Ultimate Avengers (2006) versus Mark Millar's comics

A confidential, off-the-record animated film that was going to make someone else billions. Decryption source by source, without disclosing the outcomes.

As in each article in this series, only verified information (creators, distribution, dates, publishers) is stated; the comparative analysis is ours, without reproducing dialogue or protected images.

2002: the series that served as a blueprint

The Ultimates appeared from 2002 in the Ultimate line, of which this corpus described the project aboutUltimate Spider-Man: a parallel continuity starting from scratch, designed for a new reader.

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch rebuilt the team founded in 1963. The most profound change is not cosmetic: for them, the team is not a voluntary gathering of heroes but a state-mounted unit, financed, supervised, exposed in the media, and used for purposes that are not always admissible. The members are not friends, they are employees who do not tolerate each other.

Bryan Hitch's drawing plays a decisive role, and he has had a lasting impact on the medium. His style – wide frames, cinemascope format, attention to technical detail, characters drawn after real actors – gives the series the appearance of a big budget film before this film existed. The term used at the time to describe it, that of a comic book thought of as cinema, says exactly what was happening.

The register is frankly adult: violence, political cynicism, morally questionable characters, and a rather fierce satire of the way in which a State uses heroes.

2006: adapt the plan before it is useful

The animated film was released confidentially on video in 2006, six years before the same material became the basis for one of cinema's greatest successes. It is this discrepancy that makes the case interesting.

It retains the essentials of the structure: the team assembled by an agency, the return of Captain America after decades of sleep, the recast Nick Fury, the internal tensions, the military register. A second film continued the following year.

What he leaves out is what made Millar unique: the cynicism, the political satire, and above all the darker aspects of several characters - the printed series includes domestic developments of considerable harshness, which made his reputation as much as his controversy. The film targets a wider audience and pulls them out.

The result is honest without being striking. And this is precisely what makes it instructive: the same source, treated a few years later with other means and an adjusted tone, produced a global phenomenon. The difference is not in fidelity — the feature film departs more from Millar than this animated film — but in means, timing and exposition.

What cinema has really taken

It's worth clarifying what the Ultimate line provided, as it's often boiled down to just Nick Fury.

The character is in fact the most visible case: recast as a black man, drawn after a specific actor, he passed from the page to the screen with disturbing continuity. But borrowing goes well beyond that. There composition of the team, the role of government agency as a binder, the tone military and technological rather than fantastic, the way in which the heroes are employees mentored rather than volunteers — this all comes from Millar and Hitch, not the 1963 series.

This corpus has formulated the mechanism elsewhere: it is a rare case where the paper served as laboratory on screen rather than tank. The Ultimate line was designed as a modernization, and it was this modernization — not the original — that the cinema retained.

A nuance deserves to be made, because it is often lost: what the cinema has excluded from Millar is also considerable. The cynicism, the satire of state exploitation, the domestic darkness of certain characters: none of this has survived the passage. Cinema has taken shape of Ultimates and gave him back the bottom from the 1963 series — heroes who respect themselves.

The characters, from paper to screen

• Captain America— Return after decades, man displaced in time.
• Nick Fury— Ultimate version, the one that irrigated the cinema.
• Iron Man— Financial as well as member, tension with the hierarchy.
• Hulk— Treated as a military problem, not as a hero.
• The Pym couple— Whose domestic arc is left out of the film.

Bryan Hitch and comics thought like cinema

A word about the designer, because his influence goes beyond this series and sheds light on an evolution of the medium.

Bryan Hitch popularized a way that we called the “decompressed” format: scenes that take the time to unfold, entire pages devoted to a single moment, very wide frames. A conversation that would have taken up three panels in the 1970s occupies a double page here.

This manner has been widely imitated and widely criticized. Its defenders see in it a cinematic scale and increased readability; its detractors, a dilution - a six-issue arc that tells what an issue once told, and which pushes the reader towards collections rather than monthlies.

Both are right, and the consequence is concrete for the collector: from the 2000s, the same story occupies many more issues than before. Putting together a complete arc therefore costs more in volume, but each issue taken in isolation contains less — which partly explains why modern keys focus so heavily on first appearances rather than stories.

Why a parallel continuity was created

The line of which this title is part responded to an editorial problem that had become insoluble at the turn of the 2000s, and which must be understood to grasp the issue.

After forty years of uninterrupted publication, the main continuity had become impractical for a new reader: each character dragged on decades of events, undone deaths, identity changes and crossovers. A curious teenager who opened a current issue had no chance of finding their way there — and the renewal of readership depended on it.

The answer was to create continuity parallel, starting from scratch, with the same characters placed in the present and without debt to editorial history. The two universes coexisted, each with its audience: established readers on one side, entrants on the other.

This decision directly explains what the cinema made of it. A studio found itself faced with exactly the same problem as a new player — forty years of unusable material as is — and faced with a solution already written, tested and profitable. It's no surprise he took it.

For the collector, this creates two distinct markets that are best not confused. The main continuity issues are valued on rarity and seniority; those of the parallel line are valued on the influence— what they provoked beyond the paper. The second criterion is less readable, therefore less expensive, and this is precisely what makes it an option.

Collection side: what numbers to aim for after the film

The Ultimates #1(2002) is the key to the series: the first issue of a title whose influence on cinema has proven considerable. Its profile is favorable - circulation from the early 2000s, already reduced market - and its rating remains reasonable in view of its historical importance, because the general public is largely unaware of where the formula they know comes from.

This is a case that this corpus has encountered several times: numbers whose value is due to the editorial history rather than a spectacular first appearance remain accessible for a long time. They do not attract the speculative buyer, who is looking for characters, and are mainly of interest to those who know what they are holding.

Avengers #1(1963) is of a completely different order: it is the founding key of the team, a sought-after silver age number, whose journey this corpus has detailed with regard toAvengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The two segments have neither the same price nor the same audience.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Where to start reading

The Ultimates #1(2002) does not require any prior knowledge — that was the very principle of the line. The reader coming from the cinema will find the formula he knows, but in a much more cynical and politically biting version: this is the most interesting gap to measure.

Timeline to know

• 1963— Avengers #1 founds the team.
• 2000— The Ultimate line is launched.
• 2002— The Ultimates #1, by Millar and Hitch.
• 2006-2007— The two animated films.
• 2010s— Cinema uses the formula, without the cynicism.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

Ultimate Avengers will remain as the adaptation of a plan before it was useful: the same material, six years later, produced a worldwide phenomenon. The difference is not in fidelity – the feature film diverges more from Millar – but in the means and the schedule. Cinema has also taken the shape of Ultimates by returning the bottom from 1963: heroes who respect themselves. For the collector, The Ultimates #1 is a typical case of a key whose value lies in the editorial history - therefore long accessible.

The verdict: structure kept, cynicism removed

• Loyalty: the team set up by a government agency, the return of Captain America, the recast Nick Fury, the internal tensions and the military register come from the comic.
• Freedoms: Millar's cynicism greatly toned down, the darker aspects sidelined, the political satire disappeared, the Bryan Hitch line not reproduced and a narrative tightened on the action.
• Collectible numbers: The Ultimates #1 (2002); Avengers #1 (1963) for the original team.

This confidential animated film adapted, in 2006, the series from which the cinema would draw its formula. He did it honestly and without incident. What was lacking was not fidelity, it was the means and the timing.

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