Marvel’s New Ultimates Aren’t Just a Team, They’re a Resistance

Marvel’s Ultimate Universe always has an Avengers, and the newly reborn one is no different. In a few months, the team is returning with The Ultimates, the first real team book of the new Ultimate line. Written by Deniz Camp and drawn by Juan Frigeri, the new book sees Tony Stark gathering superheroes—both those fully-formed and ones who haven’t become their heroic selves yet—to bolster his ranks alongside Doom, Sif, and Captain America.

Talking to ComicBook, Camp explained how his series will build upon the Ultimates foundation previously set by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s original version. Instead of fighting extraterrestrial threats and terrorists around the world, they’re fugitives framed for the murder of thousands back in Ultimate Universe and Ultimate Invasion. Likening them to the Partisans of WWII, Camp called them “a resistance network in occupied territory. Their status as outlaws/terrorists means they are under constant threat.”

Stark’s big plan to build a resistance network of superheroes means every issue will be one-and-dones that introduce the new Ultimate version of a Marvel hero. Beyond Ant-Man and the Wasp for the inaugural issue, Camp isn’t saying who else is part of the roster, but he did note the team’s got an 18-month timetable to build their ranks and save the world from whatever the Maker and his Council have got cooking up with their own personal City. Complicating matters further is Tony himself: as a younger, “more idealistic” version of his 616 self, he’ll find himself pulled in opposite ends by Doom and Captain America.

Team friction will be a big part of the book, especially as the ranks grow. “[They’re] people with very different backgrounds, beliefs, and reasons for fighting, united by [a] common enemy,” continued Camp. In the way OG Ultimates was focused on post-9/11 paranoia, his and Frigeri’s version will look at “that nagging sense that everything’s gone wrong somehow, that things were supposed to be better than this. In that way the two Ultimates will feel very different, but I think (hope) ours is true to the spirit and the ambition of the original.”

Growth and “changing the world” is the Ultimates gameplan, one Camp said will make it very differernt from the primary Marvel universe. Given free reign, he’s most excited to have the chance to make something of his own inside the Marvel sandbox different from his previous contract work. “This feels a lot more like writing a creator owned book,” he said, “albeit one that is directly working with classic Marvel iconography and archetypes. I consider it a real responsibility, and I’m doing my best to live up to it.”

The Ultimates kicks off its debut issue on June 5.

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