"There are huge mutant developments in 'Ultimates' and 'Ultimate Hawkeye.' A big part of what this Ultimate Universe relaunch is really all about is that it's going to be cohesive again," Spencer told CBR News. "Because we're all going to be shipping monthly and we're all going to be shipping on time we're able to play off of each other. That includes Jonathan's books and Brian Bendis' 'Ultimate Comics Spider-Man.' Jon and Brian are two guys I really love working with. I learn a lot from them and have a blast bouncing ideas back and forth with them. We're all excited about the chance to build up and react to each others' stories. We really want to create that old school Marvel feeling of interconnectedness and cohesion, so everybody's books will impact everybody else's books in fundamental ways. When you go in and get your Ultimate book for that week, very often you'll see the reflections and impacts of things in another book."
In the aftermath of "Ultimatum" the X-Men disbanded and the surviving members went their separate ways. In "Ultimate Comics X-Men" #1 Spencer begins the process of bringing the titular team back together.
"I have a reputation for being a long form storyteller at this point and this is certainly a long form story. The cast are not all sitting in a mansion somewhere ready to go on page one of issue #1. There is going to be a process of putting all these characters together and I think the ways that they meet up down the road will be so much more exciting because of the way that we're doing this," Spencer explained. "You're going to see mutants scattered around in various locales and situations; most of them are not good. Obviously mutants in the Ultimate Universe have been through so much over the last couple of years and they're showing signs of it. A lot of them are in very bad places."
Kitty, Johnny and Bobby won't be the only teen characters in Spencer's book. Jimmy Hudson, the adolescent son of the Ultimate U's Wolverine will also play a role in the book. "I'm playing a long game in terms of how Jimmy comes to be a part of the group. It's something that we're setting up and working towards. When it happens it will be a very big moment for the book and you'll see why Jimmy is such an important member of the cast," Spencer explained. "So that's a long term burning subplot. I grew up on Claremont's 'X-Men.' This book owes a great deal to the A, B, C and sometimes D, E, F subplot structures of the classic Claremont run. There are a lot of stories that are going to take some time to play out and are very, very important."
The adult cast of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" will include characters such as Jean Gray, who adopted the alias of Karen Grant in the aftermath of "Ultimatum." "You'll see her a bit in the first issue. Jean/Karen is going to have a very important role to play in the big mutant epic that we're setting up here," Spencer said. "You're going to see her in a lot of books. We've got big plans for where she's headed so she's very much a continuing part of the story."
Readers of "Ultimate Comics Fallout" know that Karen Grant has an association with Nick Fury, leader of the Ultimates and S.H.I.E.L.D., but she won't be able to use that connection to protect herself and her fellow mutants from the climate of fear and hatred that explodes in "Ultimate Comics X-Men" #1 with the revelation that mutankind is a manmade species.As Spencer mentioned, he's a longtime X-Men fan and "Ultimate Comics X-Men" is his first chance to work with the characters. He's not going to use that chance to tell Ultimate versions of his favorite X-Men stories or tales that could easily be told in a Marvel Universe X-Men comic. Like all the books in the newly relaunched Ultimate line, "Ultimate Comics X-Men" will be a title for readers looking for X-Men stories that can't be told anywhere else.
"You could never tell this story in the 616 Marvel books. I mentioned in the 'Next Big Thing' phone conference that this was sort of a 'Days of Future Past' scenario. I think a lot of people grabbed on to that and took it to mean that's exactly what this book is going to look like. It's not though," Spencer explained. "'Days of Future Past' was a story that lasted a couple of issues and was a potential future. It was something to be averted and avoided. It was a lesson to learn and take back with you. This is not that. This is the world of today for these kids. It's not going anywhere. It's not going to be erased. It's not going to be undone. The genie is out of the bottle and there's no putting it back. The relationship between man and mutant is permanently severed.
They all got killed off.
