Marvel 616 / Ultimate Marvel coming to an end

Haven't seen any discussion on this so far. The Marvel 616 Universe and Ultimate Marvel Universe are both coming to an end at the climax of Marvel's upcoming "Secret Wars", and are to be merged together into a new continuity.

Marvel's SECRET WARS Live Kick-Off | Newsarama.com

I am tentatively optimistic about this. Will be quite curious to see the degree of change involved.

Prepare yourself for...the New 616.

616 brand new #1's.

This feels like a ****ing mess.

So from the press conference essentially what is happening is the 616 universe and the Ultimate universe are mashing together and characters from both universes are going to "Battleground" which will eventually become the NEW Marvel Universe (Feels very Crisis of Infinite Earths to me) and they will springforth new titles and new #1 that will replace existing Marvel books (Feels very New 52)

what is going to confuse is that they took popular arcs and made them co-exist so you'll get Marvel Zombies Hulk running around with Maestro running around with Bruce Banner Hulk and Six Spider-Men and Four Wolverines and etc, etc.

It feels like a cluster**** to keep straight but apparently they're all in. The licensees are huge apparently including a toyline from Hasbro.

The Mike said:

This feels like a ****ing mess.

So from the press conference essentially what is happening is the 616 universe and the Ultimate universe are mashing together and characters from both universes are going to "Battleground" which will eventually become the NEW Marvel Universe (Feels very Crisis of Infinite Earths to me) and they will springforth new titles and new #1 that will replace existing Marvel books (Feels very New 52)

what is going to confuse is that they took popular arcs and made them co-exist so you'll get Marvel Zombies Hulk running around with Maestro running around with Bruce Banner Hulk and Six Spider-Men and Four Wolverines and etc, etc.

It feels like a cluster**** to keep straight but apparently they're all in. The licensees are huge apparently including a toyline from Hasbro.

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This is a valid fear to be honest, however I am going to be cautiously optimistic.

The Mike said:

This feels like a ****ing mess.

So from the press conference essentially what is happening is the 616 universe and the Ultimate universe are mashing together and characters from both universes are going to "Battleground" which will eventually become the NEW Marvel Universe (Feels very Crisis of Infinite Earths to me) and they will springforth new titles and new #1 that will replace existing Marvel books (Feels very New 52)

what is going to confuse is that they took popular arcs and made them co-exist so you'll get Marvel Zombies Hulk running around with Maestro running around with Bruce Banner Hulk and Six Spider-Men and Four Wolverines and etc, etc.

It feels like a cluster**** to keep straight but apparently they're all in. The licensees are huge apparently including a toyline from Hasbro.

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better!

Sounds like a mess? This will be a mess

Typical...crap like this is why I don't buy comics anymore and I'm glad. I still "follow from a distance", but these constant rehashes and doing #1's ALL over (even though I know it's good sales) are frustrating.

Like you all said, time for the "New 616".

I remember when the Ultimates line was GOOD, you know, before Ultimatum and they killed off most of the characters? I heard some good stuff about Miles Morales, but other than that, the Ultimate universe became crap. This sort of cements it since they're "merging" the universes.

Oh and I bet a big reason for this: Fox has X-Men and Fantastic Four. I wonder if this is also a big storyline/character maneuvering to legally wiggle around that...

Marvel is going around FOX by making mutants Inhumans since they don't have the movie rights to use mutant characters

Have they done that wholeheartedly? I know they made Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch not Magneto's kids and were messing with their history but I didn't know they were doing it with everyone.

The only X-Book I have is All-New X-Men which was great but I've got so far behind I have no clue what is going on there.

The Mike said:

Have they done that wholeheartedly? I know they made Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch not Magneto's kids and were messing with their history but I didn't know they were doing it with everyone.

The only X-Book I have is All-New X-Men which was great but I've got so far behind I have no clue what is going on there.

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Haha, that's just plain stupid. Imagine them showing up in upcoming X-men Apoc movie with their normal origins.

The Mike said:

I know they made Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch not Magneto's kids

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Ugh I just read the synopsis about it from the AXIS story.

Horrible. It's obviously a ploy just to get around the whole movie stuff. Watch and see...

Dan Slott did something similar on a smaller scale. The Spiderverse event essentially pulled every Spider-Man in existence including references to the films ones, Japanese Manga versions, old cartoon versions, etc and had them battle in an event on the same side. It was really well done and I'm enjoying the hell out of it, especially when you see nostalgic ones pop up like Ben Reilly or the Spider-Lizard or Man Spider but I feel like this is trying to take that on a such larger scale that it'll get confusing.

Realistically seeing Miles Morales next to another teenage Peter next to our Peter next to Otto in Peter's body with Kaine and Spidey 2099 and the other characters is great and brings smiles but there is a finite end (or there was) people would be heading back afterwards and continue forward. This is like that same kind of fan service and then all of sudden that's the existence. How the **** are 7 Peter Parkers for example going to co-exist as well as clones and alternative versions? or 4 Gwens hanging out with 3 different Mary Janes and 2 different Doc Ocks or even the teaser of a Married Peter with MJ and May Parker existing (the last panel of Spiderverse 2 pointed to that) going to hang out with our Peter and MJ who aren't dating and having a hard enough time being friends?

Really it's gong to be super messy once you get past the whole "Oh cool they're together!" fanboy moment.

Spider-verse has been pretty damn cool. Reminds me of the Exiles comic with all the world-jumping. Some of the Spideys are awesome.

I absolutely love Spiderverse. I'm not sure the concept can hold without the world jumping or be maintained throughout. I think that's a tall order.

Agreed. If I still bought comics, I'd get that series. I've heard positive things. Maybe I'll get the trade paperback when it comes out.

Spider-verse is a great read. I was skeptical at first because some of the Spider-Man stories haven't been stellar the last few years, but the story is solid.

I don't know how I'll like the combining of the normal Marvel universe and the Ultimate version. The Ultimate universe has gone downhill in a big way since Ultimatum--storylines were part of it but the awful characterizations have been the main reason, IMO. I know they killed off characters because it was an "anything can happen" mentality with the new world, but you can't replace characters like Wolverine with his son when the son is garbage character and expect me to care. When it comes down to it, there aren't many Ultimate characters that I care to read about because the 616 versions are better. Miles Morales is probably the only Ultimate character that I hope they keep around for a long time.