Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimatum (#129-133) (Spoilers/Discussion)

Picked up #131 yesterday. I loved it. Again, USM seems to actually be taking the physical and emotional results of the Ultimatum event seriously instead of just glossing over it or barely touching on it like UFF and UXM are doing.

Loved the Spidey and Hulk interaction. The dialogue was priceless, and I love how Immonen drew the Hulk. I really, really enjoyed those scenes.

Sucks that Daredevil died. I'm sure they'll address his death in Ultimatum itself, since thats the book everyone else seems to be dying it in.
 
Random said:
Did you think he was going to get any better in the UU? As far as I'm concern everyone who dies is considered an act of euthanasia
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It seems like a waste regardless, it is possible that someone else down the line could have made use of him. Look at DCUA, they almost never wasted a character.

Why are they killing off all the characters do they plan to cancel the line or merely restart it, because if they do plan to the later, killing of important characters is very foolish, if its only done for shock value.
 
TheManWithoutFear said:
I was thinking the same thing.... *sigh* How did it happen?
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UU always had little problems, that didn't seem like a big deal but quickly caught up with them. The whole seeling point of the UU was that it was a new universe, without confusing coniunity issues, but that is no longer the case after 9 years. So their main selling point is gone and the little problems have begun to pile up. They tried to burn through 20 years of 616 stories in 6 years, everything felt rushed, almost every storyline felt rushed characters were introduced to the UU with no thought and were extremely underdeveloped (ex: does Sandman or Eelctro have any personality to speak of, when is the last time we have even seen Sandman?) Add to that the big problems created by Kirkmana nd Loeb and you have a tempus in a tea pot.

At this point I think the new Spidey cartoon is a better retelling then USM, they have given almost every character introduced a personality, maange to baalnce the A and B plots nicely and haven't killed off caracters for shock value. The animated versions of Sandman, Vulture and Electro are vastly superior to Ultimate counterparts.
 
The Overlord said:
UU always had little problems, that didn't seem like a big deal but quickly caught up with them. The whole seeling point of the UU was that it was a new universe, without confusing coniunity issues, but that is no longer the case after 9 years. So their main selling point is gone and the little problems have begun to pile up. They tried to burn through 20 years of 616 stories in 6 years, everything felt rushed, almost every storyline felt rushed characters were introduced to the UU with no thought and were extremely underdeveloped (ex: does Sandman or Eelctro have any personality to speak of, when is the last time we have even seen Sandman?) Add to that the big problems created by Kirkmana nd Loeb and you have a tempus in a tea pot.

At this point I think the new Spidey cartoon is a better retelling then USM, they have given almost every character introduced a personality, maange to baalnce the A and B plots nicely and haven't killed off caracters for shock value. The animated versions of Sandman, Vulture and Electro are vastly superior to Ultimate counterparts.
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You didn't answer my question at all.
 
A year and a half ago a conversation between Jeph Loeb, Brian Michal Bendis, Aaron Coleite, and Joe Pokaski was secretly recorded. Recently a transcript of that conversation has surfaced.

Loeb: I have exciting news, Joe Quesada has just given me permission to destroy the Ultimate Universe!
Bendis: Destroy? you mean like Destroy destroy? as in totally destroy?
Loeb: Do you have a stutter?
Bendis: I-I-uh, what? Do you mean...I don't-Doesn't everyone talk like this?
Loeb: ...anyway, we're going to hype it up for over a year and I'm going to write a third volume of Ultimates and really screw it up...you have no idea how bad I'm going to make this book! i mean i'm just going to make everyone as mad as i can and then I'll write an event book that will kill as many important characters as possible! And here's the great part...There is going to be no plot to this event book! I'm just going to jump back and forth between all the heroes an show them dying! Aaron and Joe, I want you guys to take over Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate FF and you two and Bendis are going to provide some sort of plot to the story in your tie in issues...the plots don't have to be good, remember we're trying to kill this thing! What do you think? Great idea, right?

[Loeb leaves]

Pokaski: That idea sucks

Coliete: Well, if we had any talent we could get our own jobs instead of riding on his overrated coat tales.

Pokaski: haha, true enough. Well...I don't suppose anyone will miss Ultimate FF anyway.

[They leave together]

Bendis: Oy vey! I-uh-I need to make a call. A phone call..on the phone!

[Bendis leaves]
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It was later discovered that Bendis realized that USM was his bread and butter and if they destroyed the UU he would only have New and Mighty Avengers left...and as everyone knew Mighty Avengers sucked. Worried that New Avengers alone couldn't keep his career afloat, he decided to do two things: 1) call Mark Millar and bribe him to come back and fix the UU, and 2) start actually trying on USM again. He accomplished both, but as soon as USM started being good again New Avengers became as crappy as Mighty Avengers, and he had to outsource the writing of his crossover event Secret Invasion to his twelve-year old niece, proving once and for all that while Bendis can write 4-5 books per months, he can only do one book per month well.
 
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MWOF - Daredevil died in the tsunami, apparently, helping people. It's not explicitly stated or seen, but it's quite reasonable to assume that's the case. Poor DD.

Anyhow, I get what's going on.

They're not destroying the Ultimate universe.

What they're doing is turning it into a new comic universe. What started out as a whole, "lets update the original properties into the 21st century" kinda went askew.

Jemas wanted to eventually ultimize the entire Marvel universe and do away with the horrific continuities of the others. I don't know where anyone else stood on that idea. It doesn't matter. When Jemas left, what happened was the Ultimate writers, who were so popular, went on to tackle the regular Marvel universe... and they revamped it in the same fashion they did the Ultimate universe. And this example spread throughout Marvel comics until we got to this point: where there's virtually no difference between the two universes at all. And with that being the case, why have them both?

So the idea seems to be to transform the Ultimate universe into a brand new comics universe that has origins based in a re-telling of the Marvel universe.

They're creating a new universe of comics.

I wonder... how successful would The Ultimates have been if it hadn't been Captain America and Hulk? If it had been brand new characters? I look at the Wildstorm universe, the most recent superhero universe, and really, it has The Authority and Gen13 to its name. And even those... None of it seems to be truly enduring.

A new Spider-Man (I assumed the Spider-Girl, but then why call it "Spider-MAN"?) - new Avengers and Ultimates. Maybe no more X-Men or Fantastic Four. Wiping the slate clean.

But then, I get confused because apparently in the new USM, lots of old 60s Spidey villains will be showing up. And one of the major problems with the Ultimate universe was its inability to create anything new. It's strengths lay only in retelling older stories in more refreshed, cinematic packages.

The whole thing feels off the rails to me. I'm not getting why they're doing what they're doing. My thinking of a "new universe" makes sense, but seems antithetical to their pitch and their track record. And the idea of just a "revamp" doesn't work due to the culling of so many characters.

It's all so confusing. It's all so... haphazard. And it shouldn't be. It doesn't have a sense of change, or chaos... it just feels... improvised and directionless. Unstructured. I dunno.
 
hey guess, what, USM has been delayed a month, probably b/c of Ultimatum.

Do you remember when this was coming out once every three weeks?
 
Now it's not even coming out this month. May 6th is the new date but it will prolly get delayed again cause Loeb #4 isn't coming out til the end of May...
 
Drunken Pickle said:
Now it's not even coming out this month. May 6th is the new date but it will prolly get delayed again cause Loeb #4 isn't coming out til the end of May...
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Most likely. They're really dragging out the Ultimatum event. I have a feeling that by the time all is said and done, we won't see Ultimatum #5 until August or September. And unfortunately, we probably won't see Millar's Ultimate Avengers until November or December, or maybe even January, 2010. :shock:

I really hope I'm over-estimating, but I don't think so.
 
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I agree.

As much as I hate to admit this, this all needed to ended last month. It's not like we don't know who's going to bite the bullet in the tie-in issues thanks to the varient covers. Thry should just release USM already!
 
wow, Ultimatum is the most drawn out comic event of all time!
(UWvH is a miniseries, not an event)

The 'March on Ultimatum' banner first appeared on Ultimate Power, issue #1 of which was released in Oct of 2006 (although if i remember correctly the banner didn't appear on the first couple of issues) and the final issue (#9) came out in in Dec 2007(15 months later), followed the same month by Ultimates 3 #1
The Fifth and final issue of Ultimates 3 was released in June 2008 (only 2 months late...but it felt like we had to endure it longer while we were going through it)
That same month, Ultimate Origins #1 came out, and we were frustrated for five months while all of the five issues came out on time, leaving us in October 2008
November 2008 Ultimatum #1 came out, it is now April 2009 and issue #4 of five is slated to come out next month (we'll see...) in the mean time, Ultimate Spider-Man and the requiems of the Ultimate X-Men and FF books (which were tying into Ultimatum for the past 8 months or so) have been delayed to match up with the releases of Ultimatum (even though stuff has been released out of order for the past few months).

Oh, i almost forgot to mention the wonderful UFF/UXM and UXM/UFF annuals and the Ultimate Cap and Ultimate Hulk Annuals

They have been building up to this for two and a half years and the end is barely in sight!

come on, if you wanted to kill the Ultimate Universe, shoot it in the head, don't torture it slowly!
 
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