Jonathan Hickmand Admits He Wasn't Even Supposed To Be Writing The Mega-Popular Ultimate Spider-Man Reboot

Ultimate Spider-Man is Marvel’s big hit of the last couple of years, with hype behind Jonathan Hickman’s worldbuilding being a large part of its success and other books in the line also being lifted by it. Now, it’s been revealed he wasn’t even supposed to be the one writing the book.

In recent years, with Marvel and DC Comics floundering in their main line continuities, rebooting everything, and retconning storylines so many times to fit current-year writers, fans have become exhausted and tuned out of reading many of the books. With characters that seemingly never can progress in any meaningful manner or no danger that lasts beyond a few issues, even if a character dies, there’s not much point in reading.

As a result, readers have turned to the Ultimate and Absolute universes, where it appears writers actually have control over characters and can actually create meaningful and dangerous storylines.

A large part of the reason for the initial success that launched all of these spinoffs was Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimate Spider-Man, in which he presented Peter Parker married to Mary Jane with children, something Marvel Comics fans have been clamoring for for years. The main Amazing Spider-Man comic refuses to give fans what they want with the character, so this was a complete referendum on that topic, and the buzz it created carried on to multiple books.

Jonathan Hickman is also a large part of that, one of a handful of writers who is a draw in mainstream comics readers’ respect. We’re seeing more of these types of writers being brought back into the fold lately, with Jeph Loeb and Hush 2, as well as Grant Morrison announcing he has a new Big 2 project. Current-year talent does not bring in the readers like these past greats have done.

Now, it’s been revealed this almost didn’t come to fruition, as Jonathan Hickman did not even intend to write Ultimate Spider-Man originally.

Hickman stated on the Off Panel podcast, “The Ultimate crossover I did with [Bryan] Hitch, I was not supposed to do that book. Donny was going to do that book, and he had been kinda working on it in the background over the years, and he had some stuff go on, they asked me to come in and help, and then take over, and obviously I took it in a different direction."

Donny Cates has been embattled in recent years, claiming he had a car crash that caused him to lose his memory and be unable to write for a time. He seems to be having personal problems, likely stemming from his admitted Satanism, which got him into the comic industry prominence, to begin with. Hickman, apparently, took over the project after Cates was supposed to follow up on a Maker storyline from his Venom run with this reboot universe.

Hickman originally created The Maker in the last Ultimate Marvel Universe, making him a logical replacement. Though, if Hickman had not been involved in Ultimate Spider-Man, would it have been such a success to upend the comic book industry?

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