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In 2010, Jonathan Hickman was one of five writers that Marvel Comics dubbed its 'Architects.' Hickman is the last of those five writers actively working in Marvel Comics' superhero line, but the mission statement of the Architects back then as per Marvel editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski, seems even more true than now - "each of their projects lays the groundwork for the future of the Marvel Universe..."

15 years later, however, I would say Hickman's role has changed from architect to superhero problem-solver - instead of building up Marvel's big pillars like the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and X-Men, it's about rebuilding the other parts of the House of Ideas that need renovation. In fact, when interviewer David Harper called the current event series Imperial work on the "fixer-upper" that is the Marvel cosmic line, he agreed. And it's something he did (and is doing) for the revamped Ultimate Marvel line, as well as the attempts at revitalizing the magic side with G.O.D.S., and also adult-oriented, non-continuity books like Wolverine: Revenge and Aliens. vs. Avengers.

"... a big thing that I do for the company right now is I try and give them a tree to hang some branches off of," says Hickman to Harper as part of the long-form Off Panel interview. "It doesn't have to start from an origin point. That's kind of my job is doing the origin point, and so that they're moving with a little bit more velocity right out of the gate."

In many ways, what Hickman is doing now is something former Marvel writer Warren Ellis did for years at the company, doing dramatic revamps on the likes of Iron Man, the Thunderbolts, Moon Knight, the New Universe, and the Inhumans. Hickman had been doing this sort of work innately with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men, but here now in 2025 and Hickman is comfortable saying it's his specific mission at Marvel - but looking outside the established titles.

"And so, you know, we've been doing those kind of projects, as opposed to me sitting down and doing something like House of X / Powers of X, or the Avengers/New Avengers thing, where I'm coming in to tell a really, really big story that is for the most part, even though it's inside of Marvel continuity itself, contained, and it's kind of evergreen, and it's taking really, really wild big swings. And so that's the difference there."

The next big swing: Marvel's Imperial

Imperial, which launched this month, is a broad revamp of the outer space side of the Marvel Comics universe - nicknamed for decades as 'Marvel Cosmic' - and Hickman has a goal for it to propagate a 'micro-line' of Marvel Cosmic titles going forward, the same way his Ultimate Spider-Man book has, and in same way the previous Marvel Cosmic title of two decades ago, Annihilation did.

"I have a nerd term for the Ultimate books and Absolute books; I call them 'micro lines,' where you just have to buy into these four books, and you kind of get everything you need," says Hickman. "And I kind of think readers are being trained. I don't know if that's the right term, but whatever, they're coming to expect a structure that works for them. And I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about Imperial; Annihilation starts with a prologue, then has this mini-series that builds into the main series, and after that, books come out of it. And it's a recipe that works. How do you apply that to different things, to make interesting superstructures for everyone to build off of that kind of a core focus for you right now? That's the plan. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. Fingers crossed."

Hickman says that the hope is following the end of his event series Imperial, "three or four other writers can come in, and they can kind of pick up a book that's already moving forward."

Interviewer David Harper called the current state of the cosmic side of Marvel as a "fixer-upper" - as in a dilapidated house that needs some work, but the 'bones are good' so to speak. Hickman, agreed.

"It is. We like those books. We like those kind of books. I love Annihilation. I love Marvel Cosmic. We have so much good stuff. You know, there's so much fruit on the tree that it's a shame that we're not picking it," says the writer. "And so this is absolutely 100% a 'Hey, let's see if we can't do in the Marvel cosmic corner what we did in the Ultimate Universe!' where we take a small group of creators and we have a really cool inflection point, and then we just see if we can make the book sing, you know? And it's the same recipe. Hire good talent, get out of the way. Let's see if they can make their books work. And of course, that'll be up to them, and if fans dig it or not."

The other Marvel micro-lines Jonathan Hickman is kickstarting

In addition to the Hickman work from years ago, he has been building these Marvel 'superstructures' with not only Imperial and the Ultimate line, but also with non-continuity Marvel work such as Wolverine: Revenge and Aliens vs. Avengers (similar to DC's Black Label line), and the TV-show-turned-Marvel-event-that-wasn't in G.O.D.S. Here now, a year and change away from G.O.D.S.' end, Hickman can say publicly that ambitions for the series were more than the reception, and says definitely it didn't sell as much as Marvel wanted for the price they pay for his work.

"[G.O.D.S.] did fine. I think it's not considered a success, even though it's sold better than, especially in trade, than a bunch of other Marvel books. It's just not at the height of where I'm expected to publish books, and so therefore, not as successful," says Hickman. "And so that's all I mean by that, is if I do, if I do a book, it needs to do well, and if it's not doing well, I need to do something better. And that's okay. That's, I mean, those are the rules that I'm playing by. That's fine."

From his conversation with Harper, Hickman seems to be tasked to actively diversify Marvel Comics' line so it isn't as reliant on its longtime bestsellers - the Avengers, the X-Men, the Spider-Mans - and being led down a road of doing even more of those titles, but to create - or in most cases re-create - other characters to step up and carry more of the overall line.

"... if we can get four really, really good titles that do well on their own, and then we do four more a couple more years later, you don't need 10 Avengers books and 14 X-Men books, right?" says the writer. "Forgive me for the inside baseball stuff, but DC doing really well right now is actually really good, because it doesn't mean that Marvel has to produce as many books, but to get the end result of what appears to be a 'healthy market', you know. And so I think that's good too. So we'll see. I mean, it's gonna take a couple years, but we'll see what the other side looks like."

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.