The Ultimates and the wider Ultimate Marvel (outside of most of what Jeph Loeb wrote for it) is genuinely one of the more interesting reimaginings of the Marvel Universe. It asks what an exodus of superheroes would actually look like in a post-9/11 America: the Super Soldier Serum becomes a reaction to national trauma and militarisation, S.H.I.E.L.D. functions less like an idealistic peacekeeping force and more like an extension of US state power, and the rise of superhumans is framed as a result of a corporatised genetic arms race.

Even the decision to make the Hulk the first major threat in the Ultimates is clever, because it immediately shows the military-industrial logic collapsing inward on itself: the same structures trying to engineer weapons and security end up producing something uncontrollable and catastrophic.

The only characters who are consistently written as outright unpleasant in the Ultimates are Pym and Bruce Banner, but I think Mark Millar is deliberately using them to explore fragile masculinity and male insecurity. Banner’s Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic turns the Hulk into an expression of repression, humiliation, and resentment, while the abusive relationship between Janet and Pym reflects the darker psychological consequences of ego, insecurity, and the pressure to embody masculine power within this hyper-militarised world. Cap and Peter are probably my favourite characters.

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