Explore the Stories Behind the Legends

The 1990s and early 2000s were a time of intense change and experimentation for Marvel Comics. Out of this emerged The Ultimates—a comic that would have an explosive impact on Marvel and the broader pop culture landscape.

Writer Mark Millar, with artists Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, and Paul Neary, reimagined the classic characters that made up Marvel’s premiere super hero team, the Avengers. Looking at them through a modern, post-9/11 lens, the creators treated the characters as super soldiers who reported to the US government.

Illustrated with full-color art, Ted Adam’s entry in The Marvel Age of Comics takes readers through Marvel of the ‘90s: the Marvel Knights imprint, the creation of the Ultimate universe with Spider-Man and the X-Men, and finally the Ultimates themselves. With its unique blend of grounded realism and over-the-top action, The Ultimates ensured that comic books and pop culture would never be the same.