Marvel's Ultimate Relaunch

There's an old saying "if something isn't broken, don't fix it", this does not apply to Marvel's Ultimate imprint. In 2008, Marvel released Ultimatum, which ended with the slaughter of nearly every character in the Ultimate universe. Now Marvel is relaunching several Ultimate series this August. Here's what the first issue covers will look like and some commentary.

Ultimate Comics: X-Men

This will be a new and different team of X-Men which is good because they suffered a lot since Ultimatum. Now the team's back and ready for action. Not only do you get the return of veteran members, such as Kitty Pryde and Iceman, but you also get some new members, Jimmy Hudson (Wolverine's son) and the Human Torch. First of all seeing Johnny Storm on the cover may have some people confused about why he's on the team since he's not a mutant. Well there is no more Ultimate Fantastic Four so Johnny's been living with Peter Parker and Bobby Drake (Iceman) for the past year, and with the impending death of Spider-Man obviously Johnny's gonna need a new place to live. The Human Torch on Ultimate X-Men may be an "out of the box" decision but so was mainstream Spider-Man joining the FF and that worked out so far. If you wanna know about Wolverine's son, Jimmy, and some other mutants that might be on the team then you should check out Ultimate Comics: X (although at this point you should probably wait for the collected edition to come out).

Ultimate Comics: Ultimates

Before I start talking about the series, I just want to say that this cover looks like Marvel's movie posters Photoshoped together. Now let's move on to the comic. In the past every comic to feature the Ultimates has been a mini-series, hopefully Marvel will finally make this an ongoing since these versions of Captain America, Iron Man and Thor don't have their own ongoings. I've always felt the Ultimates were at their best when the story was written by Mark Millar, but I have a good feeling about Jonathan Hickman after enjoying his run of Fantastic Four and FF.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man

No that is not Peter Parker with a new costume, it's a brand new Spider-Man for the Ultimate universe. If you've been reading the recent story arc in Ultimate Spider-Man then you know that Marvel is planning to kill off the Ultimate version of Peter Parker. Whoever the new Spider-Man is, the most likely explanation is that he's a clone of Peter Parker (probably the Scorpion clone from the Clone Saga), or Marvel could go in a completely different direction by putting someone completely different in the suit. Either way I look forward to this first issue.

Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye

This version of Hawkeye is more of a black ops agent than a superhero. This mini-series will focus on Hawkeye's background and how he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. then the Ultimates. Even though he's been featured in the previous Ultimates and Ultimate Avengers series, Hawkeye's never been given the spotlight until now.

All of these series look interesting and I hope these reboots draw in new readers and keep the old readers entertained. I'll probably check out X-Men, Ultimates, and Spider-Man. Also please feel free to comment about which series you look forward to reading later this August.