Marvel has released four spectacular Kaare Andrews cover images from the first wave of rebooted Ultimate Comics Universe titles. The revamping of the Ultimate Comics Universe with all new titles and new creative teams gets underway this August with the release of Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1 written by Jonathan Hickman (see “Marvel’s Ultimate Comics Ultimates”). The events in the new Ultimates Comics Universe take place in the aftermath of the Death of Spider-Man cataclysm that rocked the current Ultimates Universe to its foundation. 
 
Also due out in August is Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1, the first book in a four-issue miniseries that is also written by Jonathan Hickman with interior art by Rafa Sandoval. In addition to the powerful Andrews cover Marvel is also planning variant covers for Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1 by Adam Kubert and Neal Adams. 
 
The Ultimate Comics Universe Reborn represents a return to the original conception behind the Ultimate line—providing standalone stories that can be enjoyed by readers who are not necessarily familiar with all the nearly half-century of continuity of the major Marvel characters. Thus the Ultimate books provide a great entry point or jumping on spot for new readers. Certainly the new Ultimates’ covers should help attract attention to the line. Not only do the covers feature great art from Andrews, the new black trim trade dress is quite striking and really helps the images pop.
 
Speaking of “pop,” Marvel also released Andrews cover designs for Ultimate Spider-Man #1, in which a severely foreshortened Spidey leaps directly off the cover. It is certainly heartening to see that Spider-Man has survived his demise in some form at least, though we will have to wait until September for Brian Michael Bendis’ new series to start to find out exactly how.
 
The final cover design released today is Andrews’ Ultimate X-Men #1, which quite naturally features Wolverine, the most popular and well known X-Men character, in a prominent position. Nick Spencer (Morning Glories) will be writing the revamped Ultimate X-Men book and should provide an interesting new perspective (see “Nick Spencer, Paco Medina on Ultimate X-Men”).