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It's the year of the alternate timelines for both of America's largest comic book publishers. The Ultimate Marvel and Absolute DC lines have taken the world's most popular superheroes and reimagined them towardmassive  sales success, so much so that you'd be forgiven for thinking the publishers would be tempted to ditch their regular continuities to focus on the hot new thing. But that's never going to happen - at least, not according to a person who's been in the industry for longer than either concept has existed.

That person is Tom Brevoort, current captain of the X-Men books over at the House of Ideas and writer of the weekly Man with a Hat substack. In this week's edition of that newsletter, one curious reader going by the name "bic" writes in asking about the "gangbusters" sales that Ultimate and Absolte are doing, wondering "Is it time to move on?" for the publishers.

To make a long answer short, Brevoort says no.

"You know," Brevoort begins, "whenever one of these alternate universes sparks some momentary heat, there are always some fans like yourself that ask this question, bic."

What can we say, Tom? We comics fans tend to think that short-term comics history will lead to serious changes to the long-term (in our defense, Knull became Sony's Big Bad just six years after his first comic book appearance). Can't we at least entertain this possibility?

"But the obvious answer is no, of course not."

Aw, dang.

"For one thing," Brevoort continues, "there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the way the mainstream Marvel or DC books are selling. For another, there’s no evidence that the momentary interest in Ultimate or Absolute is going to be able to maintain that interest over the long haul."

That first part is certainly true. Even in January of 2024, which saw the release of the smash hit Ultimate Spider-Man #1, Spidey's mainline book was the #3 book on ICv2's top comics of the month. Across the proverbial street, Batman's main universe book was #6 on September's list, a fact that won't change no matter how the October numbers turn out to be for Absolute Batman #1.

As for the second part of Brevoort's claim, it's a little hard to predict future comic book interest (Read Brevoort's recounting of the Spider-Girl book for proof). However, there was one example the editor used to prove that neither the Ultimate or Absolute universes had "long-haul" staying potential.

"Just look at DC's New 52 from a decade ago," Brevoort says, "For about a year, it did gangbusters as it was a big new thing, and then immediately thereafter the entire line began to crater—so much so that they pivoted to doing Rebirth to bring back a bunch of the stuff that they’d gotten rid of for New 52. And all the while, the Marvel Universe just kept on selling and kept on being relevant."

Well, we don't know if that last part was entirely necessary, though we do enjoy the spirit of competition. Competition that'll keep happening in the mainstream universes, no matter how well its multiversal offshoots do. 

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.