Ultimate Marvel

The imprint was launched in the 2001 with the publication of Ultimate Spider-Man. While Ultimate Spider-Man was originally aimed at younger readers in their teenage years, other titles in the Ultimate imprint have being aimed at older readers; however, all titles in the Ultimate imprint were intended primarily to attract new readers rather than to convert the existing Marvel fanbase. To go with the modern times, several things have changed in the characters backstories.

A noteworthy aspect of the Ultimate Marvel universe is that many of the characters are more youthful than their regular-continuity counterparts. In some cases, this is simply a result of taking the characters back to their origins - Spider-Man and the X-Men were teenagers at the beginning of their respective series - but other cases involve more striking changes. In particular, the backstory of the Ultimate Fantastic Four has been compressed so that they gain their powers when Reed Richards, the eldest, is only twenty-one years old, his role as father-figure of the group being transferred to the new character of Professor Storm, the actual father of Sue and Johnny Storm.

The characters in this line exist outside of the regular Earth 616 continuity of the Marvel Universe and therefore do not interact with their "original version" counterparts. There is some speculation in the comics industry and fandom that if the imprint continues to do well, the new incarnations of the characters in the Ultimate Universe may replace the "regular" Marvel Universe characters as the "official" versions of the characters.

Two writers noted for their work in the line are Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar. Former president Bill Jemas and Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada were also deeply involved in the creation of the line.

Titles

On-going titles