Last Four Issues Of ‘Ultimate Wolverine’ Ordered Halfway Through Writing, Will Barely Crossover With ‘Ultimate Endgame’
If this week’s Ultimate Wolverine felt more conclusive to Logan’s story than its confirmed issue run would suggest, it’s not because you’re crazy, but rather because the issue was originally intended as the mutant miniseries’ actual finale until Marvel decided to tack-on its upcoming epilogue roughly half-way through production – which, strangely enough, will apparently have very, very little to do with Earth-6160’s climactic Ultimate Endgame.
With the final page turn of Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 #12, the whole of this alternate Logan’s story comes to a close wrapped in a near-perfect bow, his Winter Soldier past now fully behind him, new-found resolve to protect the freshly-rescued-from-experimentation Jean Grey giving him a renewed purpose after the death of his mutant Opposition comrades, and his recent encounter with Euraisia’s autocratic rulers setting him on a perfect trajectory to join forces with the Ultimates in their fight against The Maker.
But despite the solo aspect of the hero’s story coming to a crescendo, the series still has four issues to go, its extension having been announced shortly after the release of Issue #8.
Speaking to his original plans for the book during a recent interview with CBR’s Brian Cronin, series writer Chris Condon, recalled, “I initially was contracted to do 12 issues, and because of the success of the book, which I, again, it may have seemed like it would have been a huge success to you, but to me, I was thinking it would be another thing where they go, ‘cult favorite Chris Condon,’ or whatever, and that would be my lot in life. I did not expect it to blow up in the way that it did, but it was really humbling to have that happen. And it has been a joy every step of the way.”
“I want to say, maybe around issue seven or eight [was when we got the extension order]. Wil had an inkling that this might be coming, but I did not know, obviously. But I had the plan for 12, and I liked the plan for 12. And then Wil emailed me and asked me if there was any interest in doing some additional issues to coincide with Endgame. And I said, my thing was, if you can get Alessandro to do it, I am in. And sure enough, they got Alessandro to do it. So we are doing 13, 14, 15 and 16. I kind of look at it as the coda. It did not really change the plan for 1 to 12.”
Given that this extra order means the final issues of both Ultimate Wolverine and Ultimate Endgame will now release alongside one another next May, speculation as to just what Logan’s last rites would entail leaned heavily towards some sort of direct tie-in to said event, possibly in a ‘self-sacrifice to stop the Maker’ capacity.
However, Condon revealed to Cronin that the series’ finale will actually have very little to do with the Maker’s turn, telling his host, “It stays our story. But yes, there are tie-in moments, I will say. So yes, there are certainly things that are spilling over, let us put it that way.”
Directly asked if the book would be an example of a “purple-skies crossover” (a take on the term ‘red sky crossover’, as derived from how numerous tie-in issues of DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths and Knight Terrors crossovers were only connected to their main events by the respective appearance of a plot-relevant red or purple sky), Condon added, “Yes. And honestly, I do not think that [Ultimates writer] Deniz Camp, or me, or [Ultimate Wolverine editor] Wil Moss, or anybody would really want everybody to have their toes stepped on. I feel like this is the perfect way to do it, where we are still telling the story that we want to be telling, but with the tools that are afforded to us by what is happening in other books.”
“I think it is the perfect place to be. You are not having to sit there with document upon document upon document: this person has to go here and this has to do this, and this has to do this, and then you write it, and then, oh, they changed that in that script. So this is kind of a perfect place to be.”
Barring any unforeseen scheduling changes, the sixteenth and final issue of Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 will tear its way onto shelves next May.
