Post by goldenfist on Feb 10, 2009 11:35:26 GMT -5
The 2009 New York Comic-Con has been packed with news from Marvel Comics, but perhaps the most significant announcement by the publisher was a confirmation that its Ultimate line would be receiving a major overhaul. Relaunching some time in the summer, the line will have a tweaked branding, "Ultimate Comics", and will drop two series for the addition of one (and eventually two) more.
Brian Bendis will keep Ultimate Spider-Man. Jeph Loeb will be on Ultimates (now called New Ultimates). But the two men will be joined by one of the founders of the Ultimate Universe - Mark Millar. The blockbuster writer will be joining the team for Ultimate Avengers, and he's not content to let his new series rest in the shadows of any other. Read on as Millar discusses his plans for the series and how it effectively will be a tightly packed event book.
IGN Comics: Alongside Ultimate Avengers, Marvel is relaunching the entire Ultimate Universe. Can you describe the conceptual differences between the previous version and this new version? Is the approach changing significantly?
Millar: Massively. The biggest change really is that – I think when the Ultimate line launched it had a reputation for high quality. It's not any kind of ego that says that – it was simply that you had A-list artists with A-list characters. There were no C-list characters really. The four cornerstones of the Marvel Universe were "Ultimatized" – you had Spider-Man, the Avengers, the FF and the X-Men. So it really was the cream of the Marvel Universe alongside guys like Adam Kubert, Bryan Hitch and so on. And then a couple young hotshots… you know, me and Brian Bendis. –laughs- And luckily it all worked out great.
So Marvel did a very unusual thing. Marvel, like any other company, would usually rape to death any success. But they were really amazing with the Ultimate line. They kept it tight. So instead of what we expected to happen within a year, which was as soon as they saw these books doing a 100,000 we'd start to see Spider-Man and Avengers spin-offs, they kept it tight. They realized the success was in not thinning it too suddenly, in keeping it to a core group of creators. But I think that started to get diluted. Some smaller characters started to get mini-series and some of the books weren't quite as good as the previous years'. The writers or artists coming in weren't as well-known as some of their predecessors. And then suddenly the Ultimate brand itself – and I don't mean to be cruel about this – didn't work. Some things I've done haven't worked. It happens with everyone. But the Ultimate line started to go sour over the last year or two.
So what they want to do is reestablish it as a gold standard brand again. God knows why, but Marvel came to me and Loeb and Bendis and gave us the original remit of A-list characters with A-list artists. So really we're just hoping lightning strikes twice here. So that's it in a nutshell.
IGN Comics: You were involved with the branding for several years… what drew you back into the fold?
Millar: Ah, to fix it! –laughs- I was with X-Men for a couple years, with Fantastic Four for a year and twenty-six issues and five years on the Ultimates – plus the Ultimate War mini-series. A big chunk of my Marvel career, really about half of it, was with the Ultimate line. So it was a really good hit run with it and I really just felt like it was a lovely little line. It was kind of like seeing an old girlfriend wandering in the street homeless! –laughs- So you want to give her a bath and put some makeup on her again, you know? So I felt if the Ultimate line was getting a makeover, I wanted to be a part of it.
It's funny because [this offer came] at a time when I was getting some nice offers from Hollywood and I was more into the creator-owned stuff. But Joe [Quesada] appealed to my ego. He said don't you want to be in here when it's getting its revamp? It's almost the tenth anniversary of the Ultimate line and everything. And I didn't want Loeb to get all the glory, I wanted to go in there and do the Big Daddy book. Ultimate Avengers just sort of has to be the biggest book of the relaunch because it has access to all of the characters across the whole universe. Plus we've got all the really big artists. They have the A-list artists and we have the A+ ones. So Ultimate Avengers was too tempting of a thing to pass up.
IGN Comics: So that leads nicely to my next question – Ultimates vs. Ultimate Avengers. The Ultimates were always positioned, much as you were referencing earlier, as the "Ultimate" take on the Avengers. Thematically, conceptually what are the differences between the two titles?
Millar: Oh, they couldn't be more different. The idea of the Ultimates, like you said, was the 21st century update of the Avengers characters with Nick Fury in charge of the team. But in the years since I left, Fury was no longer in charge. There had been a lot of continuity changes. What I wanted to do was a Mission Impossible kind of book where it was Nick Fury putting together different teams that were separate from the Ultimates. What I've done is create an "event" book for that. And what I mean by an event book is that, and I've mentioned this before, every six months we'll have a brand new "event" in the sense of Secret Invasion or Civil War. It's the big book where all these characters come together and face a gigantic menace or face the biggest problem they've ever faced. That will be the Ultimate Avengers. It's the stuff that's too big for the regular books. So that annual summer event will happen twice a year through Ultimate Avengers.
IGN Comics: But when you say "event" you mean a huge storyline that's self-contained within your series, right? It's not spreading out or anything…
Millar: Yeah, which is the way I wrote Civil War really as well. I liked the idea of an event book just being in that book. If I go see Independence Day, a big event movie, I don't want a TV mini-series to tie in with it. I want to be satisfied with what I bought, you know? So Civil War was seven issues and Secret Invasion was, what, eight. So it can be done. And really… to be honest most tie-ins are a complete con anyway. You can read the books without them. –laughs-
IGN Comics: Can you talk about the first arc or event that you're writing for Ultimate Avengers?
Millar: Yeah, sure. I can't give too much away because there's a mystery involved, but the first storyline involves Captain America's illegitimate son. In 1945, when Cap was going off on that last mission, he basically had one last fling with his girlfriend, a kind of "good night, goodbye, good luck" thing. We saw a little flashback of that in the Ultimates. And of course they're going to have sex and contraception wasn't quite as it was then as it was now, so you kind of have this little war baby born after the war when Cap, as far as we know, has died.
So it's really the story of that guy coming back, Captain America's son. And that's the big mystery – who he is, what he's done and what he's up to now. And he's not a very big person. So that's the big kick off and this has been a big secret from Cap and everyone, from America. Cap's old girlfriend, who's now married to Bucky, had to keep the secret for years in the name of national security. So the storyline is about old secrets being uncovered and what this guy has planned. So that's the first one.
IGN Comics: With Ultimate Avengers being an event book I'm sure you had your pick of artists, and the first one on the series is Carlos Pacheco. How did he become involved with the book?
Millar: Marvel has always been great with me. I've never gone out for artists and not gotten them. They've always been really generous. I knew Carlos was coming back from DC and I asked if I could have him and they said yes. It was that simple. And Leinil Francis Yu and I had been talking for years and exchanging e-mails. He actually broke my heart four years ago when I signed for DC because we were about to do something. And I talked him into coming over to Marvel but then he broke my heart again by doing Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine and Avengers and Secret Invasion. So I've been waiting for him for ages, but now he's happy to come and do some work.
So the second storyline, which we have together, is about Ultimate Ghost Rider. And him drawing demons and Ghost Rider and all that kind of stuff – and it's got Punisher and Daredevil and Captain America in a black ops outfit and everything – there's loads of cool s—t for him to draw.
IGN Comics: Do you have ideas for the third and fourth storylines already? I'm sure you can't say much but…
Millar: Oh, absolutely. I've signed on for a 24-issue run. What I'm hoping is that we can actually get it out 18 times a year… maybe more. Because if you have four different artists working on the book, there's no reason you'd have to keep to a monthly schedule. I'm sure we'll start monthly but I'd like to - by the time we get to Leinil – up it a little because he should be starting soon. I haven't spoken to Marvel yet, but fingers crossed. And I know who my artists are for three and four, but I'm absolutely sworn to secrecy…
But one of them is the biggest artist in the industry right now and the other is the second biggest. So we'll be even bigger in year two.
IGN Comics: You mentioned in our last interview that artists have a tendency to fall behind when they work with you… everything good so far? Carlos and the other guys are already working from script pages?
Millar: I think Leinil is doing Ultimate Hulk just now, but I think he'll be starting in seven or eight weeks. Something like that. But I think he shouldn't be a problem, he's very good deadline wise. Carlos is about halfway through issue #1, so that's not too bad. I think Carlos is pretty good on a deadline too. We'll soon find out. –laughs-
IGN Comics: In terms of character rosters… are you mixing things up every arc or will you be keeping to a specific core cast?
Millar: I think because it's me and because Ultimates was sort of my greatest hit in the Ultimate line, I think it should have an Ultimates flavor. I'd like to see Captain America and as many of the others as possible. There will be things that tie all the storylines together even though they're self-contained so it feels like a monthly book too.
But the most fun I've had is with the Punisher. He doesn't come in until the second arc but – I've just written issues #6, 7 and 8 – he just dominates the book. I've really enjoyed doing him and hopefully I've given him an angle that no one's really seen before.
IGN Comics: Can people expect the vibe and tone of the series to be very much like Ultimates or are you going to amp up other elements like superheroism and whatnot?
Millar: It's totally quite like Ultimates, but imagine Ultimates with a bigger budget. It's kind of like that. It goes up to 11 on this thing. Ultimates was quite quiet for long periods of time but because this thing is an event book, you can't really have two issues of people sitting around talking. So it's very much like an Ultimates movie might be, a Jerry Bruckheimer type thing. It's structured like that, with the ground moving in a fast-paced way and all that.
IGN Comics: As I understand it, there's a time gap between when Ultimatum ends and the new titles. Can you describe the differences between the two eras? Is there a seismic shift in the world or its characteristics?
Millar: Well, I don't want to give away the ending but… a lot of people die. Jeph kills off a lot of characters. It was a surprise to me. I got the list and I was like, "Bloody Hell!" I mean some of those guys I spent five years developing! –laughs- I mean, oh God, you know, it's just gone!
So what I've been doing, and what I love doing, which has been quite successful, is "Ultimizing" a lot of other characters. So we haven't seen Ultimate Ghost Rider and Ultimate Blade. It's been quite cool and it means Jeph will have some more people to kill off in two years. –laughs-
IGN Comics: You mentioned doing Ultimate War and of course we saw Warren Ellis doing the Ultimate Galactus trilogy a while back. With Ultimate Avengers being one of the core books, at least at this point, do you guys need any of those outside projects?
Millar: Absolutely not. One of the things I said was I wouldn't come on the Ultimate books again if we got any mini-series. I think the real strength of the Ultimate line when it kicked off was no one tried to cash in with a cheap mini-series or anything, like for a small character or something. So there wouldn't be a Nova mini-series alongside X-Men, Spider-Man, FF and the Ultimates. I mean I think they should, at least for a year, have it so that if you want to see heroes team up, you go to Ultimate Avengers. And that's what they promised me when I was last out there.
IGN Comics: Well, I think that's everything at this point. I guess I'll be talking to you soon?
Millar: Oh, sure. It'll be good fun. I'll have all sorts things coming so I'll be pimping myself out, don't worry.
Brian Bendis will keep Ultimate Spider-Man. Jeph Loeb will be on Ultimates (now called New Ultimates). But the two men will be joined by one of the founders of the Ultimate Universe - Mark Millar. The blockbuster writer will be joining the team for Ultimate Avengers, and he's not content to let his new series rest in the shadows of any other. Read on as Millar discusses his plans for the series and how it effectively will be a tightly packed event book.
IGN Comics: Alongside Ultimate Avengers, Marvel is relaunching the entire Ultimate Universe. Can you describe the conceptual differences between the previous version and this new version? Is the approach changing significantly?
Millar: Massively. The biggest change really is that – I think when the Ultimate line launched it had a reputation for high quality. It's not any kind of ego that says that – it was simply that you had A-list artists with A-list characters. There were no C-list characters really. The four cornerstones of the Marvel Universe were "Ultimatized" – you had Spider-Man, the Avengers, the FF and the X-Men. So it really was the cream of the Marvel Universe alongside guys like Adam Kubert, Bryan Hitch and so on. And then a couple young hotshots… you know, me and Brian Bendis. –laughs- And luckily it all worked out great.
So Marvel did a very unusual thing. Marvel, like any other company, would usually rape to death any success. But they were really amazing with the Ultimate line. They kept it tight. So instead of what we expected to happen within a year, which was as soon as they saw these books doing a 100,000 we'd start to see Spider-Man and Avengers spin-offs, they kept it tight. They realized the success was in not thinning it too suddenly, in keeping it to a core group of creators. But I think that started to get diluted. Some smaller characters started to get mini-series and some of the books weren't quite as good as the previous years'. The writers or artists coming in weren't as well-known as some of their predecessors. And then suddenly the Ultimate brand itself – and I don't mean to be cruel about this – didn't work. Some things I've done haven't worked. It happens with everyone. But the Ultimate line started to go sour over the last year or two.
So what they want to do is reestablish it as a gold standard brand again. God knows why, but Marvel came to me and Loeb and Bendis and gave us the original remit of A-list characters with A-list artists. So really we're just hoping lightning strikes twice here. So that's it in a nutshell.
IGN Comics: You were involved with the branding for several years… what drew you back into the fold?
Millar: Ah, to fix it! –laughs- I was with X-Men for a couple years, with Fantastic Four for a year and twenty-six issues and five years on the Ultimates – plus the Ultimate War mini-series. A big chunk of my Marvel career, really about half of it, was with the Ultimate line. So it was a really good hit run with it and I really just felt like it was a lovely little line. It was kind of like seeing an old girlfriend wandering in the street homeless! –laughs- So you want to give her a bath and put some makeup on her again, you know? So I felt if the Ultimate line was getting a makeover, I wanted to be a part of it.
It's funny because [this offer came] at a time when I was getting some nice offers from Hollywood and I was more into the creator-owned stuff. But Joe [Quesada] appealed to my ego. He said don't you want to be in here when it's getting its revamp? It's almost the tenth anniversary of the Ultimate line and everything. And I didn't want Loeb to get all the glory, I wanted to go in there and do the Big Daddy book. Ultimate Avengers just sort of has to be the biggest book of the relaunch because it has access to all of the characters across the whole universe. Plus we've got all the really big artists. They have the A-list artists and we have the A+ ones. So Ultimate Avengers was too tempting of a thing to pass up.
IGN Comics: So that leads nicely to my next question – Ultimates vs. Ultimate Avengers. The Ultimates were always positioned, much as you were referencing earlier, as the "Ultimate" take on the Avengers. Thematically, conceptually what are the differences between the two titles?
Millar: Oh, they couldn't be more different. The idea of the Ultimates, like you said, was the 21st century update of the Avengers characters with Nick Fury in charge of the team. But in the years since I left, Fury was no longer in charge. There had been a lot of continuity changes. What I wanted to do was a Mission Impossible kind of book where it was Nick Fury putting together different teams that were separate from the Ultimates. What I've done is create an "event" book for that. And what I mean by an event book is that, and I've mentioned this before, every six months we'll have a brand new "event" in the sense of Secret Invasion or Civil War. It's the big book where all these characters come together and face a gigantic menace or face the biggest problem they've ever faced. That will be the Ultimate Avengers. It's the stuff that's too big for the regular books. So that annual summer event will happen twice a year through Ultimate Avengers.
IGN Comics: But when you say "event" you mean a huge storyline that's self-contained within your series, right? It's not spreading out or anything…
Millar: Yeah, which is the way I wrote Civil War really as well. I liked the idea of an event book just being in that book. If I go see Independence Day, a big event movie, I don't want a TV mini-series to tie in with it. I want to be satisfied with what I bought, you know? So Civil War was seven issues and Secret Invasion was, what, eight. So it can be done. And really… to be honest most tie-ins are a complete con anyway. You can read the books without them. –laughs-
IGN Comics: Can you talk about the first arc or event that you're writing for Ultimate Avengers?
Millar: Yeah, sure. I can't give too much away because there's a mystery involved, but the first storyline involves Captain America's illegitimate son. In 1945, when Cap was going off on that last mission, he basically had one last fling with his girlfriend, a kind of "good night, goodbye, good luck" thing. We saw a little flashback of that in the Ultimates. And of course they're going to have sex and contraception wasn't quite as it was then as it was now, so you kind of have this little war baby born after the war when Cap, as far as we know, has died.
So it's really the story of that guy coming back, Captain America's son. And that's the big mystery – who he is, what he's done and what he's up to now. And he's not a very big person. So that's the big kick off and this has been a big secret from Cap and everyone, from America. Cap's old girlfriend, who's now married to Bucky, had to keep the secret for years in the name of national security. So the storyline is about old secrets being uncovered and what this guy has planned. So that's the first one.
IGN Comics: With Ultimate Avengers being an event book I'm sure you had your pick of artists, and the first one on the series is Carlos Pacheco. How did he become involved with the book?
Millar: Marvel has always been great with me. I've never gone out for artists and not gotten them. They've always been really generous. I knew Carlos was coming back from DC and I asked if I could have him and they said yes. It was that simple. And Leinil Francis Yu and I had been talking for years and exchanging e-mails. He actually broke my heart four years ago when I signed for DC because we were about to do something. And I talked him into coming over to Marvel but then he broke my heart again by doing Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine and Avengers and Secret Invasion. So I've been waiting for him for ages, but now he's happy to come and do some work.
So the second storyline, which we have together, is about Ultimate Ghost Rider. And him drawing demons and Ghost Rider and all that kind of stuff – and it's got Punisher and Daredevil and Captain America in a black ops outfit and everything – there's loads of cool s—t for him to draw.
IGN Comics: Do you have ideas for the third and fourth storylines already? I'm sure you can't say much but…
Millar: Oh, absolutely. I've signed on for a 24-issue run. What I'm hoping is that we can actually get it out 18 times a year… maybe more. Because if you have four different artists working on the book, there's no reason you'd have to keep to a monthly schedule. I'm sure we'll start monthly but I'd like to - by the time we get to Leinil – up it a little because he should be starting soon. I haven't spoken to Marvel yet, but fingers crossed. And I know who my artists are for three and four, but I'm absolutely sworn to secrecy…
But one of them is the biggest artist in the industry right now and the other is the second biggest. So we'll be even bigger in year two.
IGN Comics: You mentioned in our last interview that artists have a tendency to fall behind when they work with you… everything good so far? Carlos and the other guys are already working from script pages?
Millar: I think Leinil is doing Ultimate Hulk just now, but I think he'll be starting in seven or eight weeks. Something like that. But I think he shouldn't be a problem, he's very good deadline wise. Carlos is about halfway through issue #1, so that's not too bad. I think Carlos is pretty good on a deadline too. We'll soon find out. –laughs-
IGN Comics: In terms of character rosters… are you mixing things up every arc or will you be keeping to a specific core cast?
Millar: I think because it's me and because Ultimates was sort of my greatest hit in the Ultimate line, I think it should have an Ultimates flavor. I'd like to see Captain America and as many of the others as possible. There will be things that tie all the storylines together even though they're self-contained so it feels like a monthly book too.
But the most fun I've had is with the Punisher. He doesn't come in until the second arc but – I've just written issues #6, 7 and 8 – he just dominates the book. I've really enjoyed doing him and hopefully I've given him an angle that no one's really seen before.
IGN Comics: Can people expect the vibe and tone of the series to be very much like Ultimates or are you going to amp up other elements like superheroism and whatnot?
Millar: It's totally quite like Ultimates, but imagine Ultimates with a bigger budget. It's kind of like that. It goes up to 11 on this thing. Ultimates was quite quiet for long periods of time but because this thing is an event book, you can't really have two issues of people sitting around talking. So it's very much like an Ultimates movie might be, a Jerry Bruckheimer type thing. It's structured like that, with the ground moving in a fast-paced way and all that.
IGN Comics: As I understand it, there's a time gap between when Ultimatum ends and the new titles. Can you describe the differences between the two eras? Is there a seismic shift in the world or its characteristics?
Millar: Well, I don't want to give away the ending but… a lot of people die. Jeph kills off a lot of characters. It was a surprise to me. I got the list and I was like, "Bloody Hell!" I mean some of those guys I spent five years developing! –laughs- I mean, oh God, you know, it's just gone!
So what I've been doing, and what I love doing, which has been quite successful, is "Ultimizing" a lot of other characters. So we haven't seen Ultimate Ghost Rider and Ultimate Blade. It's been quite cool and it means Jeph will have some more people to kill off in two years. –laughs-
IGN Comics: You mentioned doing Ultimate War and of course we saw Warren Ellis doing the Ultimate Galactus trilogy a while back. With Ultimate Avengers being one of the core books, at least at this point, do you guys need any of those outside projects?
Millar: Absolutely not. One of the things I said was I wouldn't come on the Ultimate books again if we got any mini-series. I think the real strength of the Ultimate line when it kicked off was no one tried to cash in with a cheap mini-series or anything, like for a small character or something. So there wouldn't be a Nova mini-series alongside X-Men, Spider-Man, FF and the Ultimates. I mean I think they should, at least for a year, have it so that if you want to see heroes team up, you go to Ultimate Avengers. And that's what they promised me when I was last out there.
IGN Comics: Well, I think that's everything at this point. I guess I'll be talking to you soon?
Millar: Oh, sure. It'll be good fun. I'll have all sorts things coming so I'll be pimping myself out, don't worry.
