The Ultimate Universe - Obsolete?

[Sentry2k2]

I read an interesting article on IGN.com about the need for the Ultimate Universe. I was thinking the same thing. All necessary is the Ultimate Universe, 6.5 years after it debuted?
http://comics.ign.com/articles/777/777482p1.html

 

[Anubis]

IGN sucks.

 

[PWN3R]

IGN sucks.

IGN reviews suck even more.

 

[Danger Mouse]

That is sad. I'm a huge fan of the Ultimate Universe.

 

[CConn]

So basically his point is, he likes to read books that are good.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Then why are they wasting their time with the Core Universe?

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

Because its better than the Ultimate universe. Duh.

 

[jaydawg]

Whoever wrote this made a good point. USM is past 100 and UXM is nearing that. The series has been around six years. Maybe they should put a finite end to it. Considering the major push Civil War has given the core universe, the Ultimate Universe lacks the pull it had years ago as being a critical and commercial hit. Alot of great stories have come out of it, but UFF is mediocre, UXM is terrible, USM is so-so and Ultimates is a joke. What we know about vol 3 is sketchy at best.

Really, the whole reason was to bring in new readers in a more contemporary setting. Then as the years past the numbers built up and Marvel Adventures took the whole retelling aspect of it. Kinda defeats the purpose of the comics.

 

[Tropico]

The reviewers come off to me like people who only follow what's trendy or has a buzz about it. They preferred the Ult. line when (to them) the 616 MU was "faltering" and now they're doing the same with the Ultimate line. As for the pitfalls of what the Ultimate line is, it's nothing that many of us have been saying practically since the Ult. U started: its continued existence voids its own purpose. A continuing universe creates its own backlog of stories, it loses some of its accessibility, especially when some of those stories are particularly convoluted in an attempt to make them clever. The only way I can see the Ult. U working is if it's a generational thing and it got "rebooted" every decade or 2. Is the Ultimate Universe obsolete? I wouldn't say that it's obsolete as of now, but my stance has always been that it IS a product with an expiration date if it wants to keep true to its original purpose.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Ultimate should end.. period.. its sucked since its birth :-P

 

[Nokio]

I'll never forgive marvel for that horriable Ultimate Ga-lak-tus, especially since it looks very very very strongly that the Great True 616 Galactus is going to be reduced to that Ultimate ga-lak-tus crap cause it's easier for FOX to use and now they can easily say "well it's from the comics so the fans can't complain". Ugh that just burns me up.

 

[Venom160]

IGN sucks.

Agreed, and as I'v said before you don't like it don't read it! Its not like they're putting a gun to your head and making you read it. Just block it from your minds and pretend the ultimate universe doesnt exist and let the readers who do like it enjoy it.

 

[Danger Mouse]

I don't think the Ultimate series will be discontinued any time soon. The Ultimate Universe has quite a huge fan-base and as long as it generates income for Marvel, they won't kill it. The fan-base is probably not as huge as the fans of the Core Universe, but still not threatening enough to end its run.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

It's obsolete for ME.

The only Ultimate books i got into were Spider-Man and Avengers...The chronic lateness of Avengers made me not want to get involved with volume II of that book, and USM just started to bore me to tears some time around the Carnage arc...

So that, and the recent upswing of the 616 Universe, with Civil War, Annihilation, and Planet Hulk, have made me completely lose interest in the Ultimate Universe. I doubt i'll pick up an Ultimate book ever again.

 

[gildea]

That article was an extremely poorly written piece of op-ed nonsense.

Going to quote one line from the article to (try) and make my point :

"Why would I care about the Ultimate Knights when Hulk is causing havoc?"

Why on earth would one of these things inherently better than the other?? The sheer idiocy of the underlying assumptions crush the semi-decent points throughout the article.


Mind you i've always said the ultimate universe should be finite.....

 

[Darthphere]

I wrote a piece about this once.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It's obsolete for ME.

The only Ultimate books i got into were Spider-Man and Avengers...The chronic lateness of Avengers made me not want to get involved with volume II of that book, and USM just started to bore me to tears some time around the Carnage arc...

So that, and the recent upswing of the 616 Universe, with Civil War, Annihilation, and Planet Hulk, have made me completely lose interest in the Ultimate Universe. I doubt i'll pick up an Ultimate book ever again.

Good God, have you been rummaging around in my head, Captain? I felt the exact same way about Ultimates--vol. 1 was good but not worth the delays, so I ditched it about 2 issues into vol. 2 because tardiness became a problem again. I also quit reading USM right around the point where Ultimate Carnage killed Ultimate Gwen Stacy because I felt it had lost all of its momentum.

Anyway, I think the Ultimate Universe is pretty much obsolete if you look at it based on the stated purpose of the line. It really has outgrown its usefulness as a jumping-on point for completely new readers since, as others have pointed out, it has hundreds of issues and over half a decade's worth of continuity behind it now. That continuity--plus the Ultimate Universe's far greater penchant for disruptive delays--has led to all the same problems and glitches of the 616 universe, which the line was trying to save readers from to begin with. Even Marvel itself seems to have abandoned the Ultimate line as the ideal introduction for new readers; that title seems to have fallen to the all-ages-friendly Marvel Adventures line now. All that said, however, as a source of income, the Ultimate universe is still very much viable thanks to its large fanbase, so I don't see Marvel actually canceling the line anytime soon.

I gave up on the Ultimate universe a long time ago, myself, and as the 616 comics have grown, I've felt more and more justified in doing so. The 616 universe is richer and more compelling than it has been in a long time now. Civil War was pretty mediocre but, like Avengers Disassembled and House of M before it, that mediocre event seems to be leading to some interesting new comics. If we keep getting spin-offs like Young Avengers, the X-Factor revival, and Avengers: The Initiative, I might almost be glad to see crappy events coming down the pipeline in the future. Not to mention things like Annihilation and the upcoming magic event, which are reversing Joe Q's earlier mandate to scrunch the Marvel universe down to a myopic street-level perspective and expanding it back out into the sprawling landscape of the Infinity Gauntlet era that I loved so much.

Of course, I also think the 616 universe owes a bit of a debt to the Ultimate. I don't think the former would've come so far if the latter hadn't proved through high sales that comic fans are open to new interpretations of established concepts. New Avengers, for one, probably would never have gone through if not for the Ultimates and, even though I'm not a fan of Bendis' take on the Avengers, the Avengers line has irrefutably been reinvigorated because of NA.

 

[Anubis]

Agreed, and as I'v said before you don't like it don't read it! Its not like they're putting a gun to your head and making you read it. Just block it from your minds and pretend the ultimate universe doesnt exist and let the readers who do like it enjoy it.

Oh, I was just speaking in general. IGN sucks, and their opinions are like used toilet paper.

But I do agree with them on this one. It's useless at this point. Though I do enjoy Ultimates....when it actually comes out of course.

 

[Kitsune]

Wait for next mount when Marvel Introduces "EXTREME SPIDER-MAN" and the EXTREME UNIVERSE. Where they will retread old storylines from 616 anew.

 

[Oh Snap!]

The only Ultimate book I actually look forward to is Ultimates (when that rarely comes out) and occasionaly Ult. FF, other than that the rest of its crappy. Definetly gone down hill from the beginning.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I read that IGN article too. I wanted to disagree but couldn't. USM is good, but it needs to have an end and not just keep going on. Ultimates is great but by the time a new one comes out you're just not excited by the story anymore.

 

[Eddie Brock]

I don't think the Ultimate series will be discontinued any time soon. The Ultimate Universe has quite a huge fan-base and as long as it generates income for Marvel, they won't kill it. The fan-base is probably not as huge as the fans of the Core Universe, but still not threatening enough to end its run.

EXACTLY! The Ultimate Universe still generates large sales!

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Good God, have you been rummaging around in my head, Captain? I felt the exact same way about Ultimates--vol. 1 was good but not worth the delays, so I ditched it about 2 issues into vol. 2 because tardiness became a problem again. I also quit reading USM right around the point where Ultimate Carnage killed Ultimate Gwen Stacy because I felt it had lost all of its momentum.

Hey; Great minds think alike!

 

[hippie_hunter]

The problem with the Ultimate Marvel Universe is that it is no longer a "brand-new" reader friendly universe that isn't bogged down with years upon years of continuity that presented modern interpretations of classic characters.

Now these days it now has about six and a half years worth of continuity and back stories, which now hinders its "reader friendly" purpose and it no longer presents interpretations of classic characters.

The current additions to the Ultimate Marvel Universe don't even have the right to be called interpretations. They are completely different characters. When I read the first issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man felt like Spider-Man, Aunt May felt like Aunt May, Mary Jane felt like Mary Jane. The writing was great and the interpretations were fresh and a wonder to read. Now these days when I read books in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, they are not the characters that they are supposed to interpret. Ultimate Gwen Stacy is not Gwen Stacy. Ultimate Vulture is not the Vulture. Ultimate Scorpion is not the Scorpion. Ultimate Spider-Woman is not Spider-Woman. Ultimate Hobgoblin is not the Hobgoblin. Ultimate Cable is definetely not Cable. Ultimate Deadpool is not Deadpool. Ultimate Black Widow is not Black Widow. The Ultimate Shi'ar are not the Shi'ar. Ultimate Namor is not Namor the Sub-Mariner. The Ultimate Defenders are not the Defenders. You get my meaning? I'm not reading the characters I know and love. I'm reading horrible bastardizations.

Another problem is that Marvel did not expand the Ultimate Marvel universe if they really want it to be a full-fledged line. They're just sticking with Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four. They canceled Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. People will say The Ultimates, but with The Ultimates v1 done, The Ultimates v2 nearly completed, The Ultimates v3 comming out soon, and The Ultimates v4 planned, that is not an ongoing, that is a miniseries. Why don't they have The Ultimates as a true ongoing? Where's an Ultimate Daredevil ongoing? An Ultimate Iron Man ongoing? An Ultimate Captain America series? An Ultimate Thor series? What about Ultimate Hulk? You'd think that Marvel would want to capitalize on those characters by giving them ongoings just like Ultimate Spider-Man.

Delays in The Ultimates v2 and Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk are a huge problem for the line.

The horridness of it's miniseries such as Ultimate Nightmare, Ultimate Secret, Ultimate Extinction, and Ultimate Vison hurt the line.

Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four are terrible. And Ultimate Spider-Man has lost it's momentum. Personally, I find The Ultimates to be very overrated, not bad at all, just overrated if you ask me. The ongoings in the Ultimate Marvel Universe just aren't good anymore if they were in the first place.

And just like what IGN said (GASP!), why should I even bother with the Ultimate Marvel Universe which is now bogged with mediocrity when the Core 616 Marvel Universe is just churning out more and more awesome stuff?

I really do think that the survival of the Ultimate Marvel line is going to come down to the success of Jeph Loeb's The Ultimates series. If it isn't as well received and doesn't sell nearly as well as Mark Millar's The Ultimates, then I think Marvel will cut down on the Ultimate line and eventually put an end to it with Ultimate Fantastic Four getting canned first, followed by Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Spider-Man obviously getting canceled last.

 

[GL1]

The Ultimate Universe went a stray around Gwen Stacy's death, I agree... they lost cohesive vision... they lost their point. This analysis is, quite honestly, rubbish. At no point was the Ultimate Universe meant to be even REMOTELY "Iconic." The writer is living in a fictional world himself, how can we trust him to review another fictional world?

That said, the clean, simple living that the Ultimate Universe held onto so well for so long is gone... and we have a bunch of storylines that feel like filler... the strength of the core universe is one thing, but if Ultimate Spider-Man kept the same epic feelings from the beginning of the series, then there would be no question about Ultimate's relevance. If Ultimate X-Men stopped trying to copy 616 X-Men on so much and let the characters develop naturally, this wouldn't be a conversation... If Ultimates shipped on time, this wouldn't even be HALF of a conversation. If Fantastic Four ever bothered to figure out how to reconcile the concept of Ultimate (Down to earth, even gritty) and 'Fantastic' like they did in their first arc, then we'd have something.

And some of the events had a sort of merit or point, but would have been better served by the REAL Ultimates books coming out on time.