Marvel Comics came into the year 2000 with a lot to make up for. While the X-Men and Spider-Man had sold well throughout the preceeding decade, nothing else really had and they were both at the end of their powers. Marvel needed something new and they went in a very risky direction for it – restarting everything from scratch. This was the original Ultimate Universe and it remains one of the most important moments in Marvel history. The House of Ideas had a lot riding on the success of Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men; if those books would have failed, things would have gone very differently for the company. However, they were successful, something that unfortunately wouldn’t last.
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The Ultimate Universe’s history is one of massive success, followed by a slow fall from grace. However, even back in the early days of the Ultimate Universe, it was already going off the rails. While there’s a decent amount of nostalgia for it among older readers, most of them realize that the second Ultimate Universe is the better of the two. The first Ultimate Universe went off the rails these five times and it shows why the latter version is superior.
5) Hank Pym vs. the Wasp
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Hank Pym is Marvel’s most controversial hero. Years ago, during a psychotic break, writer Jim Shooter wrote a scene where he pushed the Wasp away. However, the artist made it look like he hit her. This scene led to Hank being thought of as a wifebeater in the years since, something that the Ultimate Universe would bring to the character in The Ultimates. Hank and the Wasp’s relationship was a part of the book and the sixth issue of the series would see them get into an argument that would lead into a brutal case of spousal abuse.
Writer Mark Millar taking something to the extreme isn’t at all surprising; in fact, it was why Marvel hired him back then. However, even in those days, we all knew there was something kind of wrong with this scene. Back then, the “realism” of the original Ultimate Universe was one of its selling points and you could say that if there was a case of superpowered spousal abuse, it would look like this, sure. However, there’s really no reason to every put this in a comic. Moments like this made The Ultimates hot back then, but they are just kind of terrible.
4) The Hulk’s First Attack
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Speaking of The Ultimates, let’s go back an issue from the time when Hank decided to nearly kill Janet. The Ultimates #5 saw Bruce Banner finally lose it and make himself the Hulk, attacking New York City in what can only be described as an incel rage. He had been brought into the Ultimates to help make superpowered subjects, nothing he had done worked, everyone made fun of him, and Betty was dating Freddie Prinze Jr. He wanted attention, so he attacked the city.
What follows was a battle where he made homophobic jokes, SA jokes, threatened to eat people, and basically did a whole bunch of stuff that you wouldn’t be able to do in comics nowadays. Back then, this issue was one of the hottest comics around, talked about in magazines and the Internet. Part of why it was popular was because of how edgy it was, but looking back, it’s just childish. The art is fantastic, because Bryan Hitch can make anything look great, but after reading this, we shouldn’t have been surprised the directions things would take.
3) Ultimate Wolverine and Teen Jean
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Wolverine has had many love interests, with his relationship with Jean Grey being one of the most important. It’s especially prevalent in alternate universes and the Ultimate Universe was no different. However, it honestly shouldn’t have been. Ultimate X-Men starred a team of teen X-Men. One member wasn’t a teen, though – Wolverine. In the beginning of the book, he was an adult mutant assassin who joined the team to kill Xavier at the behest of Magneto. He had the customary crush on Jean and ended up acting on it, leading to the two sleeping together within the first six issues of the book.
One thing I want you to notice about all of these moments is that they are all written by Mark Millar. A lot of the reason that we paid so much attention to his work was because of moments like this; they grabbed everyone’s attention and everyone talked about them. However, let’s look at this from a real world perspective – adult men thought it would be a good idea to make a story where a dirtbag adult sleeps with a teen girl and he’s somehow a character that we’re supposed to root for in the days to come.
2) Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver Incest
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Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are the most famous superheroes twins of them all and they were a lock for the original Ultimate Universe; really, any time you’re doing a new version of the Avengers, you need to include them. The two of them were always close in the Marvel Universe, so writer Mark Millar decided that it would be funny if he made then uncomfortably close to one another. It was all done in order to make incest jokes. I’m not going to lie to you, either – at the time, most of us found all of this kind of funny. Then, writer Jeph Loeb took over the Ultimates and humorous subtext became text.
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were one hundred perfect in an incestuous relationship. There was also the chance that they weren’t actually Magneto’s children, but Wolverine’s, and he used to watch them have sex sometimes (remember, in the Ultimate Universe, they were on the younger end, so there’s a good chance that Ultimate Wolvie was watching them as teens). Incest jokes are one thing, but this was another. Oh, and their incest was a major plot point of The Ultimates 3. At the very least, fans did cause an uproar at that point but the fact that every thought that incest was a great main plot will always be strange.
1) Ultimatum
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Ultimatum has earned a reputation as one of the worst Marvel event comics ever. The book spun out of The Ultimates 3, which was saw Doctor Doom kill Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. This drove Magneto mad and Ultimatum was about his revenge. He started out by reversing the magnetic poles of the planet, causing a string of natural disasters including the Ultimatum Wave, a massive tidal wave that hit New York City and killed millions. Magneto’s mutant army would begin attacking survivors, with the heroes doing their best to mitigate the damage, saves lives and fight off the attackers, and end Magneto’s threat.
This story was the darkest comic you could imagine and fans were turned off by it immediately. It honestly felt like it was a parody, pushing the envelope of violence to ridiculous places. You can tell that they thought that the “realistic” violence would shock fans into reading, but all it did was drive them away. It did immeasurable damage to the Ultimate Universe. There’s an argument to be made that it killed the Ultimate Universe, the line shambling on another six years before its end in 2015.
What do you think were the most wild moments in the original Ultimate Universe? Do you think I was too hard on Mark Millar or not hard enough? Sound off in the comment section below.
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