Ultimate Spider-Man 1-13, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up 1-10. I was excited to use the web layout idea again for the first time since 1997-1998. In 2000, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley begin one of the greatest comics of all time in Ultimate Spider-Man, a book that gets the idea of remaking Spider-Man for a new generation as right as Chapter One got it wrong. Their characters are remarkably human and real, their stories are grounded and exciting. It’s a partnership that will last over 110 issues, and almost all of them are instant-classics. A remarkable feat. The initial Ultimate titles of Spider-Man and X-Men were overnight successes, and soon spawned Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, where Bendis and a parade of great artists could give us glimpses of the Ultimate versions of many other characters. Here we have an introduction to all the principle characters, plus first encounters with various heroes & villains. I made the FF from UMTU 9 look nervous, like they know they’re going to be wiped from continuity after their only appearance, just to amuse myself. Trying to mimic 2000s-era colors is hard, but I think it comes off ok. Mostly, tho, I just really enjoyed drawing all these characters. One really admirable trick Mark Bagley used in USM was to intentionally not draw the Marvel Universe versions of people like Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson and Joe Robertson. People who could have just been more or less the same. He spent years drawing them, he has his own distinct takes on them, but he made their Ultimate counterparts new people. It went an extra mile I don’t think a lot of artists would have. So I tried to make my own drawings different, too. I think he was more successful than me, but that’s why he is one of the most iconic Spider-Man artists and I’m just a guy. And speaking of iconic, I nicked maybe his most iconic Spider-Man drawing, which has been reproduced and redrawn for a million things since he drew it in USM 6.