Endings

Since I resumed collecting comics regularly in 2011 after several years of sporadic collecting I have come to realize that I have, at least this year, been collecting more comic books on a monthly basis than ever before in my life, and it feels more than a bit excessive, no matter how much I'm enjoying the books. The good news for me, though, is that Marvel Comics itself is solving my problem by ending three of the series I'm currently collecting, namely Daredevil, Young Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man.

The bad news is that some really good comic books are going out of publication.

Daredevil is probably going to go through another relaunch. For several years, this title has been in a state of flux in terms of sales, and although this incarnation has been selling pretty steadily, Marvel probably feels they can hawk a few more thousand copies of the book with a different creative direction and team, or perhaps even format, given the increasing popularity of digital comics.

Young Avengers was always going to end, that seems to be the nature of how this book is published for some reason. It'll come back someday, but without the current creative lineup. That, and the fact that Loki is no longer a kid (as of issue #1) provide me a great opportunity to hop off the bus once the series wraps, though I do so with some sadness.

Sadly, though not only is Ultimate Spider-Man closing down for good, with no more reboots on the horizon, but the entire "Ultimate" universe is being scrapped as well, apparently consumed by no less than Galactus himself, the world eater. The silver lining is that Miles Morales will apparently make the jump to the regular, and now sole-surviving Marvel Universe.

The closure of the Ultimate universe makes sense; the books haven't been selling well for years, and basically everything that's "cool" and "edgy" about them has already been imported into the "proper" Marvel Universe.  Not only that, but the story quality is nowhere near what it was when the line first launched at the turn of the millennium. It hasn't been for quite some time, with the exception of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, which I have, for the most part, enjoyed.

What's sad about this development is that much of what is good about the Marvel Universe nowadays has its roots in the Ultimate Universe.  Heck, a good chunk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe owes its existence to the Ultimate Universe, such as Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury. For all of that, the birthplace of all these good ideas is being shut down for good. I take some consolation knowing that the very best of these comics will no doubt live on in reprints and in digital format, but there's really something about the end of a creative era that makes me take pause.