The Ultimate Universe was a publishing line started by Marvel to make their comics more palatable to a modern audience finding them through the then-recent Spider-Man and X-Men films, updating origin stories so they didnt appear hokey and dated and filling their stories with hip lingo and pop culture references that marketing people assume kids love. Mostly that meant that, say, the Ultimate version of the Avengers involved a jack-booted fascist Captain America who was best friends with George W. Bush, Iron Man and Black Widow making a sex tape together, and nobody being quite sure if Thor was a real Norse god or just an insane person with a large axe (instead of a hammer). That mystery lingered for a few years, with Thor undeniably in possession of some superpowers, whether they were Asgardian or otherwise. Eventually it transpired he was the real deal. Thor had taken the body of a former psychiatric nurse who had a nervous breakdown years before. It was all very stupid and has now been erased from existence in Secret Wars.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
