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When Marvel Comics announced at New York Comic Con 2025 that their critically-acclaimed Ultimate Universe was coming to a close in early 2026, a wave of disbelief washed over comic book fans everywhere. Marvel fans loved the new takes on characters like Spider-Man, Captain America, Black Panther, Wolverine, the X-Men, Hawkeye, and more, and weren't ready to say goodbye just yet. But despite the initial shock of finding out that the Ultimate Universe was ending, the creators behind the Ultimate line have embraced the incoming conclusion. 

In the wake of the release of Ultimate Endgame #1, here is a Q&A I had with writer Deniz Camp about his work on The Ultimates, his future in superhero comics, the "bittersweet" feel of saying goodbye to characters like Ultimate Hawkeye, and more. 

Popverse: Taking a look at your work with the Ultimate Universe here, how do you feel about your contributions to the Ultimate line and the line ending completely despite its commercial and critical success?

Deniz Camp: Yeah, I mean, I feel it's hard, you know, talking about my contributions. I don't really know. It's really more for fans to decide if they're worthy or they're good. I feel really grateful that we got to do kind of our version of the Marvel Universe. I think that being entrusted with that, and the pitch for this book was kind of that, where it's just, I'm going to recreate the Marvel Universe for the modern times, as I see fit, in this dystopian world. I'm really grateful I got to do that, and they entrusted me to do that. I think whether it's good or bad or stands the test of time is, in 10 years' time, fans will know and will decide.

But the process of doing it with this group of people, this with [Marvel editor] Wil Moss and [Marvel assistant editor] Michelle Marchese and [artist] Juan [Frigeri], and all the artists and everyone who's contributed - has been a really remarkable experience. It's a confidence and trust that not a lot of people get. It's an opportunity that not a lot of people get. So I feel proud of what we did and grateful for the opportunity.

And then about it ending, you know, when they told me, I was surprised, but not in a negative way. I was surprised at the boldness of it. I'm hugely honored to get to do this kind of a story, not only the whole run, which is gonna have a beginning, middle, and end, or the whole run for the universe, which is gonna have a beginning, middle, and end. But to get to tie a bow on all this stuff and to tell [a story] with real consequences that won't continue on. In other words, we're going to tell the story and really put an end to it and have that freedom - I don't know that anybody, I can't think of a creator who's gotten to do that. I can't think of a time where this has ever happened before. And so the Ultimate Universe, when they came to me, it felt like what it was about was about doing new things with superheroes. How can we do new things with these characters, with bringing the world in a little bit and bring other types of stories into it as well with the way that [Ultimate X-Men writer/artist] Peach [Momoko] brought in manga. And so I think this kind of continues with that, where it's like, there's never been a universe like this where it's self-contained and it's so consistent, it's going to begin with these creators, and it's going to end with these creators largely, and that vision is going to be intact. So I just feel really blessed and honored to get to be a part of that.

For sure. I was speaking with Jonathan Hickman about this and he said that-

Name drop [laughs].

[Laughs] He was signed on for 24 issues for Ultimate Spider-Man. And so he went in with like, 'Okay, I'm here for 24 issues,' not to say that the finding out that it was ending wasn't a surprise to him. But were you also specifically on for 24 issues?

No. So I mean [Hickman] was always planning on 24, and I think everybody else was planning on ending on 24 for their run. But we were still figuring out what it was gonna look like on the other side. I've said this before, but there was talk that I was going to continue on. I was planning on continuing on for a while, and then there was going to be like a new wave of books that launched. But there was always going to be an ending, like not that my run was gonna end, but that there was gonna be a culmination of everything that my run had been building towards at [issue #] 20- around this time - around 18 is actually when I thought it was going to be. And then I was going to continue on doing more stuff, and then we decided to end it.

And so it wasn't always planned, but it was always planned that it was going to be a definitive ending. And so you'll see a few things that I set up that will not be addressed. But for the most part I knew so long ago. Like I've always said, I've always been building towards this home, this culmination. So it really dovetailed really nicely with everything that I was doing and it was really just about now having the freedom to tell [the story]. And this is something that's kind of cool. When you're a creator and you're doing these stories, you want to tell your story, but you also have to think about what comes after, either for yourself or for another creator. So what this does is kind of give everybody the freedom to end the stories in the way that's best for the stories and not have to think about, 'Well, what's my responsibility as a good steward for these characters,' or 'What's our responsibility to the next person that comes on?' We can tell the story that needs to be told that these characters are kind of demanding that we've been setting up and whatever is most appropriate. And finding that in the writing and all that has been lovely. But that's what the end part of Endgame allows, I think.

Right. That makes a lot of sense and I know that it's a little bit early to ask a question like this, but if the Ultimate line were to be restarted or rebooted again, would you wanna return to it? 

Like in a completely new way, or a continuation of this one?

Either or.

Yeah, either or, absolutely. I would be down for it sometime. I mean, I think I got to tell like a big Marvel big Avengers-style superhero book - I wouldn't want to do that again, probably because I've done that in a way that it really reimagined all the characters. I would probably do something like [Hickman] did, you know, [Hickman] did all that and then went into Spider-Man. So I would probably do something more focused. But it's been a blast. I loved doing this, and I would jump at the chance to reinvent these characters, to get any character again if I had a good idea for it.

Speaking of character reinventions, did you have a single character that you were most proud of taking a different look at? I know fans really responded to Ultimate Luke Cage and Hawkeye, for instance.

Those were the ones that meant a lot to me because I thought they might mean a lot to other people, and I really wanted to make sure to get them right. I mean, I tried to get everybody right, especially if I, you know, changed their ethnicity or something like that. I wanted to make sure that I was doing justice to that. And so I'm really happy. I think my one regret about this ending is that those stories, like people who have had closer experiences to those characters, can't continue those stories on. And I was very happy that Hawkeye got a little bit of that. And I think that's my one, you know, little asterisk on my happiness about it, about the way that this is ending. But that's just the way that it is and I'm so pleased that people responded to those characters and that they meant something to people. That means a lot to me. 

For sure. Moving on to other characters, from the start, The Ultimates has carried a lot of heavy Maker and Iron Lad lore from Ultimate Invasion forward. Was it always the plan that you'd lead the line into Ultimate Endgame?

No, certainly not. And Ultimate Endgame, it wasn't even necessarily gonna be this big crossover at the very start. You know, people were focused on telling their stories. They weren't necessarily focused on telling the overarching thing quite as much. I came on and that was what I latched on to. And so it kind of became clear, I think, after the first six issues or whatever, that I was doing the universe book and it would be natural for me. There were all kinds of possibilities thrown out, including that like, I guess I can say this. There was even a possibility when we were continuing on, there was a possibility that somebody throughout that would open the city and everything would be over. Like The Maker would have been defeated off-panel, and the universe would just kind of gone as it is. And that was not a possibility for me, because my whole book was building towards this opening. And so I made it pretty clear early on that I needed this to be a big event. And then once that was the case, then it was gonna be me who was gonna write it.

And so, taking a closer look at The Ultimates in particular. Obviously, your book had a revolutionary lean. What do you want people to take away most from your contributions to the new Ultimate Universe with Ultimate Endgame?

I mean, I just want people to take whatever they want to take from. It's not really my place to say, 'I don't think what people should take from it.' I hope, beyond entertaining, it made people feel things, and I hope it made people feel all the things - good things and bad things. And it's a superhero book, and I think at the core of superhero books is this hopefulness. And I tried to put that into the book with, yes, the darkness and a reality and reflection of our world, but also that there's a possibility for something better. And the fact that things are bad now doesn't mean that they have to be. And that it's up to us. But you know, I want people to take whatever they want to take. But that's something I feel deeply about the world. And something that I felt is kind of core to the superhero message, and I wanted to do that in a new way, I hope, in a new way. But it's still superheroes, you know? That needs to be there.

Absolutely. And I think you know that you can't have hope without a catalyst for why you feel that way, which ties into the villains in the book. So who do you think is the single worst person that the Ultimates have had to face? Like I know there's a lot of options, but I just wanted to ask.

Ohh man, that's a great question. I mean, you gotta hate Da Costa, right? You gotta hate Emmanuel Da Costa. It's just what he does to his own son. I had no knowledge of that character before I came in and I kind of went up with the blood thing and the powers thing just to give them something kind of interesting to visually do, and differentiate himself from just the guy. And he's really grown into an awful, awful, awful person, I think, throughout.

The Maker is really awful. And they haven't really gone up against him yet so, he doesn't count. But The Maker is probably the worst person ever. I don't know, maybe one of the worst villains ever between what I've done with him and what all the everybody else, especially [Hickman], who created this version of The Maker. But there's yeah, there's something also kind of pathetic about the Maker. Da Costa is like, just awful, just awful, awful, awful.

For sure. And in contrast to the awful characters, can Ultimate Cosmo stick around, jumping from universe to universe? He's just the goodest boy.

Yes, he is. I would have liked to have seen an Ultimate Guardians thing, of course. But it was great to get to play with him and I would love to see, you know, one day maybe. But like, if any character can make it out, it's gotta be Cosmo, right?

Yeah, I really do feel like, going back to what you were saying earlier, about it being bittersweet that characters like Ultimate Hawkeye, which mean a lot to people, can't continue on, I almost feel like there's something to be said for the fact that these characters were planted as seeds in fans' minds. And I feel like they can live on, and it's going to grow.

Exactly and that's something that is, I think, so core to superhero comics or storytelling in general is that you leave room for the reader. And so the stuff that happens between the panels or outside of the panels is as important as what happens, you know, inside of them. And what that means is the reader's imagination. I try to create these characters, or sometimes it's just a throwaway line or whatever about this event or that event, and let the reader fill it in. And it becomes much fuller for them because they're part of the creative process there.

So it is a bummer that maybe there won't be more Hawkeye or whatever. As long as they meant something to the fans and the fans will take that forward, and maybe they'll become creators one day themselves and for Marvel, or maybe they'll just draw fan comics or whatever, maybe they can take some of that and do something with those characters or those ideas, not even directly, but just kind of be inspired by them, or put themselves into it and make something new that I could never have imagined, or that no other writer could have imagined, that's uniquely them. So while, like you said, it's bittersweet that it's ending, I do think there's a really positive thing there that these characters live on forever in the imagination of the readers as long as they made an impact.

Absolutely. And so you co-wrote Ultimate Incursion with Cody Ziglar, and you're writing Ultimate Endgame. Incursion puts the origin boxes in the Marvel Universe, so should we expect similar multiversal teases in Endgame, especially considering Ultimate Invasion started in the mainline Marvel Universe?

Yes, and that's all that I'll say. It's definitely - it will be there. But I don't want to give away anything too much.

For sure. And just to wrap things up here, we know you've got some work lined up at Vertigo and there's some more Absolute Martian Manhunter on the way. Do you have any more Marvel plans in the future or any other plans to write future superhero books?

I do have future superhero books. I shouldn't talk about them, but I've loved my time so far at Marvel, that's all.

Interested? Here's where to find your closest local comic store, courtesy of Sweet, and here's a guide to how (and where) to read comics online. If you're looking for the best comics in recent memory, check out the Eisner Awards winners and the Harvey Awards nominees. And if you like free comics, here's everything we know about Free Comic Book Day 2027.