Marvel Comics held a panel focused on the wildly popular Ultimate Universe imprint at SDCC 2025. There they revealed that Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man will be ending with December’s issue #24, as the entire Ultimate Universe braces for the imminent return of The Maker.
Marvel and Hickman alike are adamant that the series isn’t being canceled, but merely reaching its natural, preplanned conclusion.
“This was everything that I pitched,” Hickman said at the panel. “Nothing has deviated. It’s been really nice to execute the plan well and everything culminates into this issue. Fans of the Ultimate Universe are going to love it. It’s been a real pleasure being the writer of Ultimate Spider-Man.”
Even as Ultimate Spider-Man ends, Marvel will be launching a new crossover series called Ultimate Endgame. As the title suggests, Ultimate Endgame pays off on a long-running plot point from the end of 2023’s Ultimate Invasion. Ever since that series concluded, the evil Reed Richards known as The Maker has been locked away in another dimension. The entire Ultimate line has been unfolding in real time, slowly counting down the 24 months until his return. Ultimate Endgame explores what happens when he does return.
Ultimate Endgame won’t be written by Hickman, but rather The Ultimates writer Deniz Camp. Camp will be joined by artist Jonas Scharf and other artists for a series that unites the casts of all the current Ultimate books.
“This is the craziest and most impactful crossover [I’ve worked on],” Camp said. “I’m really excited about it. It’s all the characters: everyone coming together in this big way, coming up against each other in a big way, and the resolution of some long plot threads we’ve all been seeing. It’s very big, very dramatic, and with the Ultimate Universe, we can change the world. We can actually do it as creators because we have this incredible playground that Marvel has not just allowed, but encouraged us, to use. It’s such an honor to do something like this. It’s been amazing, and this is the culmination of a lot of what we’ve been doing together.”
Given that Ultimate Spider-Man is consistently one of Marvel’s top-selling titles, we doubt the series will stay dormant. More likely, Marvel will relaunch USM with a new creative team in 2026 after Ultimate Endgame wraps. Let us know in the comments below which creators you think are up to the task of following Hickman and Checchetto.
Ultimate Spider-Man #24 will be released on December 24, followed by Ultimate Endgame #1 a week later on December 31.
For more on the Ultimate Universe, find out why it’s the best thing Marvel is publishing and see why The Ultimates was our pick for the best comic book series of 2024.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
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