[OpTard]

so i read the first issue of ultimatum. i feel it's a little early to make an opinion on the event, but the first issue had a couple shockers in it.

basically the issue starts with the ultimate universe having a normal day. the FF are chilling at the baxter building. peter's hangin with his friends on the subway. some x-men are having a day out on the town and the ultimates are at tony stark's mansion being snippy with each other.

then a giant flood comes and fucks the ever loving shit out of manhatten.

the big reveal at the end had been pretty much ruined form the promo material, as it was no surprise to find out magneto was behind it all.

the big shocker here are those who already appear to be dead. nothing's confirmed at this point, but the casualty list appears to include AT LEAST johnny storm, nightcrawler, beast, wasp, hawkeye, and sue storm appears to be in a coma due to using a massive force field to send the flood back to the ocean.

if these casualties hold true, looks like their promise to really shake up the ultimate U is gonna be spot on.

[Stu]

the big shocker here are those who already appear to be dead. nothing's confirmed at this point, but the casualty list appears to include AT LEAST johnny storm, nightcrawler, beast, wasp, hawkeye, and sue storm appears to be in a coma due to using a massive force field to send the flood back to the ocean.

Dazzler too.

[OpTard]

lets be honest, in the ultimate or main marvel U, no one gives a shit about dazzler.

[Stu]

Point.
I was surprised at a Dark Knight reference in a marvel book, but then, given the writer, maybe not. So what's Magneto doing this for, you think? The murder of his daughter (by an infatuated Ultron robot), or maybe he found out that

SPOILER: Click to show

Humans created Mutants, not God, or Evolution

, as revealed in Ultimate Origins?

[OpTard]

well they can't reference a marvel movie. it wouldn't exist there.

[Stu]

Nov 6, 2008 16:13:33 GMT -5 OpTard said:

well they can't reference a marvel movie. it wouldn't exist there.

Well, there could be a sequel to the Spider-Man movie that was made in the Ultimate U.

[Ryan]

I've been a pretty huge fan of the Ultimate Universe for some time now; it's modern, not too cluttered, and semi-realistic. Continuity was always in effect, because with so few characters to keep track of it must have been easy. Which is why I thought Ultimates 3 was awful compared to 1 and 2. You had random personality changes, random changes in appearance, and one heck of a retarded plot. And now the writer of it (I don't understand how you can write both the Long Halloween and Ultimates 3) seems to be doing the same thing yet again. He seems to be paying no attention to continuity at all (someone should tell him that Gwen Stacy died, it was pretty integral to Ultimate Spider-Man) and the scene where the Thing is somehow throwing down with a whale may be one of the most retarded moments in any comic I've ever read.

Tying this to the Ultimate Origins reveal is pretty clever, if that's what he's working towards, but based on Loeb's previous Ultimate work and the not-so-impressive first issue, I don't have very high hopes for this.

[Stu]

Nov 26, 2008 18:33:16 GMT -5 Ryan said:

(I don't understand how you can write both the Long Halloween and Ultimates 3)

Well they're not very comparable types of stories. Long Halloween is a moody, noir detective story, focussing a lot on character and borrowing elements from previous Batman stories, as well as the Godfather films. Ultimates is your big budget widescreen hollywood blockbuster movie. And considering Loeb is the guy who wrote the screenplay for Commando (a movie with a main character called Matrix, who pulls the seat out of a convertible so he can lie down in it out of sight, and climaxes with one man taking on a whole island of soldiers with a massive gun), it's not so surprising how that turned out. Someone once theorised he's just trying too hard too keep up with the younger writers' big event stories.

[Ryan]

I've seen Commando, but had no idea Loeb wrote it. Arnold saying "Let off some steam, Bennet!" is funnier than the majority of the attempts at humour in Ultimate 3, by the way.

Click show spoiler for one of the most atrocious lines in comic book history

Also, read the rest of the Ultimate edits on that site if you feel like it, they're pretty funny. It just highlights how terrible the third volume was.

[Stu]

Yeah, I already know that the villain was Ultron, who kills Wanda because he's infatuated with her. But those edits are Genius. And it helped me find the reuploaded civil war parody by Mighty Godking, so exalt.

[OpTard]

Nov 26, 2008 18:33:16 GMT -5 Ryan said:

(someone should tell him that Gwen Stacy died, it was pretty integral to Ultimate Spider-Man)

apparently this is more of a mis-cue in scheduling than a disregard of continuity. i aked my friend about it who's up to date with ultimate spidey and he said gwen stacy has come back in the most recent storyline in ult. spidey, but she's not yet in place where she'd just be hanging out on the L-train with everyone. basically ultimatum takes place after he current ult. spidey storyline, it just came out before the storyline ended.

i wasn't a fan of ultimates 3, but i thought ultimatum #1 was pretty good.

[Ryan]

SPOILER: Click to show

If you care about the details, Gwen Stacy died in the first appearance of Carnage (who killed her), which would be about issue 50 in this now 120 plus series. The second Carnage showed up when someone added Carnage's DNA to Gwen's. This resulted in a clone of Gwen Stacy who turns into Carnage whenever threatened. After a rampage, she is beaten by Peter and captured by S.H.I.E.L.D (presumably). She's definitely not likely to hang out with Peter and MJ like one of the gang.

I dunno. It seems to me that's a pretty major screw-up involving a pretty important character. How hard would it be to check with Bendis and ask if any of his characters had died?

[OpTard]

i'm choosing not to read that (and editted it with spoiler tags) since i do plan to read those issues. i read ultimate spiderman in hardcover, which come out once a year, so i've only read up to the end of the bagley run.

that being said, i know bendis was part of the planning of ultimatum, i know that he plans on having ultimatum crossover isues in spidey, and from that it's pretty obvious bendis saw the script before it went to print. between that and editorial, if gwen's appearance in ultimatum contradicted with what bendis had planned, i'm sure it would've been brought up.

also, if this was a mistake (and i still don't believe it is), these things aren't a writer's fault. you can't say "oh that loeb. no regard for continuity." this type of thing IS the editor's job. it's why they exist.

[Ryan]

Huh. Sorry that I didn't think to throw some spoiler tags in there. It makes sense that Bendis was included, I assumed he would have been, which makes it even weirder for me that things don't seem to mesh.

Your point about the editor is valid too.

I guess then my only real complaint would be that I'm not sure I trust the author of Ultimates 3 with the fate of my favourite comic book universe, but I guess I'll wait and see what he comes up with.

[OpTard]

well if it helps ease your worry in any way, try to think about this:

the story for ultimates 3 was originally written to be 13 issues like the other ultimates books. when it came apparent that joe mad is big douche who cant get 13 issues done with 2 years lead time, it was condenced to 8 issues. when it then became apparent joe mad was a REAL BIG DOUCHE who couldn't get 8 issues done with 2 years lead time it was again condenced to 5 issues. so loeb was forced to tell a 13 issue story in 5 issues, and douchey joe mad couldn't even get those 5 issues out on time.

[Stu]

I read that last week's Ultimate X-men confirmed Nightcrawled and Dazzler's deaths.

[OpTard]

and the latest previews tells us that the february issues of both ult FF and ult X will be their last, and be ultimatum tie-ins.

i'm sure both titles will be replaced with something. i don't see this being the end of the ultimate line by any means. but i think we can be sure after ultimatum the ultimate U will look NOTHING like the 616.

[Stu]

Yeah, well Millar's coming back to do the Ultimate Avengers ongoing, and it's going to be about lots of disasters hitting the ultimate universe.

[Ryan]

Dec 3, 2008 23:33:44 GMT -5 OpTard said:

and the latest previews tells us that the february issues of both ult FF and ult X will be their last, and be ultimatum tie-ins.

i'm sure both titles will be replaced with something. i don't see this being the end of the ultimate line by any means. but i think we can be sure after ultimatum the ultimate U will look NOTHING like the 616.

I'm rethinking my stance on Ultimatum all the time. Now if we could just get rid of Loeb's nonsensical dialogue somehow, we'd be in business.

[OpTard]

Dec 4, 2008 10:39:28 GMT -5 Stu said:

Yeah, well Millar's coming back to do the Ultimate Avengers ongoing, and it's going to be about lots of disasters hitting the ultimate universe.

right. the line-up as far as i can tell so far will be this:

-spidey
-avengers
-ultimates 4

and then i'm gussing a 4th book that will be some sort of FF / X-men hybrid.

[OpTard]

i just thought of something as far as the gwen stacy thing goes.

looking at the cover of ult. spidey #126 (with the ultimates on it), this ultimate spidey story it seems takes place before ultimates 3 even (from looking at the ultimates' costumes), let alone anywhere close to the start of ultimatum. leaves plenty of time for gwen to become part of the gang.

[Stu]

In Ultimate Spider-man's last story, they did have the Ultimates, and Tony said that they were in the middle of transitioning from SHIELD authority to independance, so yeah. Also, Ultimatum seems to be continuing on from Ultimates 3, with little time in between.
Though there is a bit of confusion with the timeline in the Ultimate Universe, because Spider-man is supposed to have active for a year, as of the 100th issue, but all the other comics seem to move at regular pace. There was even a year supposedly between Ultimates 1 and 2, but when the comics crossover into Spider-man, this is ignored a lot.

[OpTard]

yeah, i try not to let that kind of stuff bother me. people want to tell the stories they want to tell. mark millar wanted a certain amount of time to pass for his stories, where as bendis is pretty adamant about not aging spidey too fast.

in the end you just gotta let them do what they're gonna do and take certain little timeline hiccups with a grain of salt.

[Stu]

Well part two was retarded as all hell
-Spider-man struggles to lift a car, while saying "it's bad enough that half this city was underwater one second, and the next it's not"
WTF is that supposed to mean? It's BAD that the city is no longer flooded? Then Hulk lifts the car from him, and that's all you see of the pair in this issue
-Tony takes an unconscious Cap to the Triskelion, and basically tells Ult. Carol Danvers to shut the fuck up while they treat him, and she lets him despite the character being rather snarky, no-nonsense and strong in Ult. Spider-Man.
-Hawkeye stops acting like a jerk and offers to help Hank Pym find Wanda, despite Pym being melodramatic and asking why he shouldn't squash him like a bug
-Reed Richards says he doesn't care what Xavier says, he knows Namor is responsible for the flooding. But he's convinced by Doom, who just repeats the same thing Xavier says, and he has a Squadron Supremer with him to help get Ult. Fury back
-Hawkeye finds Wanda...being eaten by The Blob ("Tastes like chicken") :-*
-Magneto visits Xavier, and Chuck's pissed, so much so that he calls him Magneto, and Mags goes "So we've come to that. No longer referring to me by my first name. Why am I not surprised?"
Yeah, Magneto's the genocidal maniac, but Charles is worse for not addressing him as a friend. Then Magneto decides Charles has foiled his plans one too many times, so snaps his neck. If it was that easy, why did it take this long to it? It can't be compassion for a friend, because he did shove a pole through Xavier's spine that time and paralyse him in the first place.

[Ryan]

Thoughts I had while reading:

That first scene with Spider-Man was some pretty horrible exposition. I understand the need for a recap, but why not just use the traditional Ultimate black page with a single panel and lots of text? What he was saying didn't even make logical sense (I might add that this is totally out of character for Peter).

Okay, why does Carol Danvers suddenly have a huge rack? They're practically each the size of her head.

Hawkeye's hair is not coloured blond, although I guess that's explained by hair dye, which he got for some reason even though nobody ever sees his hair I guess?

Reed becoming a delusional psychopath is a unique touch, although a tad overdramatic and cliched.

Hey, what's up Doom and Zarda in new costumes for no reason? I liked Doom's hooves, and uh, Zarda honestly looks pretty retarded.

Thor's scene was actually pretty cool.

Haha Blob what the fuck.

Magneto somehow snuck into the fucking X-Men home base. Because "they were finding their dead friends". Right, so they just left their leader unguarded because they couldn't spare Cyclops, at least, who's half blind anyway. At least what Magneto did made sense I guess.

Ziggy brought my hopes up, but this issue brought me back to earth. I'm sorry, the basic idea is cool and all, and Loeb isn't the first one to do something retarded with the Ultimate characters, but this just sucks for the most part. Also, Magneto's motivation was not along the lines of "I hate myself and wanna kill everyone because I somehow found out I'm a freak of science instead of the next step in evolution", but "humans are ruining the world" garbage, which is pretty dumb and done to death.