Ultimates: check your calendars.

Marvel are belatedly starting the promotion for the long-delayed Ultimates 2 #13, which is presumably on its way out sooner or later. (Probably later.) The latest line from Marvel about the delays is basically to shrug their shoulders and say "Dunno, ask Bryan Hitch." Which doesn't seem like the most professional answer, but that's their line.

Bryan Hitch's position is pretty clear - and he now seems to be chafing at Marvel blaming him, since he's publicly telling editor-in-chief Joe Quesada to go back and check his invoice dates. In any event, Hitch says that he finished the book in December 2006, and that it took him nine weeks. Since it's a 44-page story, that's actually quite brisk. The subsequent delays, he says, are because Paul Neary wasn't available to start inking it until January (since he was halfway through Wisdom). Again, that makes sense.

But here's the odd bit.

Hitch first claimed to have finished the book in a message board posting on 11 December 2006. So if it took him nine weeks, and we assume he means nine consecutive weeks, that means he started work around 9 October.

But issue #12 came out in the last week of September. So that would mean he didn't even start on issue #13 until after issue #12 came out. And given the time for inking, lettering, colouring and so forth, he would have been finished on issue #12 a good while before it hit the shelves. (After all, he finished #13 in December, and it's still not out.)

So you've got Bryan Hitch sitting around twiddling his thumbs and doing nothing for a good month or so between issues. Why? Was he waiting on a script?