference for babies.