I've been reading 616 stuff from Marvel for a few years now and for the most part, I really like it. It's not as messy as the New 52 is and the quality of writing is really great. But now, after Age of Ultron ended and Hunger is being hyped, I kind of want to get into the Ultimate side of Marvel.

My brother has been reading from the Ultimate Comics relaunch (and hasn't read anything from before that), but he isn't a critical reader, so asking him if it's a good story without the previous context is a hopeless endeavor.

I could theoretically start from the very beginning with Ultimate Spider-Man and X-Men (which wouldn't be a problem thanks to Marvel Unlimited), but that would take a long time to read. It's also confusing because there are a ton of little miniseries that I'm finding in the MU app, which is fine, but it would be easier for me to just pick up the three Ultimate Comics ongoings than try and decipher all these older comics.

Ideally, I'd be able to catch up on a few years of the happenings in the Ultimate Universe, read the three UC ongoings, and catch up with Hunger sooner rather than next year. Help?

Read Ultimate Spidey, Fantastic Four, X Men and The Ultimates, they are not hard to get.

I recommend you stopping at Ultimatum, because after that, Ultimate Universe got completely screwed

@perethorn: See, that's what I've been reading all over the place, but I don't really understand it (obviously). Bendis' relaunched UC: Spidey title consistently gets great reviews, and Wood is on UC: X-Men, which has me really interested, then like I said, I want to read Hunger. Is Ultimatum really so bad as to stop reading Ultimate Marvel entirely? Is post-Ultimatum even really that bad? Reviews indicate differently.

@stevencarver_: Ultimatum is pretty bad and some of the stuff after it was pretty bad as well but just like you say Ultimate Spider-man has been consistently good and Wood's Ultimate X-men has been great

@danhimself: Which leads to my follow up question. Despite the original Ultimate comics (Spidey, FF, X-Men, and others), does starting in with the UC relaunch require a bunch of context that comes from Ultimatum or earlier? I know that Parker is dead, as are a bunch of the X-Men, but that's probably not enough context for these new titles.

@stevencarver_: no you really don't...you could start with the most recent volumes and be just fine

although I highly recommend that you at least read Ultimate Spider-man from the beginning....since you know that Peter is going to die the book takes on a completely different tone and imo really turns the book from great to awesome

@stevencarver_: If you read all the original Ultimate series then skip Ultimatum, and go straight to Ultimate Doomsday and the relaunch and you'll get the most out of the whole line but if that's to much you shouldn't have nay huge problems starting from the relaunch

Then I think I'll take the time to read the older Ultimate comics and skip Ultimatum. I'll find out later why it's so bad!