The Ultimates is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics and created by writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch, which first started publication from The Ultimates #1, as part of the company's Ultimate Marvel imprint. The series is a modernized re-imagining of Marvel's long-running Avengers comic-book franchise, centering around an elite military task-force of super-humans and special agents organized by the U.S. government, known as the Ultimates, to combat growing threats, both of human and non-human origin, to the country and in turn, the world, as they slowly learn to work together and form a family-like bond with each other, despite their differing natures and personalities.