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Jonathan Hickman is credited as the man who rebooted and revived Marvel Comics' Ultimate line and its flagship title Ultimate Spider-Man. He is the one who wrote the kickoff series Ultimate Invasion, the follow-up one-shot Ultimate Universe, and the ensuing Ultimate Spider-Man title... but he wasn't the original writer planned to be on this immense project. Just like there was an Ultimate Universe before the one on shelves now, there was an Ultimate Spider-Man architect before Jonathan Hickman.

Donny Cates.

Hickman recently opened up about Cates' origination of the current Ultimate Marvel line, and now we have words from Cates himself about how it came to be, when it came to be, how it slipped through his fingers, and how he's haunted by the Ultimate version of Peter Parker and how he feels the character design looks just like him.

"I created the Ultimate Spider-Man that Jonathan’s doing," Cates tells Popverse's Dave Buesing. "I pitched that in the room a couple of months before we were gonna start on it, CB [Cebulski, Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief] loved it. We built up the entire series. That's why the Maker plot is in Venom."

The Maker debuted in Cates and Ryan Stegman's Venom run in October 2018's Venom #8, meaning the Ultimate Marvel relaunch was in development since at least early 2018.

"I wrote the outline and some of scripts for Ultimate Invasion," Cates says, referring to his version of the Ultimate Universe kickoff event, "and then my car accident happened."

The car accident that Cates refers to happened in the summer of 2023, when a vehicle he was riding in was hit violently by another car. The accident left him in a hospital bed for weeks, with a broken orbital socket and physical injuries you could see, as well as a subdural hematoma in his brain - an injury so severe it "made my spine seperate", leading to an infection that required emergency surgery. The surgery worked, but even as he healed he was left with severe short-term memory loss that led to him losing each day's memory upon the next, and with long-term issues that has left his memory like "dog shit", in his own words.

"It just wasn't gonna be realistic to even try anything. People have asked about why Jonathan's version doesn't adhere to where mine was. And I think it's important to note that Jonathan probably doesn't feel comfortable taking story points from a guy in the hospital who can't write it," says Cates. "And I respect that. I think that Ultimate Spider-Man is a great fucking book. I do."

Although he didn't ultimately get to write the Ultimate Spider-Man book that existed in his mind and in pitches and conversations with Marvel, he sees himself in the design of Marco Checchetto's design of the Ultimate Peter Parker but its not the story he imagined.

"It's a very weird and lonely experience sometimes," Cates says. "I designed Ultimate Spider-Man and pitched Ultimate Spider-man as mine, and now... he looks like! He looks exactly like me in the fucking book, with kids and everything. It's like I can't read it. It's Jonathan's thing, doing a version of a song that I wrote."

Much in the same that in Hickman's Ultimate Spider-Man comic Peter Parker was prevented from becoming Spider-Man for years for forces outside of his control, Donny Cates was prevented from becoming the Ultimate Spider-Man writer for forcs outside of his control. And when he sees the Ultimate Spider-Man comic on shelves or online, he sees himself - literally - in the title role.

Cates is quick to say he holds no animosity towards Hickman for stepping up to write Ultimate Spider-Man and being the architect for the Ultimate Marvel revival; if anyone, he blames the individual who drove their car into his, leading to the near-fatal accident in the summer of 2024. But what's happened since with the Ultimate Marvel line and the Ultimate Spider-Man comic in particular has surfaced unresolved feelings with him.

"It's a beautiful, great book," says Cates. "But I have emotions attached to that book that no one else on the planet does."

 You can read Popverse's full interview with Donny Cates here.

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.