Coming up!

In the next issue we meet a new hero who goes by the name of Kicker.  Here's a preview of her debut...

We'll be doing an April/May issue to cover some ground before our first ever annual in June!

More on the annual later!

Issue 39

The new issue is up and here's a link - Issue 39

In this issue we meet a new character named Swol who will be one of the stars of the first ever annual this summer!

We also get a visit from the D'Squared Squad and a few other story lines move forward in this fast-paced issue!

Original Creations Versus Published Stories

Building off of the last post, I thought I'd share a few 'behind the scenes' of the original creation of the stories.  As I mentioned, I originally created the series and the stories for the characters starting while I was in fifth grade and did so until I was twelfth grade.  I never actually wrote anything down, all of them were in my head, but when I started to work on getting the series ready to share with the world in 2015 I reworked most of the stories, some of the origins and a few costumes.  Below are the some of changes that I made.

Titan

Published: Justin was saving an FBI agent when caught in an explosion when Diodarius appeared giving him his powers.

Original: Justin was in a chemical lab when he was caught in an explosion when Diodarius appeared giving him powers. 

Diodarius

Published: Originally I called him Wonder Boy and he and his kids all had a stylized W on their belts. 

Original: I did away with all of that and had to make minor costume changes to get rid of the Ws.  

Crossbow

Published: She won gold medals for Archery and Gymnastics 

Original: She won gold medals for Archery only

Magno

Published: He was with Justin and was separated from him before Justin became Titan and Titan visited him later and gave him his powers.  

Original: He was not with Justin before getting his powers, but they were best friends and Titan came to him that night and gave him his powers.

Master Mind

Published: She is a founding member of the team.

Original:  She was the first person to join the team.  In fact, when I first thought of making her a founding member, I thought I couldn't do that as it wasn't the way it happened, but then remembered that was only in my mind and the rest of the world didn't know that.

Phantom

Published: Discovered magic cloth created by Moses which gives him his powers.

Original: While the origin of him finding the cloth stayed the same, I never actually gave an origin for the cloth nor explored where it came from. 

Serpent

Published: Has appeared in only one costume

Original: I actually struggled with her costume design quite a bit and the one you see here was actually about the ninth costume for her.  Also, she originally had the power to cling to walls or other surfaces, but I did away with that.

Echo

Published:  Started as a member of the Ultra-Elite Team, but joined the IPG

Original:  She was only ever a member of the IPG

Saxx and Cord

Published: Cord is Saxx's bodyguard 

Original:  Originally, I had it as a running gag where they never revealed their relationship and kept everyone guessing what their relationship was, but when I reworked the series that didn't work for me, so I decided to just reveal the relationship in their debut issue. 

Spider-Star, X-Ray Boy and Stellar 

Published: All were members of the IPG, and Spider-Star and X-Ray Boy joined the Ultra-Elite Team.

Original:  All were members of the Ultra-Elite Team and never a part of the IPG.

G'Ion Detheon and Whiz Kid

Original: G'Ion was originally called Whiz Kid and Whiz Kid was originally called Computer Kid

Twister

Published: He is a villain that the heroes fight.

Original: His name was Whirlwind and he was a member of the Ultra-Elite Team, but back in the original stories I ended up radically changing his costume and origin and we'll meet Whirlwind a bit later in the series.  I decided to take this original costume idea and turn it into a villain.  

Marmet

Published: Marmet and his fox, Coco, come from the same world as Lady Bug

Original: I created the character of Ant-Boy and he rode around on a mechanical flying ant called Coco.  At the time I created them, I hadn't been reading Marvel comics and I had no idea that their Ant-Man existed (this is long before the MCU).  In fact, I didn't learn he existed until about four years after I created my character.  Ant-Boy was one of the earliest heroes to join my team and I didn't want to lose his stories, but clearly I needed to rework the character.  

The All

Published: The son of Phantom with an unusual birth

Original: He didn't exist, in fact he didn't exist back in 2015 either.  The idea of the character came to me while I was writing the Earth-Hopping storyline and I just wrote him in at the end, which is why, so far, we haven't seen much of him.  

Crossbow's Family

Published: Crossbow was raised in Tech Point One with her parents and siblings. 

Original: While Crossbow's sister and brother remained the same as to what is published, there was no Tech Point One.  Also, the other family members of hers that we've met were originally the family members of Titan, but when I reworked the stories, it just didn't fit that way.  

Axioppea

Published: She is the daughter of Athena and the mother of Electrode and Vapor.

Original: She was called Olympian, had no connection to Diodarius or his kids and was a member of the Ultra-Elite Team.  She was given her powers by the Olympian Gods, but I thought that if I kept it this way, people might think she was a Wonder Woman knock-off, while not my intent, I could see how people could think that, so I completely reworked the character.  

There are a few other ones, but for now I think I'll stop here.  The back story of Power Boi's creation is also one that went through many changes, but since he is going to be a main player in this year's first ever annual, I'll save his story until then...

Evolution of the Series

A few years ago I touched briefly on the origins of the series itself and I thought I would talk a bit about how all of this came about as we approach five years of the series being published.  

These characters have been with me for a good portion of my life and I've put a lot of time and effort into their creation and story over the years, although some years I put more effort in than others.

When I was six I created the character that became known as Diodarius, at the time I called him Wonder Boy, but hey - I was six.  For many years I created stories with him and started to come up with the rough concept of his children.  Originally these stories were not the same universe as the rest of the characters, but I decided a long time ago to merge them together.  

Now I went to elementary school in New York state where the school year runs from September to June and it was early June of my fifth-grade year that I had the idea of creating my team.  At that time I had been reading comics from mostly DC and a few from Marvel, but I didn't always like the directions the stories went in, so I thought maybe I should create my own characters and decide their stories myself.  

Now I'm sorry to say that I didn't keep records as to the exact date that the characters were created or even the order that they were created at that time, so I'm going off of memory here - but I do know that the first character I created was Titan.  That same day I created Cat, Crossbow, Magno, Phantom and Mr. Roboto.  

This kicked off the 'first wave of creativity'; there are what I consider four waves of my creations.  The first wave of creation went from when I was in 5th grade to when I was in 10th grade in school.  Now I created them around the first week of June, but I hadn't really drawn them yet.  When school let out for the summer about three weeks later, my family and I headed to Lake George, New York (a resort town), for the 4th of July week.  I brought some crayons, pencils and a pad of paper and I drew the characters for the first time in color.  By this time I had created other characters too, but again - I don't know the order.  

Now I did go on to draw many posters with my characters and I did date them so I can get a bit of an insight as to when some of them where created, using the day of creation for the original characters, we'll go from there. 

11 months after the day of creation, I drew my first poster - by this time Diodarius was now tied in with my Ultimate Team comic!  The other characters that I had created in this time were Vapor, Stellar, Spider-Star, Master Mind, Water Wonder, Frosti, Whirlwind, Electode, X-Ray-Boy, Axioppea, Savage, G'Ion, Coil, Whiz Kid, X-Over, Marmet, Lady Bug, Lizard Lady, Zesto, Whirl, and Crossbow's sister.  (Every entry that follows as another poster and each builds off the prior entry, not the day of creation.)

The next month I created Serpent and Rainbow Lad.

Over the course of the next two months following that I created Beam, Mythos and Master Mind's cousin.

The next poster was 14 months after that, in those months I created Spark, Tiger, Strong Boy, Power Boi, Element King and Shaddowwalker.

Within two months of that I created Magno II.

Withing two months after that, I created Bubble Mistress, Crossbow's brother, Tri-Force, Freedom, Orb, Squirrel, Golden Guardian and Phantom Queen.  

The last group in the 'first wave of creativity', came seven months later, in that time I created Echo, Power Supreme, Moonlight, Flip, Hacker, Chain, Saxx, Cord and Raw.  It was also during this time that I came up with the future Ultra-Elite Team 2 and the Terminators of Evil as well as the rest of Diodarius' children who aren't named here.  

Now when I say within two months, or seven months - I was creating characters during those months, but I can only place their creation during that time due to posters I was drawing that I did date at the time.

The 'second wave of creativity' came during the last two years of high school, now the characters had full back stories created, but not as many original stories created for them.  They were Chronus, Echo, Prime Leader, Ebon Wolf, Heam, Mindbender, Hummingbird, Prince Arrin, Commander Foo and Yaghan.  

At this time I graduated high school and got my first job and started college and I hate to say it, but my characters kind of took a back seat to the rest of the things going on in my life.   By the second year of college (three years after leaving high school), I decided to draw one last poster of my characters and that would be the last time I would draw them for over a decade, but at the time I didn't know that.  This was what I consider the 'third wave of creativity' and it is the shortest of the waves.  Over the three years before I did this poster, I created only five new characters and their names and powers, but no origins nor any stories for them at all.  They included Trekka and Rapture (whose name I'm changing to Swol and you'll meet him in the series next month.   

Now, some of the characters I can't reveal yet - yes, there were a lot more created than I listed, but for this list I'm only including those who have already been introduced in the comic.   By the way, the comic was originally called The Ultimate Team, but that was before Marvel did their Ultimate line and I didn't want anyone to think I was copying them, so I altered the team name, but did establish with the copyright that the Ultimate Team is an alternate name for them.  

For the 'fourth wave of creativity', what I consider us in now - is when I started work on launching this series as an actual comic that the world can see (the story of getting started was published here a few years ago), but this wave started in 2015 and will go as long as the series runs, as I plan it right now.  The characters created for this run are Italus, Semeulke, Professor Faraway, Hanu, King Italus, Dinosass, The All, Dire Wolf, the Alternate Earths (unless stated above), Cormorant, Major Hole, I5, Power Sprite, the Gons, GeoMancer, Blood-Red Man, Dark Bow, Dark Alux, Koldun'ya, Rimrock, Sandstorm, Serpent Fire, Shock Troops, Thunderball and Zero Stratus so far.  

Someday, many years from now - when the series is closer to the end, I will update this to include all of the rest of the characters I created in the past that you haven't met yet - and believe, there's a lot more coming!  

YouTube Update

 Wow, tonight I realized that I haven't been too good at all in uploading the issues to YouTube as I've been completing them.   I spent some time tonight and uploaded the last 5 issues and we are now caught up on there.

Going forward I'll try to get the issues uploaded there when I get them done.  

Here's a link to the YouTube channel if you want to watch some...YouTube Channel

2023 Promos!

Happy New Year!  

To get ready for the new year, I did some promo images with some hints of what is coming for next year in the series!

This first promo deals with a subplot with Power Boi and his connection to the T9 Team, something that was hinted at a few months ago.  While the entire story might not be revealed this year, you will get quite an insight for a bigger story that will follow.

The second promo deals with the Book That Cannot Be Named - a subplot that's been running in the series for a while now and that will wrap up in early 2023.  While we've seen this character in the series, this promo is the first time she appears in her costume. 

The third promo deals with something that I've been hinting at for a couple of years.  During the Realms War storyline a lot of magical energy was released and that lead to the revival of the Monsters of Myth, who are starting to make their existence know.  

The last promo sets the stage for the first Ultra-Elite Team Annual next summer which will introduce a new group of villains to challenge the team.  This promo was done as a homage to All-Star Squadron #1, because just like that book, we deal with an insane amount of characters!

See you in 2023!

Issue 35

Wow, I've really been slacking in the blog posting arena!  I've been putting out content and forgetting to blog about it!  Let's get the ball rolling and start to catch up. 

Here is a link to issue 35, Issue 35, this is a shorter issue as I knew that issue 36 was going to be one of the longer ones I did 35 and 37 as shorter issues to not to be overwhelming.

This issue introduces a new threat, starts to move along on a subplot in Africa and the Ultra-Elite Team finally addresses the media in this issue.

I was also able to sneak in a homage to the MTV Teen Wolf series, one of my all-time favorite shows!  I had wanted to pay tribute somehow and finally was able to work it in.  

I'll be posting more again soon!