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Last year around this time, Popverse broke the news that writer Chip Zdarsky was Marvel's first choice to reboot the Ultimate Spider-Man title before it ultimately went to its current writer Jonathan Hickman. Now, however, Hickman says that there was another writer before that - and for the entire Ultimate Universe reboot he's been overseeing since 2023.

Donny Cates.

During an episode of the most-excellent Off Panel podcast episode with Hickman talking to host David Harper, the Ultimate Spider-Man writer reveals he was brought in as a last-minute replacement on the rebooted Ultimate line and that it had been in development for "years" before him with Cates. At the time, Cates was arguably Marvel's most up-and-coming writer, being chosen to relaunch the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor, and Hulk series off the back of his ultra-successful Venom run, as well as previously being tapped to revamp the Marvel Knights line.

But it was not to be.

"Take Ultimate Spider-Man, for example — I was not supposed to do that book," Hickman says. Harper brings up our report on Zdarsky being the original writer, and Hickman goes deeper.

"Well, forget about that. Even before then, the Ultimate crossover thing that I did with Hitch, I was not supposed to do that book," Hickman reveals. "That was... Donny was going to do that book, and he had been kind of working on it in the background over the years. And, you know, he had some stuff go on and they asked me to come in and help, then take over. And obviously, I took it in a, you know, different direction."

The "stuff" Cates "had... go on" was several health issues in 2023, which led him to prematurely drop all his comics work and go on a hiatus for the past two years. Before then, Cates had been developing the Marvel variant version of Reed Richards - known as the Maker - in his previous books, and Hickman eventually took that over - first with 2003's Ultimate Invasion series, then the Ultimate Universe one-shot, and finally with the Ultimate Spider-Man series. Cates was given a 'special thanks' in the credits for those issues, but this is the first time Hickman has gone on record about why.

Marvel's most reliable superhero has proven he can do a whole lot more than just 'whatever a spider can.' Swing into Spidey's history with Popverse's 10 best Spider-Man comic books, our Spider-Man movie watch order, and if you want our opinions on the subject, read our articles ranking Spider-Man's actors and Spider-Man's girlfriends.