Bryan Hitch to draw The Ultimates (again!)
20th Anniversary?
Marvel love their anniversaries. You’ll notice campaigns and book launches follow not only issue milestone but annual milestones too. 50th, 75th, 100th and almost every year in between. In short Marvel love celebrating anything they can.
2020 saw the 20th anniversary of the debut of the Ultimate Universe with Ultimate Spider-Man and it mostly went by quietly and unnoticed. While 20 years might seem a noticeable occasion, the Universe/imprint had only been gone 5 years and still had a bit of a lacklustre feel hanging over it. That being said, the silence from Marvel on what was one of their biggest books and successes of recent history was noticeable, even if the Ultimate Universe wasn’t cool anymore. Neither was 2099, but we’ve seen plenty of that over the last few years.
Now, 2020 was peak covid and Marvel had to pivot, cancelling books, postponing books and probably adjusting their plans on a macro and micro-scale so maybe it got lost in the shuffle. 2020 did however start planting the seeds of the Ultimate Universe’s return in both Venom and Ghost-Spider, so maybe an Ultimate relaunch celebration was in the works, and then paused? That would sync up with the hints and teases we’ve previously discussed. Now, did that put the blockers on everything or just push things back a bit?
Maybe, but I hope not.
Well it seems all hope is not lost… Bryan Hitch is drawing The Ultimates again… well for a cover at least.
Man, it’s good to see Ultimate Captain America again.
But what is it a cover for?
While 2022 may be the 22nd anniversary of the Ultimate Universe it seems neither here nor there in terms of a worthwhile celebration. However, 2022 is in fact also the 20th anniversary of the launch of Bryan Hitch’s and Mark Millar’s The Ultimates series. So maybe just maybe something might be on the cards.
That being said, solicitations for 2022 are out and there’s no Ultimate books announced and its extremely unlikely that Marvel would solicit a book in at this late notice. However, there are a couple of other possibilities;
Marvel has a habit of putting anniversary covers on loosely related titles and even completely unrelated titles and they usual come as a part of wave of anniversary titles across the line. Are we getting a The Ultimates anniversary variant wave? Probably not as again there is no indication of that within the remaining solicitations for the year. Surely it can’t be next year as there’s just no maths that work.
While I can’t find any trace of the cover within solicitations for this year there are a couple of titles Marvel might slip an extra variant in for;
Timeless (2022) #1 - as a line wide title, maybe the next Ultimate reference is in this book and a variant will be announced shortly. Timeless is being released on December 28th so an anniversary cover would just sneak in.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man - also relaunches in December and a variant could be squeezed in here too.
Time might not be on our side as the release in only a few weeks away but as mentioned previously Hitch is drawing the Alpha issue of Avengers Assemble with Jason Aaron, thats going to focus on the multiversal Avengers - could be a thematic opportunity here too.
Marvel are also publishing covers exclusive to creators, stores and other retailers - you know the ones, there’s often a version with and without trade dress - the oddly named Virgin variant. Is this an exclusive store incentive? If so I need all the goss so I can get mine ordered.
Marvel are also reprinting Ultimate omnibuses. A volume featuring The Ultimates and the The Ultimates 2 is being released in November and is most likely already been printed so this seems unlikely. Marvel could be putting a Hitch variant on another release, surely another volume that includes Ultimates 3, the annuals, Ultimatum and even New Ultimates is on the cards? A Hitch cover would certainly make that more appealing to me.
Or is it something else entirely - what are you thoughts? Comment below.
Isn’t Cates doing done with The Maker (ultimate Reed)?
I was so excited until I saw it was just for a cover. Don't get me wrong- I'll take what I can get, but I would pay so much to see Millar and Hitch back on an Ultimates book, even if it was just a short one-shot.