The truth of the creation of the Ultimate Universe? Conspiracy possibly inside!

Ice

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Why was the Ultimate Universe created?

FACT: Joe Q. said so himself many times that the reason why they created the Ultimate Universe was to re-start the whole Marvel Universe without the 40+ years of continuity that constantly confuses people, and most especially to new readers.


So I was chattin' with my comic shop guy today when I picked up last weeks stack, since I didn't get a chance last week, and after kinda arguing about Ultimate Iron Man (you wouldn't believe it if I told you), he tells me that the editors had told the retailers a slightly different story. They were told that partly was created because of the continuty business and all that jazz, BUT!!!! -- It was mostly to promote the movies coming out. I keed you not. This is what I was told, that Marvel Editors had told him and other retailers. Dont know if ALL retailers, though.

What I don't get is this why would they tell 2 total different stories? If actually true, which I don't doubt, did they really think someone wouldn't find out?


Something's secretly being cooked up here. I don't gotta make a Ultimate Marvel Conspiracy Theory movie, do I?
 
icemastertron said:
It was mostly to promote the movies coming out. I keed you not. This is what I was told, that Marvel Editors had told him and other retailers. Dont know if ALL retailers, though.
This wasn't known? I KNOW I have heard about this before :?
 
I figured it was fact

I mean, Ultimate Spiderman came out around the Spiderman movie, Ultimate Xmen came out around the second Xmen movie.

UFF came out about a few months before that movie

Ultimate Daredevil came out before the Daredevil movie, the same with Ultimate Elektra.

Ultimate Hulk came out during the seventy year run of the Ultimates

Now all we need is a new Howard the Duck movie.
 
Are you serious? Really. You're making a joke, yes?

Ultimate Houde said:
I mean, Ultimate Spiderman came out around the Spiderman movie.
Not the series itself. USM first came out in 2000, Spider-Man the movie came out in 2002. That's one hell of a "around the movie".


Ultimate Houde said:
Ultimate Xmen came out around the second Xmen movie..
Wrong again. The series came out around December 2000. Movie came out months before.

Ultimate Houde said:
UFF came out about a few months before that movie
"A few"? First issue came out December of 2003 (Actually, it came out in January of 2004 since it was moved cuz of no shipping on New Years Eve). Movie came out in July of 2005. Do you know your math?
 
This sounds like old news, and really irrelevent. Go back and read the the articles celebrating 5 years of Ultimate Mrvel and one of the higher-ups says that Ultimate X-men was supposed to launch with the movie but they wern't able to get a good plot by that time. Yes it was created to remove huge continuity back-stories, but the only reason they thought of removing the back stories was so they could keep the fans who would come in from the movies.
 
He's right.

And Mars is going to be closer to Earth than ever before.

I can name a few other urban legends and internet hoaxes if you give me some more time . . . blah on that.
 
Except that the Ultimate Universe and the Movieverse don't look very much alike. Anyone picking up Ultimate Spider-Man or Ultimate X-Men thinking that it's the Movieverse is going to be confused. I'd buy a combination of the theories, though - that the Ultimate Universe was created because they thought the people coming in from the Movieverse would rather read something with less back history, along with, in general, newer, younger readers in comics.

Ultimates, at least, has been far more "cinematic" that anything in the 616 line - tailor-made for movie audiences, extreme audiences in general.

Most of the newer movies on the Marvel docket are animated and going straight to DVD, meaning that Marvel most likely doesn't think it has an audience outside of people who already read comics and perhaps some anime fans.


(And, Aeroth - the "other" Vancouver? BC or WA?)
 
Rhyo said:
Except that the Ultimate Universe and the Movieverse don't look very much alike. Anyone picking up Ultimate Spider-Man or Ultimate X-Men thinking that it's the Movieverse is going to be confused. I'd buy a combination of the theories, though - that the Ultimate Universe was created because they thought the people coming in from the Movieverse would rather read something with less back history, along with, in general, newer, younger readers in comics.

I think you nailed it pretty much. Marvel knew the movies were going to bring in new fans and they weren't going to want to feel like they've been missing out all of these years so they created a universe where movie goers and just new comic fans alike could adapt.
 
I thought it was always stated that it was a two-fer.

They get to restart continuity to grab new readers.
They produce brand new, easy to read comics to hook the new readers that just saw the movies.

I don't know why anyone is surprised. This has been stated several times.
 
I'm sure they had the idea for Ultimate Universe but just hadn't seen the need, until people started getting into comics throught the movies, and since new readers don't know 40 yrs of history it would be easier to bring them in and get them into it. They work off each other each one brings customers to the other. I'm surprize you saw this as a conspiracy. They always time things when marketing as best as they could. Remember the MTV Spiderman (which sucked ***) series came out to gather viewers from the movie.
 
I think it makes sense, with some of the titles....... with the daredevil and elektra titles (they came out close to the movies)
As for the other titles..... well i guess marvel would know before everyone else if a movie was going to be made about one of their characters.....

But they not doing an ultimate title for Ghostrider, and thats the next movie to be made.
 
This has been mentioned many times before. The writers want people to watch the movies, go to a comic shop, and pick up the Ultimate books. They've even said this.
 
ProjectX2 said:
This has been mentioned many times before. The writers want people to watch the movies, go to a comic shop, and pick up the Ultimate books. They've even said this.
Than why would you re-start a universe to promote the movies when one of the movies came out waaaaaay before, and another was 2 years away? Of course during the the movie time, WHILE an the series for the movie is being promoted is one thing, but that's just damn ridiculous.
 
icemastertron said:
Than why would you re-start a universe to promote the movies when one of the movies came out waaaaaay before, and another was 2 years away? Of course during the the movie time, WHILE an the series for the movie is being promoted is one thing, but that's just damn ridiculous.

So you can get rid of continuity at the same time. It's the two theories merged into one.
 
Well, I noticed (in several magazines, and for several of the movies) that not only would they do a story on the movie, but a comic history of the team/hero. The Ultimate Version of the hero was in those lists, always (I saw one for the X-Men, Spider-Man and the F4). Each excerpt for the ultimate cover they used as indication, was thst this story line most closely resembled the movie (even though reading it you know it isn't true). There is a connection Between UM and Movieverse.
 
icemastertron said:
Than why would you re-start a universe to promote the movies when one of the movies came out waaaaaay before, and another was 2 years away? Of course during the the movie time, WHILE an the series for the movie is being promoted is one thing, but that's just damn ridiculous.
Like everyone else has said, the theory is twofold.

Ice remarked, "why would you re-start a universe to promote the movies when one of the movies came out waaaaaay before, and another was 2 years away?"

My answer to that is that the Ultimate Universe had its gestation phases from at least after the movie. The fact that Spider-Man wasn't scheduled until two years after was another reason: they needed to lay the seeds so that the product was out there when it was finally completed. They don't necessarily need a whole new reboot for every movie, just an accessible imprint.

I distinctly remember that the first USM hardcover paints the genesis of the Ultimate Universe as being exactly like that. Quesada and Jemas were walking around realizing that Marvel dropped the bomb with X-Men. Not only did Marvel negotiate for a very poor percentage of the profits for the X-Men movie, but its success translated to almost nothing because the comics at the time, were NOTHING like what the moviegoers saw in the film.

It's also ostensibly why the 616 characters quickly switched to the black leather that the film characters sported rather than the yellow spandex. Jemas and Quesada's concerns were that moviegoers AND the youngerfolk had no comic product to jump onto once ancillarly markets like videogames, toys, CCGs, RPGs and movies convinced them of the cool factor of the characters.

And presto chango, the Ultimate Universe addressed the problem from the continuity point of view by junking those forty years of continuity.

Nuff said.
 

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