Will the Ultimate Universe end at 24 months? Artist Ryan Browne is recovering from having a stroke. This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con yearbook is themed around Bone.
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Episode Transcript:
Ultimate Universe to end?
Ryan Browne recovering from stroke.
Baltimore yearbook Bone-themed.
This is Comic Book Club News for June 26, 2025.
Will The Ultimate Universe End At 24 Months?:
Since Marvel’s Ultimate Universe launched, there’s been a countdown timer on it: two years until The Maker, the evil Reed Richards, returns to wage war on whatever heroes the universe can muster. And in a series of deleted posts on BlueSky, writer Zack Davisson confirmed as much, albeit confusing fans by seemingly announcing Ultimate X-Men will end with issue #24.
Wrote Davisson, via Bleeding Cool, “We’re working on issue #18 now. We have six more issues to go. If you haven’t figured out yet that this is the story we are telling… I mean, things can always change. But that was announced at the beginning of the series. It’s supposed to be 24 months in real time.”
The husband of Peach Momoko, the co-writer and artist for the series, later clarified to a fan that, “We don’t know why Zack wrote that because we and probably no one (other than maybe [Jonathan] Hickman?) really knows what’s next. Or even when it is planned to end.”
While there’s no official word either way from the publisher, to purely speculate it seems likely that these titles will indeed end at 24 issues, culminating a universe-wide event. And then since they’re best-sellers, per Marvel’s general business strategy, some if not all of them will relaunch with new number one issues. We’ll likely know more either next month at San Diego Comic-Con, or when Marvel’s solicits for the end of the year come out in August.
Artist Ryan Browne Recovering From Stroke:
Artist Ryan Browne has revealed that he is recovering from a stroke, in a new, extensive interview with SKTCHD.
The interview is ostensibly to explain the delay in The Lucky Devils, the Image Comics book Browne co-created with writer Charles Soule. But the must-read goes into explaining how Browne had a stroke, it was caught quickly, and how it has impacted his artistic process.
Said Browne, “I had a stroke out of nowhere. I just woke up one morning and was confused and couldn’t speak correctly and went to the hospital and they determined that I was having a stroke. They rushed me in and pulled the (blood) clot, which is a crazy experience because I was awake, and they put the clot grabbing scopey thing through my wrist to get to my brain.”
As his family has a history of strokes, Browne was worried — but they caught it early, and were able to fix the problem. Added Browne, “I’m glad to be back. I’m glad to be so far down the road of recovery that normalcy is not far off. I’m glad to be telling stories again.”
The interview is well worth the read, particularly not just for Browne’s explanation of the process, but for a conversation about why he normally doesn’t like to talk about personal things online — but made an exception here. Regardless, it seems like he’s on the mend, and making his way through the next few issues of the series. Browne is one of the good guys, and always has been, so we’re glad he’s doing better, and wish him all the best.
Baltimore Comic-Con Yearbook is Bone-Themed:
One of the neater features of Baltimore Comic-Con is the annual Yearbook. And this year’s book has revealed its theme: Jeff Smith’s Bone.
Per Graphic Policy, each year the convention releases a Yearbook which has a list of participating creators in Artists’ Alley. The goal is to travel the convention and collect as many autographs as possible from those creators, and once you hit the quota of autographs, you get a bunch of free prints… Which of course, feature the characters from Bone, as interpreted by artists ranging from Stan Sakai to Jose Luìs Garcia-Lopez and more.
The book will be available at the exclusives table at this year’s convention, which will run from October 17 through 19.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And to be clear we mean the comic book Bone, this isn’t a yearbook themed around Jeff Smith’s skeleton. Unfortunately.
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