We don’t have any “official” Marvel announcements or press releases or anything like that, but this is still something worth thinking about.
Announced in the last batch of Marvel Solicits is a six-issue mini-series, Ultimate Fallout. The series will deal with the immediate chronicling of the Ultimate Marvel U after the Death of Ultimate Spider-Man, which has already begun. In the middle of an excessively huge battle between the Ultimate Universe’s top two super groups, it looks like Spidey isn’t making it out the other end after jumping in front of a bullet for Captain America that was originally destined for just Cap’s knees (as if that makes it better, all things considered). So now we have a poly-bagged issue of Spidey in June, the final issue of Mark Millar’s Ultimate work in July, and Fallout.
Fallout will be a “weekly” (first 3 issues in July, next 3 in August?) title written by Bendis, Nick Spencer, and Jonathan Hickman (who wrote Ultimate Thor), and illustrated by Mark Bagley, Sara Pichelli, “and more.” The solicit itself doesn’t give us much to go on either, reading simply: The End before The Beginning. It’s an admittedly Hickman-esque solicit, similar to recent SHIELD and Secret Warrior solicits, but it does seem to imply a line-wide relaunch – not that there are more than 2 (and sometimes 3) titles coming out at the moment anyway.
The Ultimate U began when several creators were given the opportunity to quite literally just do their own thing in a Universe with no rules. With all of those major creators now on to bigger and “better” things, is it possible that Marvel is simply planning to hand over the future of the Ultimate U in its entirety to the New Guard?
It’s also noteworthy that Spencer’s Twitter account has added that he has a Fallout writer, and he almost immediately added “Suffice it to say, more to come. Much more.” I do believe that whatever is coming is probably a sign of the revamped Ultimate U now that – assumedly – Millar, Loeb, and Bendis are done with it for the time being. Maybe.
(via source)
