Trivia / Ultimate X-Men (2001)

• Ascended Fanon: Bishop feels a connection to Psylocke and apparently the two are married in the future. While 616 Bishop and Psylocke have never had a romantic arc, they are frequently paired up as friends and allies in adaptations such as X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men '92.
• Creator Breakdown: Mark Millar had just gotten some surgery done and was in constant chronic pain when he first wrote the series, pouring all of his misery onto the characters.
• Follow the Leader
  • Mark Millar had no previous knowledge about the X-Men, so he based his work largely on the recent X-Men film. While this allowed for the comic to tie in with the movie, Millar seems to have enough knowledge of X-Men to admit that his run was a Fix Fic of the first two movies with how he wished they played out.
  • The Ultimates had a clever way to incorporate the Norse Mythology of Thor into its grounded setting: Is it real, like in the mainstream comics, or is it just a mental delusion of Thor? And, for a long time, write it as an Ambiguous Situation, without giving a definitive answer to the reader. Ultimate X-Men used a similar trick to introduce the "Dark Phoenix".
• Recursive Adaptation: The first X-Men film redefined Toad's visual aspect, giving him green skin and a prehensile tongue. This comic took note and used those details as well, which were later taken by the mainstream comics as well.
• What Could Have Been
  • The original pitch by Brian K. Vaughan was very different from the final product by Mark Millar.
  • Bryan Singer was supposed to have written 12 issues, but was ultimately unable to commit thanks to working on Superman Returns.
  • Marvel proposed Mark Millar to make an "Ultimate Wolverine" comic, but he refused. He wanted to do something with the Avengers instead. Marvel accepted, but renaming them as "The Ultimates"
• Word of God: The death of Toad in Ultimatum was informed in a list of casualties, but not seen or suggested on-panel.

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