Talking The Ultimates with Deniz Camp!

Deniz Camp is one of comics newest superstars, who already has one of the 2020’s best comics under his belt with 20th Century Men! His newest work is The Ultimates, which reboots the old team and frames them under a new light as a resistance network fighting against the Maker’s cabal to help make their world how it was supposed to be. It’s available now from Marvel comics!

I had the chance to sit down with Deniz and talk about the book, the universe it is set in, and the burning questions about sandwiches in the Ultimate universe that our readers are dying to know more about.

We do talk some spoilers, so it’s recommended that you read the book, check out our review, and then jump into this with a nice, steaming cup of coffee. And now, without further ado…

[This interview has been edited for clarity.]

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Zee: Right before we began the interview, you said that you were recommended to read Turkish comics in order to learn Turkish.

Deniz: So, my father’s Turkish. I didn’t grow up in Turkey, and so I didn’t really speak the language. When I was younger, a lot of our friends would tell us the best way they learned was to read Turkish comics or translations of comics into Turkish because the language isn’t so complicated generally. Like, in Spider-Man comics, the language isn’t that complicated and you have visuals to reinforce what the characters are saying, usually. So it was a great tool to learn a language. I think comics are a great teaching tool.

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What’s your favorite sandwich, but also, what are the favorite sandwiches of everyone on the Ultimates? Are there sandwiches on Earth 6160?

Right. So I mean, I think that really gets into what a sandwich is and that’s why there are no sandwiches in the Ultimate Universe, because the Maker is trying to minimize strife as much as possible. And so because of the great “is a hot dog a sandwich” debate, he got rid of sandwiches completely. For Doom, he does allow open faced sandwiches, but that’s just for Doom.

Speaking of Doom, actually, so I found out yesterday (courtesy of @foeyeahboi) that Reed’s favorite sandwich, canonically, is apparently a tuna fish salad sandwich. We know how much the Maker hates Reed/Doom. Does the Maker hate Reed so much that he erased that specific sandwich out of existence?

Yes, there’s no tuna salad sandwiches in the Ultimate Universe, and that’s guaranteed. I’m sure that will be consistent in canon throughout.

Okay (laughs) well, that’s good to know. That’s a huge announcement, exclusively on GateCrashers! But what is your favorite sandwich?

That’s a great question. My favorite sandwich is, I guess, I don’t think I have a favorite sandwich. I like Turkey sandwiches, I guess, so Turkey with as much sauce as possible. The real thing for me is I need spice on my food and so I can pretty much eat any meat and any bread and anything like that, as long as there’s some thick helping of something spicy on it, anything.

Yeah, that’s fair.

How did you end up landing the gig? Was it this first, was it Children of the Vault or was it the 3W3M project you’re doing with Stipan Morian? How did it come together?

The 3W3M thing was separate, they reached out to me. I think Jon(athan) had read 20th Century Men. He really liked it and thought I would be a good fit for there. But The Ultimates came after Children of the Vault. It came when, as far as I know, our editor Wil Moss read 20th Century Men and thought that I would be a good fit for The Ultimates, which I think makes a lot of sense since it was kind of an updating or another take on the superhero. It was really very simple. I just got a one sentence email from Wil Moss that said, “How about you write The Ultimates eh?” and that was it. Then I said, “Well, can you tell me more?” And then he didn’t respond for like, 4 days or something because he had a family issue, and so I was like, “Well, I actually don’t know if I’m doing this or I don’t know what’s going on.” I was like, “I might be writing The Ultimates, or possibly this was a mistake,” you know, like an accidental email. And so then it wasn’t a mistake, and that was it. It was incredibly simple and smooth. I mean, I really am kind of in shock still. There’s been almost no pushback. I wrote a real quick one page document kind of a pitch for what I thought the thing would be and what the title would be, and I sent that to Wil who who sent it to around to everybody including Jon and like the super higher ups at Marvel which I didn’t know was going to happen at the time and was kind of a freaky thing because I kind of just fired it off. I was like, “Here’s what I’m thinking. This is not final. This is not polished.” And he was like, “Well, you know, David Gabriel, our publisher loves it and and the editor in chief loved it.” So that was really that was nice but also intimidating and yeah, it just kind of went from there and it’s been smooth sailing since.

That sounds super cool, but also that four day wait sounds so tense. I don’t know what I would’ve done with that message.

Yeah, it was. I mean, I kind of just came to terms with it, like maybe it’s not happening and kind of put it out of my head, but it was definitely like, “Oh, I’m not sure.” I definitely didn’t tell anybody about it until after I got the confirmation.

Right. I remember tweeting out that you might be on the Ultimates just like as a wild guess. So I feel vindicated about the fact that it happened and that it worked out and it’s really good!

Yes, it was probably you putting it out into the universe. (laughs)

I made it happen. But, about the rest of the creative team: How did you and everybody else come together? Was it like you picking out the team, or was it editorial giving you ideas?

That was a group decision from mostly editorial. It was Wil Moss, our editor, but also Ricky Purdin, who is the talent manager at Marvel. They have a list and they know what they want for creators and given the pitch that I had, they thought Juan would be a really good fit and I agree. I mean, it’s a really, really hard book to draw. Because not only do I write quite densely in terms of how much is on each page and how many panels and whatnot, but also this issue, this series in particular, we’re redesigning the Marvel Universe essentially. We’re introducing a new character on almost every issue, if not more than one. So you know, it’s not easy and it means every issue there’s a lot of design work. There’s a lot of invention and Juan has never balked at it. He’s always just been a trooper throughout and come out with some really awesome designs. And I think that got better and better as we went.

Yeah. From a craft level too, it’s really great. Obviously different from 20th Century Men where you work with Morian obviously, but there’s so many cool things you do. One of the things that I was constantly thinking of is that panel of Janet talking to the guy that hired them and she’s intentionally breaking out of the panel to be larger than him.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

That was really cool. Like, yeah that rocks. When it comes to 9 panel grids, I’m always pretty critical because like you see it so much, so to see two of them being pulled off really well was like, “Yeah, okay. These guys get it.”

Thank you, yeah. You know, it’s funny because when I first started writing comics, you did not see 9 panel grids as much as you do now. I think in the last like four or five years, I think largely due to Tom King, they became way more ubiquitous and I think it’s cool because they’re a great, complex technology, but you have to have reasons to use them, you know and have something interesting to do with them to justify them. So hopefully we manage it but I also don’t want to overuse it. It’s not a book filled with it, like the series is not a nine panel grid series, you know what I mean? When it’s necessary or when it’s useful, we’re going to use it. But it’s not the defining characteristic of the book, for sure.

Totally. I was reading the entire creative team’s interview for 20th Century Men in the Comics Journal where you talked about how the entire book came together as you bouncing ideas between you, Stipan Morian and Aditya Bidikar to create the story together for 20th Century Men. So how different is it comparatively to make The Ultimates? 

Yeah, it’s really different. I mean, the nature of these comics is very different. The intimacy of that collaboration is really only possible when you have a creator owned book, and you have kind of unlimited time conceivably. So this is much more like I’m coordinating. Of course, there is communication between me and Juan, but I’m coordinating with Wil and Michelle, who are my editors. Primarily, I’m writing the story, and then they’re giving me feedback, and then and then it’s going to Juan who’s then interpreting it, you know, to the best of his ability. He can change things and it doesn’t have to be close to what I write. But nevertheless, it’s still more me writing a thing and then him drawing the thing, and then Federico coming in and adding to the storytelling and whatnot. So of course there’s communication, there’s a back and forth. Juan has a lot of problems he has to solve based on my scripts, I’m sure he would tell you that and he’s making a lot of micro decisions, storytelling decisions. So the storytelling is absolutely Juan’s, but the process is more, I’m kind of writing the scripts in isolation a little bit more than I would in 20th Century Men or any of my creator owned books. He sends back layouts and if I have any kind of concerns based on the layouts we can talk about it and reformulate and end up with something.

I have been discussing with a friend about The Ultimates since Ultimate Invasion where there’s a lot of panels where there’s a focus on Doom’s eyes, and sometimes the colour is blue and sometimes it’s brown. Is that like an error or is that intentional?

You have to wait and see. There might be a reason.

Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. This next question actually comes from my friend Doug who met you during your FCBD signing. Before the interview began, we were just talking about the Madame Web movie.

Is Madame Web going to be a part of the Ultimates?

You know… (laughs) what can I say here that won’t get me in trouble? I have not seen the movie. I have heard amazing things about it. I would say that Madame Web is such a complex character that I don’t want to introduce her to the Ultimates. I think she has a certain amount of baggage. I don’t have any plans for Madame Web, but I could see that the movie is absolutely mind blowing in one way. So maybe if I see it and I’m inspired by it, you know, it could happen.

How did you decide on the lineup for the team? Was that just Hickman’s set up in Ultimate Universe? Or was it you also giving your input for who you want on the team?

So the main characters that we start with were picked by Jonathan Hickman. Iron Lad, Doom, Captain America, Thor and Sif round out the Big 5. Those were chosen for me. Every character subsequently has been my choice and sort of my invention. So the structure that I have for this series is that in almost every issue we’re introducing a new character, or we’re at least attempting to introduce a new character. It won’t always go so perfectly. And so in the first arc, what I really want to do is explore the big 5 characters that Jon started. So we’ll be introducing a bunch of new characters, but a lot of our POV characters will be the characters that Jon introduced because I think it’s important narratively that we get a sense for who those characters are, especially because they’re so different from the main universe versions of those characters. So I want to flesh them out. I want to make them people as much as possible while we’re introducing these other new characters. And then in the second arc you’ll see that those new characters that we introduced will become our POV characters a bit more, and we’ll get to learn more about them and hopefully establish them even as they’re going and trying to find other new characters to reactivate or recreate. 

I’ve really been given pretty much carte blanche to do whatever I want in terms of introducing new characters and I’m really going for it. I mean, there’s no other way to put it. And you know, in almost every issue we have someone new and my ambition, I’ve said this before, but my ambition is to create these characters in such a way that they could support their own miniseries or ongoing series if Marvel wanted to. Now, that’s not going to happen and probably shouldn’t happen, but I really want to create characters that are interesting enough to have kind of a setup and a supporting cast and a dynamic or a location or something that really makes them stand out and makes them interesting. If Marvel doesn’t want to create a mini series with them or want to do much more with them besides what I do with them, that’s fine, but the readers can do something in their heads with them. That’s the goal, make it so interesting that it kind of makes readers want to know more about them and makes them kind of invent their own stories and become a participant of the Ultimate Universe in that way. So that’s the goal.

One of the most interesting aspects about this new universe for me has been how every book, or at least Ultimate Spider-Man, and Ultimate Black Panther to a degree and now Ultimates has each issue taking place every month and sort of moving in real time. The big narrative beats are happening in the issues but the more inconsequential growth is happening in between and so you allow yourself to imagine. I think it’s an interesting way to go about it and I’m interested to see how it pays off. 

With that in mind, how are you feeling about tackling character growth in the series? I don’t know how the story goes but knowing that there is a monthly gap between each issue, how do you handle that?

You’re not seeing every moment, right? A lot of comics have six issues which take place over a couple of days, because everything’s kind of crescendoing at once or whatever. This is 6 issues taking place over 6 months. I actually love it because if you want characters to change. It’s not really realistic in my experience, that people change all at once in one moment and it’s, you know, it’s as simple as “We have this experience and now everything’s different” or you know, “We did this one thing and now these characters are totally different.” So it is very much more believable to me that these characters could be, let’s say growing as superheroes, you know, they’re all pretty new to this, and so their skills can be growing in their background, their feelings can be changing and it’s kind of believable because they have these whole lives that are going on between panels and between issues. So I personally love it. It’s probably not possible for something like the main Marvel Universe but when there’s so much going on and we have so many characters in our book, it’s wonderful for me to be able to say “Oh yeah, you know, this character did such and such off panel, off screen and and this thing happened or what have you.”

It allows me to kind of build the world, with the history of this universe, but also build the world kind of in the present, you know. More is happening than we see and there’s stuff going on in the background and some of that stuff will boil up and some of that stuff is just there to add texture and to add depth. I think it’s a really cool idea. It was Jonathan Hickman’s idea, I think, to do this. And so far, I’ve really liked the mechanics of that.

That’s really cool because every book has been taking this interesting angle where Ultimate Spider-Man is kind of the hero arc in reverse. Ultimate Black Panther is very Dune flavored, Ultimate X-Men is a whole other thing. And then The Ultimates, your book, is also something in the lane of JLA (we will get into this later because it’s a big question).

Speaking of members, we know of four right now. We know Hank, Janet, the original Human Torch and then She-Hulk. What made you interested in these four characters, but specifically, what made you want to rehabilitate Hank and bring back Marvel’s first hero into the fold?

With the Human Torch, I thought there would be some wonderful symmetry that my first story in this world was going to be the Free Comic Book issue, where they would be bringing back Marvel’s first superhero. When you think about the thematics of this book, which is so, so deep into revolution and freedom fighting. There was a resonance there with the lighting of the torch, you know, lighting of the fire. And I love Marvels. So on one level it was a nice callback to Marvel history, and the series Marvels, which kind of proposes that the Human Torch was the first Marvel superhero, and also the first superhero in actual Marvel history. It just worked thematically, the torch, the molotov cocktail, and also it made logical sense to me at least that Captain America would want to reactivate someone that he knew was one of his good friends if he knew about it. So everything kind of fit into place to make that a perfect choice, I thought. 

With Hank, I’ll be honest with you, my goal was not to rehabilitate Hank. Particularly my goal with all these characters is not to rehabilitate them or fix them or anything like that. It’s just me looking at the concept of this universe, the setup and trying to create or recreate the most interesting characters possible to set up the most interesting dynamics possible and so Hank Pym, he is a character that’s really defined by this horrible thing. He’s abusive, both in 616 and the original Ultimate Universe, which flattened him out and made him even more so. I really thought it would be interesting in a world where a lot of what I’ve seen so far has been something great has been taken from you. A terrible thing has been done to you. You know, you were supposed to be a hero. Your life would be better if you accepted this. I think that’s valid and an interesting dynamic for characters to have to wrestle with, but I wanted to add a character who was making a choice that wasn’t gonna be 100% positive, that was actually scary, not just in terms of risking his life, but because it might actually make him a bad person and make him hurt the people that he loves. I thought that was a really interesting psychological dynamic for the character. You find out that you were supposed to be an exceptional person, you were supposed to have superpowers, you were supposed to change the world. And then you also find out in that same breath that you were going to hurt the person you love most, that you’re gonna go mad, that you might become a villain that hurts a ton of people, including the person you love most. So to me that was, you know, it’s obviously a little bit meta, but to me it was just really interesting character stuff to get into and that was really my goal. That’s my goal with all these characters, you know. Yes, I want to make them last. Yes. I wanna make them characters that people are interested in. But the best way in order to do that is to make them complicated and interesting and to give them complicated choices to make and so that was my goal with Hank. I thought it would be kind of an interesting dynamic to have Wasp, his wife be kind of more at home doing this and kind of a more natural person. They love each other, but how does that dynamic play out over time? To me, that’s just very rich for storytelling. I could, like I said, I could, I’m not saying this is coming, but I could do a mini series just about them and their dynamic, I think.

You mentioned The Marvels and obviously the original Ultimates, but are there any books, comics or otherwise, that you looked at as inspiration or research slash homework before diving into your Ultimates?

For sure. I mean, I would say I’m drawing more from real world stuff for this book than I am from comics, which isn’t to say that comics aren’t a big influence. You know, books like Planetary and Global Frequency, absolutely. Of course, Morrison’s JLA is always top of my mind when I’m doing a superhero team book. I didn’t really need to go back and do research on those because I’m not drawing directly from them, it’s kind of just more like vibes or structure, things that I remember having read them. 

I would say I’m doing research more about the world around us and trying to draw as much of that as I can in a fictional way, which I think is the core mission statement of really any Ultimate book for me just because of what Mark and Brian did in the original. It’s not to say that you’re going to see US President Biden in this book or anything like that, but you’re definitely gonna see, like I said, I’m trying to draw from the real world and maybe some lesser known parts of real world history and maybe some very obvious satire of real world issues. So it’s kind of a mix of all those things. So yeah, I would say Planetary and Global Frequency in terms of some of the structure of the book, but the actual substance of the book is the world I see around me.

Yeah, totally. I’m actually just realizing that this was the question that I was saving for later (awkward laugh) because the way I wanted to word it before I jumped the gun was that I noticed between 20th Century Men, Children of the Vault and now, your writing seems very much sort of evolved from that school of Morrison/Porter JLA, and also Ellis/Hitch Authority. Those kinds of superhero books that are very high concept sci-fi dealing with real world themes and all that. It makes sense to me that you’re going there knowing your personal history, since you were working in Turkey during the Syrian Civil War and had refugees coming in. It’s cool to see that come through in your work.

It’s definitely because my life experience has led to that rather than specific comics, because there aren’t a lot of comics that have taken a non-white view of those conflicts and those issues so yeah. That one really comes, I guess, from my personal history and just who my parents are and having traveled most of my life and worked abroad and seen those things, I’m definitely putting that into this book. And probably, if we’re being honest, almost all of my books you know. I guess that’s my perspective.

Yeah, totally. On that note actually, the big swing to me reading FCBD and also #1 is the way you frame the Ultimates as the revolutionaries. You just talked about this, but every book, like Ultimate Spider-Man, is framing Peter and Harry that way, and now here with The Ultimates. It’s like one of the big parts of the overarching narrative is fighting against an oppressive status quo or oppressive systems. To be honest, it’s not something that we see a lot in superhero comics, where superheroes are presented as defenders of the status quo. The thing I noticed is, especially in this book – maybe this is unintentional and I’m reading into, but this book feels like it’s in many ways in conversation with the old Ultimates, where the old Ultimates is a book that’s built off of a response to 9/11 by making them American supercops. But here, we have this framing where it looks like where our heroes are framed as the terrorists and that’s why they called the “Ultimates Terrorist Network,” but they’re obviously the revolutionaries, right? They’re the ones that are anti status-quo. So what was the thought process behind framing them in that way and building the book around that?

Yeah, I mean that was it exactly. I read the original Ultimates and I thought the original Ultimates was a clear response to 9/11 and a satire of American hegemony at the time and so I wanted our Ultimates to be a response to our times. You know, both in conversation with that book, but also just in conversation with the world. So I felt like right now it felt more pregnant to me to take them on as terrorists and people trying to change the status quo for the better as they see it and all the and all the complexity that comes with that. So to me, you know, what does a modern hero look like? It doesn’t look like somebody who’s trying to maintain the status quo. And so I wanted to channel some of the revolutionary energy that I feel around me and my friends and also the sense of disappointment that I feel kind of permeating everybody that I talk to, everybody that I know with how the world is and everybody has kind of different reasons for that. Part of the book is, well, what does it mean to change the world? And we all want to change the world, but do we all want to change it in the same way? It felt very ripe story wise. And you know, as somebody who – it was not pleasant to be in the United States as a person with my name and my background after 9/11, and so, you know, being labeled; I’m not saying the cops came to me and called me a terrorist, but children certainly did and and so there was a little bit of that, putting my own kind of personal experience of being labeled as a terrorist. I just felt it was a cool inversion of the original and all. It’s personal to me and felt topical. So for all those reasons it just felt right.

Yeah. You see that through this issue and your work.

Yeah, I hope so.

Shifting back to some of the story stuff in the book, in the free comic book day issue, we see there’s a lot of big heroes that we associate with Marvel dead. We see Black Bolt, Wolverine the Sentry, even everyone’s favorite, 3D-Man. Was that you making that decision or was that a big Ultimate Team decision?

No, it was all me. There was discussion obviously about who else could be there.

You know, I say it was all me. Ultimately, I think they were all my decisions, but I opened it up to people, like if my editors wanted anything different and they were pretty much in agreement that those were all good. I really wanted to communicate the whole point of the FCBD story was to communicate as quickly as possible what the universe was about and what the heroes were doing while giving a little taste of their personalities, and also telling the complete story all in eight pages and so economy was the thing.  So what I found was this, a great shorthand just to show all of these characters. They’re not household names, so a lot of people aren’t going to know who they are and that’s fine because you get the sense that these are superheroes and that they’re dead or that they’re gone. So for people who understood the references, I think it added an extra bit of joy and and for people who didn’t, they still got the gist of what the universe was, which was that, you know, this is not your typical Marvel Universe. A lot of characters, a lot of superheroes have been murdered and our Ultimates are trying to recreate them or save the ones that they can. 

In terms of how I picked the characters, it was just just characters that number one, I knew that nobody else was using and number two, you know, a lot of them were obscure and were probably not going to be part of the Ultimate universe in a significant way. Anyway, some of them maybe would have been and I thought about those carefully. It’s not unintentional. I didn’t just throw those in there. There’s a story behind the Savage Land reference. There’s a story behind Black Bolt that I hope to get to do that, you know? There’s a story for all of those deaths and they aren’t just gratuitous. They’re potentially a launch for other bigger stories down the line.

Right, yeah. That’s good. There’s a lot of worry that goes around character deaths where it feels needless and unnecessary.

Totally.

I didn’t have that worry, but it’s good to hear that there is a lot of thought behind everything and there’s definitely a story behind every choice over there.

What was it like writing characters like Iron Lad and Captain America, especially coming from 20th Century Men, where you wrote pastiches of them, but now you’re writing the ‘Marvel’ renditions? Not necessarily the classic ones, but still.

Yeah, it’s been interesting because like you said, it’s not the classic versions, so it’s not as simple. I’m pretty good at adapting voices if I hear them. Like, if I were to write 616 Doom, for instance, it’s pretty simple, actually. I have a pretty solid idea of what that would be, whereas this is kind of in between. Yes, it’s Tony Stark. But it’s a young Tony Stark who’s more idealistic and whose father was Iron Man. And so the voice, it’s much more me inventing a voice there, you know, while trying to somehow keep something essentially Tony Stark in there but recognizing that the way he’s gonna hold himself and speak and do these things is gonna be different, both because he’s young and because he has a very different background and because he’s in a very different circumstance. So he’s not a lush, you know? His father was the lush and so a lot of times when you have an alcoholic parent, you either become an alcoholic yourself or you go in the opposite direction and become kind of a teetotaler. It’s about working that out for each of the characters. How are they going to sound? How can I keep something that is essentially that is recognizable from the original characters, be it, you know, Reed as Doom. He can’t sound like Doom, can’t sound like Reed, he has to sound like something kind of in between. It’s been interesting and cool and it’s been freeing not to have to be too soft, like our Captain America has maybe a little bit more edge than 616 Captain America, but yeah it’s been it’s been really cool to get to to use those characters, but they are different characters and so it actually has a lot more in common with my creator owned stuff.

Since you did mention Earth-616, multiple times in The Ultimates #1. We see a lot of references to Earth 616. Then there’s also a lot of Earth-616 sensibilities like Thor’s hammer is the 616 one rather than the one from the Ultimates. So is there a story reason as to why the 1610 sensibilities are like at a very minimum, from what we know of compared to 616?

The Maker’s files are from both universes so you’ll see a little bit of bleeding from both. The central conceit was that this universe was supposed to be not 616 exactly, but close to 616 if the Maker hadn’t altered it. He found a universe that was on track to be something close to 616, I think. There are differences like Tony’s age and whatnot. But Captain America, for instance, being in the ice and all that stuff, it was an universe that was on track to be similar to 616. So that’s kind of the main idea and also just from a storytelling perspective that is the universe, I think, that people are most familiar with through comics and what have you. Now I know there’s a debate whether the movies are 616, but they’re all drawing from 616. So it just felt like the more iconic basis for a point of comparison.

Well, I certainly hope you don’t think the movies are 616.

I’m agnostic on it. I know that people argue about it all the time and I know that they have their own designation. I don’t know what the designation is, but I know they have their own designation. But I think the guy who makes them, Kevin Feige, argues that they’re 616. I know that the actress who plays Ms. Marvel disagrees publicly with that and I think they’re right. But, you know, either way, I think the 616 stuff is the most iconic stuff. So it’s just it, it’s kind of natural to make that comparison and to be honest with you, if the idea is that something tragic has been lost, it’s easier to make that argument with 616 than it is with the original Ultimate universe, which was, which was not a great place to live I think.

Definitely. Actually, speaking of the old Ultimate Universe, last year I read every Hickman Marvel book and that was my first time going through his Ultimates stuff.

I love that run of Ultimates. That was such a good run.

It’s so good. I bring that up because over there, we see that the Maker comes in and he creates his own sort of future city, his version of the Children of the Vault. Now, we know here that the Maker is trapped in the City, and we know that you wrote Children of the Vault. So is that a weird meta sign of things to come?

I mean, it definitely feels like I’m being typecast, right? I’m following Hickman on everything. I’m getting put specifically on the City follow-ups, you know, the Darwin bubble follow-ups. It certainly seems like maybe that’s all I can write, I don’t know. (laughs)

It’s just a cool concept and we are definitely building towards something with the City. That is an important part of our series and the universe in general. I think it’s something to be kind of excited about. We have plenty of time. It’s gonna be a long time before that happens, in comic time anyway. 18 months. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say every issue ends with a countdown instead of with a ‘to be continued’.

Well, I have three questions to follow from this, so we’ll start from the easiest to the most complicated.

When I read Children of the Vault, one of the things that I was thinking of was, “Man, it’d be cool if this had some data pages.” Are we gonna get data pages in The Ultimates?

Yes, you’re going to have data pages. It’s not going to be every issue. It’s just going to be when it fits nicely. And in some issues, we’ll have extra story pages as well. There’s a data page in the first issue and I really enjoyed that. In issue 3, there’s two data pages. When they’re relevant and they can add something and I can do something interesting with them storytelling wise, they’re going to be in there for sure.

Well, I’m glad because I love data pages. So yeah, finding out we’re getting data pages makes me happy.

(laughs) I think it adds a little bit of depth to the work if you need them. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not visually interesting, but can still be interesting, and so that’s a place to put it. It’s a way for me to get more in depth into certain characters and into the world or what have you. So if I can find interesting ways to use them, I’m definitely gonna include them.

Totally. With every issue going month to month, does that mean that we know for sure that Ultimates is going to be at least 18 issues?

Yeah, I would say we’re building to something in 18 issues. I’ve seen a lot of people say things like, “Oh, the series is going to end at 18 issues. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we’re building to something big at the end of 18 issues. So yes, 18 issues is guaranteed, but I’m sure that it will be at least a little bit longer than that, you know.

I mean the goal is and something that I’ve been thinking about is it’s a team book, but I want it to feel like an ongoing event. Like this is an ongoing crossover event where you’re getting to see the history of this universe and new characters and new locations and stuff like that. I want it to feel like a destination book. I want people to want to go back every month not knowing what’s going to happen and not being able to wait to see what gets revealed. This is like a contained crossover, if you will, just in the book and we’re building to our you know to our big ‘Crisis’, I would say.

Since we were just talking about how people keep pointing out how you’re walking behind Hickman. How do you feel about that sort of thing where now that you’re writing The Ultimates, you’re sort of going to be in comparison or in that conversation all the time. How does that make you feel?

I feel fine about it, honestly. It’s super cool to get to work with Jon. First of all, a huge amount of the success of this book is just due to Jonathan Hickman and I know that. In no way am I deluded to think that people are coming to see me. They’re coming in large part because Jon has set up something really interesting and really energetic and has kind of, in a lot of ways revitalized comics and revitalized the Marvel Universe for a lot of people. I feel grateful that I get to be a part of it. I feel also, as I do with anything that I write, I feel a great sense of responsibility towards readers to deliver for them. The best way that I can honor what Jon is doing and the way that I can feel good about the comparison and not feel inferior is to put everything I can into the issues. So every issue has as much stuff as I can put into it without it becoming overcrowded. There’s as many character moments and concepts and locations and big ideas and everything I can do to make every issue come alive and feel special. I do. And so yeah, that’s my approach to it. But it’s cool to be known as somebody who can do – I guess I’m kind of getting that reputation  – somebody who can do hard science fiction or big ideas and I love that. I love Jon’s work and it’s no secret that one of my biggest influences in comics is Grant Morrison who also is very known for that kind of thing. The fact that I get compared to them is a huge compliment.

I will say though, for what it’s worth, I’m coming to this book because of you.

Thank you. That’s very kind.

Why is Captain Britain French? I’ve been thinking about that since Ultimate Invasion and Ultimate Universe. Also, does Captain America have extra beef with him?

I mean, Jon set that up so you’d have to ask him for what his reasoning is. I think a big theme for this is people being oppressed and there’s a lot of different ways you can oppress people, a lot of different mechanisms of oppression, and I think all of our all of the Council kind of represent different mechanisms, be it, you know, capital or or something more aristocratic. Again, you have to ask Jon for the reason specifically, but I imagine English people and French people kind of have a beef, and so I imagine it’s particularly insulting that the raiment and the symbols of British culture and power are in the hands of a French person. Again, I’m not British and I’m not French, so I can’t say for sure, but from what I know, there’s always been beef there and I have a feeling that is part of it, and of course I’m sure in the back of his head, there was some kind of a setup for a for a Captain America French joke.

Yeah, I mean you do have one of those in this Issue which I thought was funny. (laughs)

Yeah, (laughs) I can’t not, you know, you gotta pay homage to the classics! And we do. You know, again, the point of the book is not to look backwards. The point of the book is to look forward. But having said that, I  love continuity and I love resonances, so you’re going to see a number of echoes of the original Ultimate stuff, and maybe even some of the less loved Ultimate stuff. I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Interesting. This next one is spoiler territory, but one of the things I noticed during the big fight at the end is that The Ultimates do kill people. They’re not like our regular heroes who are beating them up and sending them to jail or whatever. What’s up with that? Is that something we’re gonna be finding out more about?

I don’t want to explain what’s up with it, because I am actually more interested to hear how it made you feel or how it made readers feel, because I am trying to distinguish these characters and these people from the 616 versions and so it was intentional. I’ll say it was intentional, but I think how you take it, how readers are going to take it is kind of up to them I guess is what I would say and it’s not something I did lightly or or thoughtlessly.

Right.

How did it make you feel to see that?

Well. I guess we’re going to be going into a tangent here. For me, when I think about superheroes not killing, it’s sort of into the fantasy of how superheroes are better than us. Not in the fascist way, but in a very optimistic sense, you know? And so we look up to them, and I don’t expect them to kill people. I guess my biggest frame of reference would be Batman. He’s one of my favorites. I love him. But when I think about him not killing, he’s obviously not in a perfect city, but it’s still an imaginary perfect world where even without killing you can sort of make the world a better place. But recently, Batman comics have gone to a place where Batman won’t directly kill, but there’s times like he’ll be okay with it. There’s Death of the Family and Joker War where Batman’s fine with walking away as the Joker dies, for example, because he knows that like he’s done so much harm, he won’t kill him himself, but he’s fine with him dying. I think that’s sort of been an interesting evolution in sort of how we see this very optimistic viewpoint on superheroes not killing, but then also we look at the real world, right and how when it comes to revolutions of any sort, it’s not clean. It’s definitely dirty. You need to get blood on your hands. You need to get your hands dirty. And so to that end, knowing the current Ultimate Universe where everybody’s trapped in these oppressive systems, right? In your issue, there’s that conversation on how the Maker in creating this new universe has essentially shifted the world’s moral axis to a degree. To that end, when you want to bring change to the world, you do need to do something drastic like killing. And so to me, I thought when I read that I was like, “It’s shocking, but also the more I think about it, the more it makes sense” because, especially those monsters under Captain Britain’s rule or control, you can’t necessarily change those people. Those are people who are pretty much stuck in their ways. And so the only way you can really make a difference is to go the extra mile. So that’s essentially how I felt about the whole thing.

Well, that’s awesome to hear. I hope people think about it as much as you do, because that’s the highest compliment that you can pay to a creator. Yeah, I love that. I love that it made you feel those different things and it made you think about those things. All I want to say is that it was intentional. It’s not something that was just kind of thrown in there for shock and I think it says something about these characters and it makes people ask questions. They’re labeled as terrorists and it would be very easy to say, “Well, they’re not actually terrorists, they’re just being labeled as such. But maybe there are things that they do that aren’t great. Or maybe there are things that they do that would genuinely scare people and it’s okay to put that into the work, you know?

Yeah, sure. I mean, it’s also interesting because earlier in the issue there’s Tony sort of hypothesizing a science to heroism, which I don’t necessarily think is how you do it, but it’s interesting the way he approaches that. So looking at that in conversation to the Ultimates killing people, it paints a really interesting picture in my head and I’m like, “Okay, I’m obviously invested, but now I’m really looking forward to whatever happens in that world and in that story.”

But also on that note, it is interesting that our guy, Iron Lad with the Immortus engine, says stuff like how he hasn’t conquered time. I do wonder how all of that is going to play out eventually.

I’m sure that that was just a totally meaningless statement and there’s no hint at all there. (we both laugh) Yeah, totally random thing to say. Again, you know, I’m trying to complicate the characters and we’re playing with stuff that Jon has set up and he has expectations and so hopefully the more you read the more this stuff becomes kind of legible and you can kind of see certain things developing and resonance developing. But yeah, I mean it’s all very intentional. I promise you that there’s not a line in this book that I didn’t agonize over and think about.

I’m sure, totally. I mean, based on your writing, I mean at this point, if you’re not sure about that, I don’t know, you should be because like there’s so much in everything. 

I was actually curious because I remember during Krakoa, there was the X-Slack where they were all sort of collaborative. Is The Ultimates sort of like that sort of collaborative experience where everyone’s building off of each other or are you left to your own devices, unless you’re occasionally sort of bouncing character ideas or whatever?

Yeah, it’s much more that we’re all left to our own devices. There’s no Slack. There’s an email chain where we see the issues as they’re being put together and then we have summits every so often where we go through what’s going on in our book and what our plans are and making sure we’re deconflicting any plans for the future. I’m introducing new characters all the time. The other books are introducing characters, and so we just want to make sure that we’re not doubling up or contradicting each other. But for the most part the attitude is “Do your book. You have your characters, you have your corner. Do that. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Set up your characters, set up your story, tell your story with your voice, and if there are places for connections, that’s great. But otherwise, don’t worry about it. Don’t force it.” Like I said, if there’s opportunities for crossovers that make sense with what everyone’s doing, great, go for it but it’s not in any way mandated. 

The people at Marvel are really happy with how the books are performing and how they’re being received critically and by the fans. So the attitude is just do your own thing and that’s what’s really been really cool. Though Ultimates is a big book and it feels like a big crossover, I’m trying to make it feel like an ongoing crossover event. It’s also really me and really my voice and Juan and and and everybody else on the team, but it really feels like I’m doing something that is just a hair’s breadth away from a creator owned book, and is a really good representation of me and my interests in my voice, which is not something you can always say about working in licensed work or working in big two works. So it’s been really cool.

It definitely fills me with confidence because one of the things I felt when Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Black Panther, and Ultimate X-Men came out was that these are books that are very much not beholden by corporate mandates, at least from what we’re aware of. Sometimes you’ll read like a big two book, and it feels like you’re aware of the fact that there was some meddling here and there. With these books, it feels free where, you know, because I think superheroes are now the modern mythology in some ways, and I think seeing that interpreted in this way, where you’re not beholden to those things and you’re allowed to tell the stories you want to tell is, I’m sure, rewarding as a creative, but it’s also rewarding as a reader because you get to see so much love poured into every single issue, and that’s always great.

Yeah, I was listening to an interview with one of the shop owners that was saying that for a while, it felt like collectors were dominating comics, like that was who was coming in and buying comics. We’re shifting back towards the content itself being the draw and the next you know in the next few years. That’s certainly heartening for me to hear and kind of what I’m about. I feel like everybody who’s writing in the Ultimate Universe kind of gets to have their own voice and I hope that is part of what readers are coming back for. If you pick up Ultimate X-Men, you’re getting a Peach Momoko book and there’s not a lot of compromise there. It’s her voice above all. If you’re picking up the Ultimates, for better or worse, you’re getting a Deniz Camp book. You know, it reads like a Deniz Camp book, hopefully different from the other ones that I’ve done because I’m trying not to repeat myself, but still, it’s a representation of me and my interests. I think, at least for me as a reader, that’s what I was always looking for, you know? Like when I was a kid and I realized that the comics I liked weren’t Justice League comics but were Grant Morrison comics. That was kind of like the first big revelation for me about how to read comics was, “Actually it’s not that JLA comics are better than the other comics. It’s that these specific ones written by this specific person are better,” you know, and hopefully that’s part of what the excitement of the Ultimate Universe is. You’re going to read a Spider-Man book, yes, but it’s a Spider-Man book by Jonathan Hickman and Marco and everybody else.

Yeah, I mean I also had that sort of similar revelation where you grew up thinking, “Oh, I like Marvel more or I like DC more” and then you sort of go into “Or maybe I just like this character more?” than ultimately it culminates in “Oh, is it this creator that I really like a lot?”

That’s the end goal, I think, of reading or experiencing any sort of media where you don’t necessarily like it because of the characters, you like it because of the creatives behind the characters.

Exactly. I think it’s totally normal when you’re younger to identify with the characters, or the universe or whatever. That’s just the normal life cycle of things. As you get deeper into something, only then, whatever it is, whether it’s novels or TV or whatever, then you start to realize you start to realize a little bit more about how they’re made and what you’re responding to is the work of people, not this amorphous concept or character.

Yeah, I mean, it especially goes deeper when you’re writing your own comics. Like I’m writing a script for a friend. Once you slowly start to learn the process, you tend to appreciate the creatives behind the wheel more, because now you’re slowly getting into the mindset they are in and you sort of understand how those things come together,, and how ultimately the best books come from self-expression rather than trying to adhere to a brand or what have you.

Absolutely. I think on one level, all great art is just some kind of an expression, something that needs to be expressed.

Yeah, for sure. Well, on that note, actually, if you’ve been reading the other Ultimate books, what have been sort of your favorite moments from like the other titles?

Oh man, I’ve really enjoyed something in all of them, you know? I love the big Dune-esque – you know, I was a big fan of Dune when I was younger, so it’s really cool to see Black Panther kind of playing in that field and building this mythology there. Just the scale of that is really cool. 

One of the cool things about Ultimate Spider-Man is how much the quiet moments sing, you know? So there was #4 where it’s just the conversation at dinner. That was just riveting. I thought that was really well done and the art is amazing.

Peach’s stuff is doing something totally different for the Marvel Universe and for the X-Men, that is hugely successful and I think reaching an audience that maybe either is bored with Marvel superhero stuff or has never read Marvel superhero stuff.

I love how different the books are. I love that they’re all doing their own thing. You could read the whole line and I think enjoy the whole line because they’re all really high quality, but I can also imagine a person who’s only reading Ultimate X-Men and has no interest in the other books, and I love that. I think that’s amazing. There’s people who love the Ultimate Spider-Man book and maybe will love the Ultimates because it’s a little bit more familiar to what you know and maybe don’t want to read the Ultimate X-Men book at all because it’s just too different, and that’s cool too. That diversity of voice is kind of the thing that I think is most interesting about the Ultimates and very different from the original Ultimate Universe, which had, you know, while there were there were a number of different voices, it felt a little bit more all one tone, one piece, you know, and that was its own kind of cool. But I really love that as the comics industry is progressing, growing and evolving, you can kind of see the way that the Ultimates has evolved from one consistent tone and direction to a number of different tones and voices and directions. I think that kindof reflects how I like to see comics continue to develop and evolve.

I remember reading Ultimate X-Men when I was living in the dorm back in Toronto. One of my friends saw me reading Ultimate X-Men and she browsed the pages and she got interested because the art style is so reminiscent of manga and that got her into it. I don’t know if she’s reading it, but you know, there’s interest there. 

That’s awesome.

And then another friend of mine who’s also super into manga saw the art for Ultimate X-Men and then he started talking to me about it. And then from there he slowly started ending up getting interested in the entire line. So like, you know, it’s awesome. It’s really cool. And it’s cool to see such diverse genres where you get in with something you’re familiar with, but then you slowly experiment and expand your horizons and try other things.

Totally. And I think that’s one of the things about the whole Ultimate Universe is that all these characters are pretty well known. A lot of people know the basics, so it can be fun to see people do different things with them. Even if you don’t read comics, you’re probably aware of what the X-Men are, but you’ve never read an X-Men like this one. You know what I mean? You’re probably aware of The Avengers at this point, you know? Most people know who they are. Not my parents, (laughs) but most people, but you’ve never read an Avengers quite like this one I don’t think so. It’s cool that we’re taking these archetypes and we’re filtering them through our lenses and kind of hopefully doing something a little bit different with them.

What’s been your favorite scene or moment to write so far?

I’m not going to say any details, but I will say there’s a Doom focused issue coming up. You can probably guess the number. I think that’s my favorite issue that I’ve written for Marvel period, yeah.

Well, three more months! Really looking forward to reading that. 

I need to subscribe to 3 Worlds 3 Moons too, you did work for that recently with Stipan.

Cool! Yeah, we just did a very short story, Stipan and I. I’m super proud of it, honestly. I think it turned out really well and I take any opportunity I can to work with Stipan, so.

I know you guys are teasing your next work, I’m looking forward to whatever that is whenever that’s coming out.

Yes, we’re working on it. We’re working on the 1st issue. We’re just building up stuff and we have a couple of projects already in the works. There’s a lot coming from us.

That’s super exciting. 

Is there anything else you’ve been reading/watching lately?

What have I watched lately? Oh, I watched the movie Challengers, which was excellent. I thought that was super, super good. I would highly recommend that.

That was the last movie I watched in Toronto before I came back, and that movie sort of rewired my brain from being like, very laid back to really being like, “Okay, I should probably be doing something with my life.”

No, no, no! They were not- Don’t do that. That was the wrong message. They were not a happy group of people for the most part. I think being chill is great. I was a pretty nervous kid and I’ve kind of grown chiller as I’ve gotten older and I cannot recommend it enough. Don’t worry about it. Achievement is overrated.

Well, I mean, I sure hope so! 

But yeah, are there any comics or anything that you’re reading right now, or do you just wait for the trades?

The book that I follow every month is Ice Cream Man. I love that book and Will is a really close friend of mine. The upcoming book that’s launching is the follow up to Little Bird called Precious Metal, which is just gorgeous. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous comic, and I highly recommend everybody pick it up. It’s just incredibly beautiful and well told and thoughtful. If you’ve read Little Bird, you know what I’m talking about. But this is somehow even better and it’s coming out the same same day as Ultimates. 

I guess I will be adding some stuff to my to-read list.

There you go.

Lots to read, lots to read. Thank you so much for your time. This has been great!

Thanks so much! It was a blast.

ULTIMATES #1 is out now! 20th Century Men and Children of the Vault are also available in the collected format!