Ultimate Comics Avengers (Discussion & Spoilers)

It would be great to have Millar writing Ultimate books again if he were writing at the level he was with The Ultimates. Like this? Not so much.
 
Zeek said:
It would be great to have Millar writing Ultimate books again if he were writing at the level he was with The Ultimates. Like this? Not so much.
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I agree with this. It's better than the Loeb crap we've been shovel-fed since Millar finished Ultimates 2 but it's nowhere near Ultimates/Ultimates 2 good.
 
...and I was thinking about the release dates also - Two Ultimate Millar issues within days of each other, and they were both meh.

Remember the PAGES of dialogue between issues (and MONTHS) of Ultimates/Ultimates 2? And I forgave them every time. Now? I almost wish the wait was longer. :)
 
E said:
I agree with this. It's better than the Loeb crap we've been shovel-fed since Millar finished Ultimates 2 but it's nowhere near Ultimates/Ultimates 2 good.
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except that i wouldn't have wasted my money on it if it had been Loeb, but since it was Millar I gave it a chance and was disappointed again.
 
Some people call Mark Millar racist. This is why. No doubt, he will get flak for this character.

Yet, I doubt that he is. I think to call him a racist would infer he has a hatred for black people, and I sincerely don't think it's the case. I think it's just easier to label this type of writing as 'racist' than what it actually is - lazy.

Mark Millar writes his black characters like bad stereotypes seen in action movies because he's just not thinking them through. It's not that he hates black people or finds them unworthy of his attention - he's just lazy. He does it with all his characters.

Nick Fury, for example, is Samuel L Jackson. That's what he is. He has him talk and act how he expects Sam Jackson to act in a movie like PULP FICTION or DEEP BLUE SEA.

This black Hulk character is black because he thinks that makes him cooler and sexier. He probably made him black to make the cast seem more culturally diverse. But he gives the character no real thought. This "Blulk" was a Cambridge professor with a wife and child who, it seems, upon getting superpowers decided to become a gangsta rapper pimp who lives in Malibu, covered in gold, having sex with many white girls at a time.

Here's the problem - it's a cliche. This is not original or smart thinking. It's obvious and shallow. Ignoring the continuity problems (which may be averted), having him act like a stereotypical pimp because you want to show how far he's fallen is still lazy writing. The purpose is you want to give him a hedonistic lifestyle that's completely selfish because, upon his empowerment, he fell from grace. That's fine, but how does he fall from grace? Being a gangsta pimp is so stereotypical, so cliched, it appears racist, but it's not a decision borne out of hatred or dismissal, but just borne out of laziness and ignorance (of his character, not of black culture).

If you were a college professor who (let's say) loved his wife and child and suddenly became a superman, what would you do? If I were this guy, I might make the process available to my family, friends, and people who needed it. I might become the greatest philanthropist the world has known. But, I suppose, since this is a secret in the Ultimate universe (no one has heard of him) and we want him to fall from grace, we can't do that.

Perhaps I'd take my family and start a new life, and make myself the greatest athlete who ever lived. No one knows I'm superpowered, they think I'm just gifted. And I win gold medal after gold medal, sponsorship after sponsorship. And here I am, in my phat palatial estate, with my wife and child, all of us super-wealthy and super-sexy, and as I'm having breakfast and my wife is all flirty and my child is all popular at school, I look around, and can't help but notice that my life is completely shallow and meaningless and I hate everything about it. It's a paradise I always asked for, but I find myself longing for my crutches.

Maybe everything goes wonderfully well and I'm super happy and terrific, and my wife and I have a renewed love life... but, my wife unfortunately gets ovarian cancer. It happens suddenly and all the treatments seem to exacerbate her condition. She passes away. I study the illness because it was so weird, and I realise that it came from me. I didn't impregnate her, my cells were too aggressive, and instead, I gave her this tumour, that got stronger with chemotherapy. I become a sullen man. My child leaves soon after, and when War Machine comes to talk to me, I live in a broken brownstone, where multiple suicide attempts have failed because of my new physiology.

Or the wonderful Hulkness made me strong, but I've noticed over the years I'm getting angrier and stupider. And I realise that while my body instantly changed, my mind is slowly changing into being a hulkish brute. After a terrible accident, I hide myself away looking for a cure that I can't create because I'm getting stupider and more frustrated with my stupidness every day. At my wit's end, with my soul fading daily, I beg Nick Fury for help, and he'll grant it - If I go around and do some black ops wet work for him. And I hate myself for saying 'yes'.

I make this process of amazingness. I decide to sell it and become super-rich. My wife is disgusted that I'd sell it instead of making it free for people. She takes the kid and leaves. I, through all my cash and resources, get her arrested and get my kid back. My kid runs away. And you know what? I don't go looking for her. She'll come back. She doesn't. By the time I decide to have people looking for her, the trail is cold. I'm alone.

Or, you know, I could just ditch my wife and child, start calling myself "Cash", buy a humvee and some gold chains, live in Malibu, and sleep with multiple women at a time.
 
Bass said:
Some people call Mark Millar racist. This is why. No doubt, he will get flak for this character.

Yet, I doubt that he is. I think to call him a racist would infer he has a hatred for black people, and I sincerely don't think it's the case. I think it's just easier to label this type of writing as 'racist' than what it actually is - lazy.

Mark Millar writes his black characters like bad stereotypes seen in action movies because he's just not thinking them through. It's not that he hates black people or finds them unworthy of his attention - he's just lazy. He does it with all his characters.

Nick Fury, for example, is Samuel L Jackson. That's what he is. He has him talk and act how he expects Sam Jackson to act in a movie like PULP FICTION or DEEP BLUE SEA.

This black Hulk character is black because he thinks that makes him cooler and sexier. He probably made him black to make the cast seem more culturally diverse. But he gives the character no real thought. This "Blulk" was a Cambridge professor with a wife and child who, it seems, upon getting superpowers decided to become a gangsta rapper pimp who lives in Malibu, covered in gold, having sex with many white girls at a time.

Here's the problem - it's a cliche. This is not original or smart thinking. It's obvious and shallow. Ignoring the continuity problems (which may be averted), having him act like a stereotypical pimp because you want to show how far he's fallen is still lazy writing. The purpose is you want to give him a hedonistic lifestyle that's completely selfish because, upon his empowerment, he fell from grace. That's fine, but how does he fall from grace? Being a gangsta pimp is so stereotypical, so cliched, it appears racist, but it's not a decision borne out of hatred or dismissal, but just borne out of laziness and ignorance (of his character, not of black culture).

If you were a college professor who (let's say) loved his wife and child and suddenly became a superman, what would you do? If I were this guy, I might make the process available to my family, friends, and people who needed it. I might become the greatest philanthropist the world has known. But, I suppose, since this is a secret in the Ultimate universe (no one has heard of him) and we want him to fall from grace, we can't do that.

Perhaps I'd take my family and start a new life, and make myself the greatest athlete who ever lived. No one knows I'm superpowered, they think I'm just gifted. And I win gold medal after gold medal, sponsorship after sponsorship. And here I am, in my phat palatial estate, with my wife and child, all of us super-wealthy and super-sexy, and as I'm having breakfast and my wife is all flirty and my child is all popular at school, I look around, and can't help but notice that my life is completely shallow and meaningless and I hate everything about it. It's a paradise I always asked for, but I find myself longing for my crutches.

Maybe everything goes wonderfully well and I'm super happy and terrific, and my wife and I have a renewed love life... but, my wife unfortunately gets ovarian cancer. It happens suddenly and all the treatments seem to exacerbate her condition. She passes away. I study the illness because it was so weird, and I realise that it came from me. I didn't impregnate her, my cells were too aggressive, and instead, I gave her this tumour, that got stronger with chemotherapy. I become a sullen man. My child leaves soon after, and when War Machine comes to talk to me, I live in a broken brownstone, where multiple suicide attempts have failed because of my new physiology.

Or the wonderful Hulkness made me strong, but I've noticed over the years I'm getting angrier and stupider. And I realise that while my body instantly changed, my mind is slowly changing into being a hulkish brute. After a terrible accident, I hide myself away looking for a cure that I can't create because I'm getting stupider and more frustrated with my stupidness every day. At my wit's end, with my soul fading daily, I beg Nick Fury for help, and he'll grant it - If I go around and do some black ops wet work for him. And I hate myself for saying 'yes'.

I make this process of amazingness. I decide to sell it and become super-rich. My wife is disgusted that I'd sell it instead of making it free for people. She takes the kid and leaves. I, through all my cash and resources, get her arrested and get my kid back. My kid runs away. And you know what? I don't go looking for her. She'll come back. She doesn't. By the time I decide to have people looking for her, the trail is cold. I'm alone.

Or, you know, I could just ditch my wife and child, start calling myself "Cash", buy a humvee and some gold chains, live in Malibu, and sleep with multiple women at a time.
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I have things to say about this when I have the time, but suffice to say, I think it's a potentially risky distinction to make. In my experience (in the Deep South!) the most insidiuous reasons for the pervasiveness of racial injustice isn't out and out hatred but this sort of laziness and cutting corners in the general thought process. Millar's sloppiness in writing minority characters runs much deeper than this, and I'm hesitant to make such a clear distinction between casual racism and conscious racism.

I'll type up a response next time I'm around. But yes, "Bulk" may be more fittingly regarded as "The Incredible Buck" for all the stereotypes heaped onto the character.
 
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Zombipanda said:
I have things to say about this when I have the time, but suffice to say, I think it's a potentially risky distinction to make. In my experience (in the Deep South!) the most insidiuous reasons for the pervasiveness of racial injustice isn't out and out hatred but this sort of laziness and cutting corners in the general thought process. Millar's sloppiness in writing minority characters runs much deeper than this, and I'm hesitant to make such a clear distinction between casual racism and conscious racism.

I'll type up a response next time I'm around.
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This post makes me think of you as an intellectual douche.

But then I think about how much I can't stop loving you and its all better.

;)
 
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Zombipanda said:
I have things to say about this when I have the time, but suffice to say, I think it's a potentially risky distinction to make. In my experience (in the Deep South!) the most insidiuous reasons for the pervasiveness of racial injustice isn't out and out hatred but this sort of laziness and cutting corners in the general thought process. Millar's sloppiness in writing minority characters runs much deeper than this, and I'm hesitant to make such a clear distinction between casual racism and conscious racism.

I'll type up a response next time I'm around. But yes, "Bulk" may be more fittingly regarded as "The Incredible Buck" for all the stereotypes heaped onto the character.
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while I understand what you mean by this, I kind of think that racism is a word that we throw around a little too freely. If you look up racism, the primary definition is generally something along the lines of:
a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
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(from Merriam-Webster, emphasis mine)

This belief that people of one race are superior to those of other races is not (in my mind) the same as prejudice, stereotypes, or ignorance.

Let me explain.

I'm white. When I was one year old, my parents moved to Kenya and taught at a school for Kenyan boys. They planned to stay there permanently, but situations lead to them having to leave after a year. But for that one year of my life, I only knew four white people (my parents and another couple who taught at the same school) and everyone else I ever saw was African. As a result I was scared of white people when we moved back to Canada (when I was two years old). For the rest of my life I lived in predominantly white communities, surrounded by white people and white culture. As a 24-year old, I'm very comfortable around white people and feel a little out of place if I'm with lots of black people.

Everyone is naturally prejudiced. Not against specific races, but towards whatever happens to be 'normal' for us and against whatever is outside of that norm. This isn't just true for race, it's true for any kind of social classification, we generally prefer to be with people who are like us because we feel more comfortable. I went on a canoe trip with a bunch of athletes from my college once and I felt terribly out of place.

Prejudice tends to lead to ignorance - which is just not knowing much about other people - and ignorance leads to stereotyping. This is natural. Not right, by any means, but everyone is guilty of it to some extent. We all have a responsibility to recognize prejudice, ignorance, and stereotyping in ourselves and others and confront it. But lets be a little more gracious than labeling it all racism.

Mark Millar is writing a comic book that thousands of people will read. I doubt very much that he believes that white people are superior to everyone else, but he should be confronted about his ignorance and stereotyping that stem from his natural prejudices.

And more importantly, Marvel needs to be confronted for allowing this to be published. It's pretty clear that the editors at Marvel are generally more concerned with getting books out on time than with being responsible. This isn't the only time that has become apparent. But I've never taken the time to express my concern to them, which demonstrates part of what ZP was saying: that the worst culprit behind racial injustice isn't hatred, but laziness.
 
I wouldn't call Fury lazy writing. Maybe he started out as a transplant of Sammy J, but when written properly he's genuinely one of the most intriguing characters in the UU.
 
Zeek said:
I wouldn't call Fury lazy writing. Maybe he started out as a transplant of Sammy J, but when written properly he's genuinely one of the most intriguing characters in the UU.
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I agree, but I think that's because a caricature of Sam L Jackson is more interesting than most 'non-reality based' characters in the Ultimate U.
 
vmenge said:
This is terrible news IMO, I don't think Dillon's style fits Ultimate Avengers at all :(
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The annual he did for Mark Millar stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest of the series.
 
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