Ultimatum series discussion [spoilers]

Zombipanda said:
Oh, genre cliches...
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Tropes are not cliches, read the front page of that site. :wink: Every work of fiction ever created is subject to tropes, no exceptions.

Regardless, he is following this trope to a T and it is a bad trope. Why can't some of these characters get heroic or meaningful deaths, why can't Wasp go out fighting instead of being eaten off screen?

Also does anyone know why Magneto is suddenly obsessed with the Noah's Ark story, so much so that he thought flooding the Earth was a good idea, even though this action has killed
 
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I've come to the conclusion that Jeph Loeb is just not a good writter at all. I haven't read all of his stuff, so myabe I shouldn't make a blanket statement like this, but based on what I have read by him, it seems to be true.

I've read Fallen Son, which I actually liked most of. But I also know that Loeb was kept on a very tight leash for this one. The Death of Captain America was a big deal and they wanted to do it right, so the editors were very involved in the structuring of the story. Loeb's job was to fill in the blanks with a little bit of plot here and there (which is where the story fell apart a bit)

I've also read Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory. Those are considered classics, but only b/c of what they are about. As far as story telling, they are a mess. The Long Halloween is 13 issues of gangsters getting murdered and Batman not knowing who did it, then Harvey Dent turns into Two Face, then in the last issue they capture the murderer, except you don't really know if they actually did...who was the Holiday Killer? was it Harvey Dent? Was it Gilda Dent? Was it Alberto Falcone? Who knows! Nothing gets resolved. It's Deus Ex Machina that didn't even resolve anything. Then Dark Victory is very similar except this time it's cops getting murdered and Robin is introduced as a subplot.

And then I've read Ultimatum/Ultimates 3/Ultimate Power/all the tie in stuff and annuals that went along with it. This one was Loeb's show from start to finish. They brought him in and gave him the reigns and everything went to crap.

So the conclusion I've come to is that Loeb got lucky with his early career. They gave him Batman: The Long Halloween, and because of what the story was about, it was a success. If it had been any other story, it would have crashed and burned because the story telling is terrible. Loeb can write a decent comic if he's kept on a short leash, but if you give him any kind of freedom then characters start biting each others' heads off.
 
I agree completely, Mister Captain. HUSH was poop. As was SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. And DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, HULK: GREY and WOLVERINE: BURGUNDY. (Okay, I made up that last one.)

All his earlier work, which was popular, was him taking previously written stories, putting a narrator on top of them, and writing a couple of scenes linking the stories together and that was it. Since then, he's done HULK and WOLVERINE which were awful according to all who read it.

The man is just an abysmal writer who show no intent of actually learning how to write.
 
Bass said:
I agree completely, Mister Captain. HUSH was poop. As was SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. And DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, HULK: GREY and WOLVERINE: BURGUNDY. (Okay, I made up that last one.)

All his earlier work, which was popular, was him taking previously written stories, putting a narrator on top of them, and writing a couple of scenes linking the stories together and that was it. Since then, he's done HULK and WOLVERINE which were awful according to all who read it.

The man is just an abysmal writer who show no intent of actually learning how to write.
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But why in gods name do people buy it? Bad as it may be, it sells.It doesn't make sense.
 
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Venom Melendez said:
But why in gods name do people buy it? Bad as it may be, it sells.It doesn't make sense.
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Actually, it doesn't.

Comic shops order several months in advance. So the way comic companies tell if something is selling is based on its pre-orders. They don't know how it's actually selling for ages. This is why there's a common phenomena in comic books: #2 is the hardest issue to get.

Shops order #1s, but don't know how it sells, so they order very few #2s. By the time they're ready to order #3 they have an idea of the demand of the series. It's weird.

As a result, comic companies get a-list talent and hype the **** out of a comic, make sure there's lots of pretty artwork (the easiest part of the comic to sell), and hope to sell the **** out of it - regardless of the actual quality of the comic. Movies and music do this too. No one is sure how good anything is so they use advertising to make sure they get enough to cover their costs.

For ULTIMATES 3, for example, Joe Maduereira got paid $1 million. Marvel has to make that money back somehow. So they have to sell the **** out of the title, even if its rubbish or they lose a LOT of money.

There's a lot of perceived importance. For example, when Marvel got Loeb exclusive, he was/is considered an industry leader. His contract promises him a lot of lucrative projects. He has to get them because the contract says so. This costs Marvel money. Marvel HAS to make that money back. They jack up the price, turn it into a crossover event, they do everything to make sure it sells.

In so far as I know.

And then people buy it because everything they read tells them too. It's not that they're sheep or anything, but they like their comics and they just read what sounds good. These comics sound good.

Some people just like crossovers.

But I don't know how much of their success is, "It's the only thing on the rack, so you've got to buy something". That is definitely a part of it too, which is why comics has people going "I quit comics forever". No one does that in cinema.

So it's three parts as to why they're popular:
1 - The numbers the comics sell in isn't indicative of their success
2 - People like these comics
3 - People are almost forced into buying the comics

And the third is very real. "Forcing" your audience to buy your book is a very real strategy. People like to pretend you're not being 'forced', but you really can be. The way you can tell is just to look at how people leave the comic book world. No one does that with cinema or television or music. At least, not in the way comic book readers do. That kind of negative reaction can only be created in an environment that actively treats them badly in some fashion.

Or something. I think. I may be wrong. I'm hardly an expert on the subject.
 
Was Magneto singing old Byrds songs to himself just before all the good guys came crashing in through various windows?

Hey, who should be in the team to go get the master of magnetism? How about guy with metal skeleton, guy with metal armour, guy with metal guns and metal arrows, guy with metal shield and girl with metal sword? And let's throw Angel through the window first in an uncoordinated rage, y'know, just as cannon fodder.

Oh yeah, and we've got the girl who can control the weather. Who hasn't done anything to tackle what is essentially a weather-based crisis in the first place.

I shouldn't even start with this, because I will just go on and on and on... it's like Jack Nicholson at the end of Chinatown: "forget it. It's ultimatum."
 
Bass said:
Actually, it doesn't.

Comic shops order several months in advance. So the way comic companies tell if something is selling is based on its pre-orders. They don't know how it's actually selling for ages. This is why there's a common phenomena in comic books: #2 is the hardest issue to get.

Shops order #1s, but don't know how it sells, so they order very few #2s. By the time they're ready to order #3 they have an idea of the demand of the series. It's weird.

As a result, comic companies get a-list talent and hype the **** out of a comic, make sure there's lots of pretty artwork (the easiest part of the comic to sell), and hope to sell the **** out of it - regardless of the actual quality of the comic. Movies and music do this too. No one is sure how good anything is so they use advertising to make sure they get enough to cover their costs.

For ULTIMATES 3, for example, Joe Maduereira got paid $1 million. Marvel has to make that money back somehow. So they have to sell the **** out of the title, even if its rubbish or they lose a LOT of money.

There's a lot of perceived importance. For example, when Marvel got Loeb exclusive, he was/is considered an industry leader. His contract promises him a lot of lucrative projects. He has to get them because the contract says so. This costs Marvel money. Marvel HAS to make that money back. They jack up the price, turn it into a crossover event, they do everything to make sure it sells.

In so far as I know.

And then people buy it because everything they read tells them too. It's not that they're sheep or anything, but they like their comics and they just read what sounds good. These comics sound good.

Some people just like crossovers.

But I don't know how much of their success is, "It's the only thing on the rack, so you've got to buy something". That is definitely a part of it too, which is why comics has people going "I quit comics forever". No one does that in cinema.

So it's three parts as to why they're popular:
1 - The numbers the comics sell in isn't indicative of their success
2 - People like these comics
3 - People are almost forced into buying the comics

And the third is very real. "Forcing" your audience to buy your book is a very real strategy. People like to pretend you're not being 'forced', but you really can be. The way you can tell is just to look at how people leave the comic book world. No one does that with cinema or television or music. At least, not in the way comic book readers do. That kind of negative reaction can only be created in an environment that actively treats them badly in some fashion.

Or something. I think. I may be wrong. I'm hardly an expert on the subject.
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:shock:

You sound like an expert.
 
J. Agamemnon said:
Now I'm gonna be waiting to say 'Rise!' in a creepy, maniacal voice. You wouldn't happen to have a dusty black rope by any chance?
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palpatinefk4.jpg


Zombipanda said:
:shock:

You sound like an expert.
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I think I've just paid attention to people who are experts.
 
Bass said:
I agree completely, Mister Captain. HUSH was poop. As was SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. And DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, HULK: GREY and WOLVERINE: BURGUNDY. (Okay, I made up that last one.)

All his earlier work, which was popular, was him taking previously written stories, putting a narrator on top of them, and writing a couple of scenes linking the stories together and that was it. Since then, he's done HULK and WOLVERINE which were awful according to all who read it.

The man is just an abysmal writer who show no intent of actually learning how to write.
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I actually liked Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray. But this goes right back to the same point - he's just retelling existing stories which have all been retold a trillion times.

Gemini said:
I disagree

I wouldn't call him a writer
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lulz!

Bass said:
I think I've just paid attention to people who are experts.
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He's friends with Adam Hughes, incaseyadidn'tknow.
 
Honestly, I was actually thinking of other people I'd talked to, including my local comic shop owner. I haven't really talked about this stuff with Adam.
 
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Bass said:
Honestly, I was actually thinking of other people I'd talked to, including my local comic shop owner. I haven't really talked about this stuff with Adam.
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Your tongues were occupied elsewhere.

Boom! Gay joke! About a well-regarded artist! And it's just 9:30 in the morning! Prepare yourselves.
 
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E said:
I actually liked Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray. But this goes right back to the same point - he's just retelling existing stories which have all been retold a trillion times.
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I've only read Hush, The Long Halloween, and his Superman/Batman run. While I agree for the most part, how is the Long Halloween being retold? I get that it's a retelling of the origin of Two-Face. But when was the first Batman story that showed the origin of Two-Face and how greatly it affected Batman?
 
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Venom Melendez said:
But why in gods name do people buy it? Bad as it may be, it sells.It doesn't make sense.
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I must confess, I am still buying it. Partly it's the carcrash syndrome. Partly a bloody-minded, I've started, so I'm damn well going to finish it mentality. And not just for this book, but the whole ultimate universe. I've emotionally invested in these characters, and I want to see it through. I do actually want to see how it all ends, which by now seems just like a kind of morbid fascination.

But there's still a part of me that, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, hopes that with just one issue to go Loeb is going to somehow pull some rabbit out of the hat and tie up all the loose ends left over from Ultimate Origins and Ultimates 3 and everything else and it will have an almost satisfying resolution.

'Be patient,' that part of me keeps saying. 'Maybe it will all make sense in the end.'

And yet I know the last issue will just be one big dumb gory fight and then 'continued in Ultimates 4' or whatever.

It's sad and pathetic I know. There's a part of me that's just a born sucker. I'm the guy after all who said, 'well hang on, maybe Saddam does have these weapons of mass destruction pointed right at us. You know, Bush and Blair probably know things we don't, maybe we should trust them.'

Sucker.

And lastly, as has been pointed out, Ultimatum does have a certain dumb appeal; scene by scene, you can get swept along by it until you stop and think, and then go 'aaargh, what am I doing!!??' and throw the comic across the room.

And then you creep guiltily back to it, like a dog.

We should start Ultimatum Anonymous. I'll go first.

'Hello, my name is Captain Brighton, and I am an Ultimatum reader.'

There. It's the first step to recovery.
 
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