Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #5

History

Ultimate Marvel Team-Up was conceived as a companion title to Brian Michael Bendis's runaway-hit Ultimate Spider-Man, serving as the primary vehicle for introducing the rest of the Ultimate Universe's hero roster to readers through Spider-Man's eyes. Editor Joe Quesada championed the series' distinctive rotating-artist format, with Bendis writing every issue while a hand-picked roster of acclaimed alternative and mainstream cartoonists — including Mike Allred, Matt Wagner, Phil Hester, and Dave Gibbons — each handled individual arcs. The Iron Man two-parter (issues #4–5) was assigned to Mike Allred, whose pop-art sensibility brought a stylistically distinct energy to the Ultimate Tony Stark's debut. Editor Ralph Macchio, who also worked on the subsequent Ultimates series, was part of the editorial team shepherding the early Ultimate Universe into coherence during this formative period.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Ultimate Nick Fury (Earth-1610), the younger Black S.H.I.E.L.D. director who served as the conceptual and visual basis for the MCU's Nick Fury — though in this issue he does not yet resemble Samuel L. Jackson, carrying a different, younger design without that specific likeness.
• Concludes the two-part 'Spider-Man & Iron Man' arc (issues #4–5) that constitutes Iron Man's (Tony Stark's) first appearance anywhere in the Ultimate Marvel Universe.
• Written by Brian Michael Bendis; penciled and inked by Mike Allred; colored by Jung Choi; lettered by Richard Starkings; edited by Ralph Macchio and Brian Smith. Published August 2001 by Marvel Comics.
• Delivers the first telling of Ultimate Tony Stark's origin: captured in Guatemala with his cousin Morgan Stark by the Red Devil terrorist group (led by Jesus Hayek), Stark built repulsor beams to engineer an escape — but Morgan was killed in the process.
• Also introduces, in their first appearances, the villains Red Devil and Jesus Hayek (in flashback), as well as the Ultimate version of Morgan Stark (who dies in the same issue) and Ambassador Golog.
• Nick Fury's visual design in this issue — close-cropped hair, clean-shaven, younger — differs markedly from the Samuel L. Jackson-inspired redesign Bryan Hitch and Mark Millar introduced in The Ultimates #1 (2002); Key Collector Comics notes the definitive Jackson likeness did not lock in until The Ultimates #2.
• Part of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up's 16-issue run (2001–2002), a rotating-artist anthology series written entirely by Bendis as a showcase for the expanding Ultimate Universe; the Iron Man arc was collected in the trade paperback Ultimate Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1.
• The broader legacy of Ultimate Nick Fury's concept — a Black S.H.I.E.L.D. director modeled on Samuel L. Jackson — directly led to Jackson being cast as Nick Fury in the MCU beginning with Iron Man (2008), with Jackson reportedly discovering the likeness while browsing a comic shop and subsequently negotiating his film deal with Marvel.

Cast · 3 characters

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