Entertainment Weekly had the exclusive scoop that Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch have an event-caliber series coming to Marvel this summer called Ultimate Invasion. Launching on June 21st, this is the most information we’ve gotten on Hickman’s next project ever since he teased something big with Valerio Schiti back at SDCC 2022.
Little is known about the event so far, although it has been made clear Miles Morales and The Maker will play large roles in Ultimate Invasion. Both characters have been alive and well in Marvel stories for years, with The Maker popping up in Venom, for instance, and Miles Morales having a long-running, ongoing series.
The series marks 20-plus years since Hitch and Hickman explored another type of Avengers in The Ultimates, and it’s going to be as big as their original run, Hitch said to EW, detailing, “It’s big budget, high-concept, widescreen storytelling. I feel right at home.”
Hickman remained cryptic as far as what the story could be about, although he did mention The Maker destroyed the Ultimate universe, and he was interested in using him to take it in a new direction. More specifically, the Ultimate universe would be “inverted from what the original universe was,” and Ultimate Invasion will “get us from point A to point B.”
He went on: “I think it’s fair to say that both Bryan and I have already put in our time doing Ultimate books, so when Marvel laid this project in front of us, we both knew there needed to be a good reason to revisit the idea of ‘Ultimate Comics’ beyond telling a cool story or just getting to work together, which is something we’ve been trying to do for years,” Hickman told EW. “So with that in mind, it couldn’t be replicating or revisiting what Bryan did in the original Ultimates — creating a streamlined, modernized version that would eventually become the spine of the MCU — and it certainly couldn’t be what I did, which was a final chapter of a pre-existing universe.”
As far as we can tell from the preview art Mr. Fantastic, Namor, Black Bolt, Black Panther, Iron Man, and Xavier will be fighting The Maker. It’s also important to note Xavier is still in his Krakoa-era costume. Check out the newly revealed art below.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager Hickman and Hitch are doing something to recreate a new universe to play in since the Ultimate universe has been dead and retired for so long. The very idea of The Maker creating a new universe to inhabit that’s possibly tainted or worse is a compelling one.
That’s just a guess, though and it’ll be interesting to see Hickman and Hitch reteam for the new series in June.
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