Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man, X-Men | Tagged: Donny Cates, jonathan hickman, ultimate

Jonathan Hickman Confirms Ultimate Universe Was Meant For Donny Cates

Jonathan Hickman confirms that the new Ultimate Universe from Marvel Comics was meant to have been written by Donny Cates...

I love a wide-reaching Jonathan Hickman interview, because he just says stuff, often confirming stories that Bleeding Cool has only been able to report rumours about before. Like the Ike Perlmutter/Fantastic Four/X-Men stories of old. I really should look back on that with the new movie coming out. But anyway, he recently talked to David Harper for the Off Panel podcast in which Hickman confirms Bleeding Cool's original report that Donny Cates was meant to write the Ultimate Universe relaunch at Marvel, continuation of his The Maker story in Venom, and had been working on it for years. Hickman says "Ultimate Spider-Man, I was not supposed to do that book."

David Harper says "Chip was right?" Because, yes, Chip Zdarsky was originally meant to write Ultimate Spider-Man, but no. Hickman continued "Forget about that, even before that, the Ultimate crossover I did with [Bryan] Hitch, I was not supposed to do that book, Donny was going to do that book, and he had been kinda working on it in the background over the years, and he had some stuff go on, they asked me to come in and help, and then take over, and obviously I took it in a different direction."

"A big thing I do for the company right now is, I try and give them a big tree to hang some branches off. So the Ultimate Universe works that way, this Imperial thing is going to work that way when we're done with it, when we're donee with it, three of four writers can come in and pick up a book that's already moving forward, it doesn't have to start from an origin point, that's my job, so they are moving with some velocity right out of the gate. So we've been doing those kind of projects, as opposed to me sitting down and doing something like House Of X or Powers Of Ten, or Avengers/New Avengers where I'm coming in to tell a really big story, that is for the most part self contained and kinda  evergreen, and taking really really wild big swings. That's the difference."

I understand that originally, Ultimate Spider-Man, also planned to be written by Donny Cates, would have followed Ultimate Invasion, and different Ultimate books from other creators would spin off that series as the new Ultimate Peter Parker met other people, who then became superheroes. More on all this to come…

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