The Ultimate Universe - Obsolete?

[TheCorpulent1]

That would have been interesting.

 

[Doc Destruction]

THREAD! RIIIIIISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

Holy resurrection!

 

[TheCorpulent1]

At least it was resurrected for a relevant reason.

 

[Doc Destruction]

True dat. I guess I'm just stunned that someone used an old thread rather than pop open a new one.

 

[SouLeSS]

That would have been interesting.

I really do think it would of. I mean, there's already what, two or three xbooks, three spidermans, so on and so forth. Was there really a need for another book that was basically the same **** after 30 or so issues?

I mean hell, they coulda had something like Magneto and Xavier teaching the X-Men together, and Cyclops would be a main villian along with his ragtag group of mutants.

Spiderman they did alright with, but that was mainly for the villians. The core characters stayed the same, which made me meh.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well, they're basically rebooting 616 Spider-Man to Ultimate Spider-Man's status quo now, so clearly they like that whole setup.

True dat. I guess I'm just stunned that someone used an old thread rather than pop open a new one.

PJ is a scholar and a gentleman.

 

[SouLeSS]

to both of those.

 

[PhotoJones]

THREAD! RIIIIIISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

Holy resurrection!

At least it was resurrected for a relevant reason.

True dat. I guess I'm just stunned that someone used an old thread rather than pop open a new one.

I hate the ******ed little look-at-me posters who create threads just for the sake of it. This forum is HUGE. Utilize the search function and find an appropriate thread, for chrissakes.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, I think I've started maybe a dozen threads in the years that I've been posting here. It's really just not necessary to create a new thread 99% of the time.

 

[PhotoJones]

Unless it's my Diamond List threads. Those are fine.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, periodical threads don't count. If we made one big thread for all the Diamond lists or all the Bought/Thoughts, it would be utter ****ing chaos.

 

[Doc Destruction]

I hate the ******ed little look-at-me posters who create threads just for the sake of it. This forum is HUGE. Utilize the search function and find an appropriate thread, for chrissakes.

I agree. I was just stunned

 

[Sparta*]

Goodbye and good riddance to the Ultimate universe...hopefully IMO it is inferior

 

[Dread]

Apparently, the Unverse is obsolete. God bless us all. ​

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=134675

I somehow doubt it'll actually be ended. The comics are still selling well, and we know Marvel shamelessly serves the almighty dollar.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is the end. Marvel's got a lot of talent invested in those books, and they don't sell near what they would if they were standard 616.

I'm with TheCorpulent1 on this; so long as the Ultimate books sell well, Marvel won't cancel them, regardless of the fundamental issues that effect the line. The lowest selling title is ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, which is technically the newest of the line (it hovers by the bottom of the Top 50). The best selling is USM and by some margin, the ULTIMATE POWER series, probably by virtue of having A-List creative teams. Ultimate X-Men is the middle-child, but has been in soft decline for years now. But none of these books are as hot as they used to be.

What DOES boggle my mind is Marvel attempting to release not one, but TWO more Ultimate titles when one could argue that their current lot of three are not exactly bringing in the sort of numbers they did as recently as 3 years ago. If ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR can barely hold onto the Top 50, I don't see much hope for these new titles beyond 6-12 issues.

One problem I see is that most of the creators in Ultimate don't seem to be innovative anymore and have fallen into the trap of mindlessly producing "Ultimate" versions of 616 characters without trying to work with the freedoms of the universe.

Take Ultimate X-Men (the comedian adds, "please"). Here was a universe that DOESN'T have M-Day. It DOESN'T have a Magneto that was de-aged and re-aged and resurrected 12 times and whatnot. It maintained the simple premise of the X-Men acting as heroes for a world that hates and fears them. It had a simple, lower cast of the big name characters. It hadn't been bogged down by years of dealing with stories about aliens, time travel, and alternate realities, which always distracted from the line. It was a place where one could have told more modern sci-fi allegories about race relations, not unlike what Grant Morrison tried to do in his NXM, only it would have worked BETTER in Ultimate (it could have STUCK, and not seemed as out of character). INSTEAD, Kirkman, at a loss for ideas, has replaced most of the ironic cast with straddlers like Bishop, Psylocke, and Pyro, relies on rehashes of F-Listers like Stryfe and Zero, and has worked in far more hints of time travel and aliens when none were needed. He even revived Beast after a few years with a RETCON, the sort of stuff that CRIPPLED 616 X-Men. The Ultimate X-Men would have been a gold mine for someone with the sort of imagination and forward thinking ideas of a Morrison, but they haven't had one of those since, frankly, Millar launched the line years ago. Kirkman has one more issue in his latest arc before the next and UXM is in danger of being dropped by me. UFF, the poorest selling title, is really the only one where I outright enjoy it and have genuine faith in the direction. Even if it is formula.

It is nice that Marvel's editorial board is trying to address some of these issues by having yet another event, but I am curious as to whether it will result in the sales that Ultimate used to have. A few years ago, they ALL were Top 10-20 sellers. It actually wouldn't be a bad idea to construct some sort of ending to this "era" of Ultimate and then take a break, regroup, find some A-List talent that has some provacative ideas again and then relaunch it, if they so wish, rather than just churning them out because they all sell twice or three times as many copies as MS. MARVEL. But they won't do that. Ultimate's just another series of books to them.

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

Apparently, the Unverse is obsolete. God bless us all. ​

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=134675

That would be huge,if Marvel decided to destroy the Ultimate Universe.I have to admit,i only bought USM for a while..but i would buy this.

 

[SouLeSS]

Yeah, I'd definatly buy the mini about that universe blowing up.

But I'm with Dread. When I read the issue of UXM where Beast died, I was like "holy ****, they just killed one of the oldest X-Men characters around. Then there was the issue where Wolverine 'kills' Cyclops. I mean the first 30 issues or so were amazing of that book. Then the whole Cable being a Wolverine of the future comming back to kill Xavier and all kinds of other **** made my brain hurt.

 

[Savage]

Yeah, Millar and Bendis are who made these books great. Once they started getting fill-in writers, everything went to ****.

 

[Dread]

Yeah, I'd definatly buy the mini about that universe blowing up.

But I'm with Dread. When I read the issue of UXM where Beast died, I was like "holy ****, they just killed one of the oldest X-Men characters around. Then there was the issue where Wolverine 'kills' Cyclops. I mean the first 30 issues or so were amazing of that book. Then the whole Cable being a Wolverine of the future comming back to kill Xavier and all kinds of other **** made my brain hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah, Millar and Bendis are who made these books great. Once they started getting fill-in writers, everything went to ****.

Millar at least knew to leave when his imagination was tapped out for any of his titles. Bendis is obviously far from his prime on USM hence why I abandoned it in disgust. Knowing when to leave the stage is a rare skill. Alas, USM has become the flagship title in terms of sales solely because of it's A-List creative team.

 

[Savage]

While I agree, I still think that Fantastic Four and Spider-man are the best on-going titles that the Ultimate universe have to offer. X-men has been seriously declining with every new writer and that is a serious problem. The book has so much potential and so many issues that could have been dealt with but the hole keeps on being dug deeper and deeper and the stories just get weirder and more ******ed.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

On the other hand, the 616 X-Men comics are better than they've been in a long time now. Seems like more than a fair trade to me.

 

[Savage]

That I can't deny.

 

[The Overlord]

I enjoyed your summary Dread, but I will add one more thing that has led to Ultimate Universes' decline: lame villains.

Ultimate Magneto is just a one dimensional psychopath, Ultimate Doom is a bum, Ultimate Gobby is a Hulk rip off, etc.

Also Bendis has wasted a ton of villains in USM. Omega Red, Vulture, Sandman, Scorpion, etc were just throw away villains, a total waste. Each of those guys could have had their own arcs, instead they get beaten in less then one issue.

Let's compare that to DCUA, look at how they made villains more interesting, Timm Mr. Freeze was way more interesting than pre 1992 comics Mr. Freeze or look at how they revamped Clock King from scratch.

Millar has done most interesting twists with characters like Cap and Thor, BKV did some interesting revamps of Mr. Sinister and Mojo, but for the most part UU villans have been unimpressive. I didn't mind when Bendis made Shocker into a loser, but Bendis has over played the turning villains into losers card in USM.

I don't know why they didn't just take some D-list villains and make them better in UU. For example Ultimate Trapster could be a guy who makes dangerous death traps, traping heroes and civilians in sadistic traps (a comic book version of the Jigsaw Killer) instead of a guy with glue gun or Ultimate Egghead, could have been a SHIELD scientist who secretly sells classified info to the highest bidder, resulting in an increase in super human crime. heck I thougtht of a million ideas with Ultimate versions of DD's rogues gallery. The fact that Bendis has turned one of the best rogues galleries around into bunch of goobers is quite sad.

 

[PhotoJones]

Millar has done most interesting twists with characters like Cap and Thor, BKV did some interesting revamps of Mr. Sinister and Mojo, but for the most part UU villans have been unimpressive. I didn't mind when Bendis made Shocker into a loser, but Bendis has over played the turning villains into losers card in USM.

By "interesting" do mean Millar made Cap and Thor "crappy"? Because, if so, I agree. Also, BKV's Unverse Sinister was terrible. I haven't read anything with Unvserse Mojo in it, though, so I can't comment on that.

 

[The Overlord]

By "interesting" do mean Millar made Cap and Thor "crappy"? Because, if so, I agree. Also, BKV's Unverse Sinister was terrible. I haven't read anything with Unvserse Mojo in it, though, so I can't comment on that.

To each their own, what should Ultimate Cap and Ultimate Thor have been eaxactly the same as their 616 counter parts?

Also 616 Sinister has been very convoluted for quite some time, he often does things with no real motive and has a confusing power set and is responsible for the Summers family tree for being such a mess. i liked the fact tat Ultimate Sinister wasn't super convoluted, plus I liked the fact that he was evil and dangerous, yet pathetic at same time, he was like a comic version of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.

 

[PhotoJones]

To each their own, what should Ultimate Cap and Ultimate Thor have been eaxactly the same as their 616 counter parts?

That's basically what everyone else is. The point of the Unverse was to make stories that weren't steeped in years of continuity, not to change characters for the hell of it. And if you look, the overwhelming majority of the Unverse versions are exactly like their 616 counterparts. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Kingpin, Wolverine, Xavier, Iron Man, the FF...they've all got the same personalities as the "real" characters. Sure, their ages, costumes and/or backstories may be a little tweaked, but for the most part they've all got the same characterization.

As for Thor, stripping away everything noble and awe-inspiring about him and making him a crackpot hippie is not a good move. I get the appeal of the is-he-or-isn't-he-crazy apsect, but there are much better ways to get that across.

And Cap? Why make him into a dick? You think that's cool?

Also 616 Sinister has been very convoluted for quite some time, he often does things with no real motive and has a confusing power set and is responsible for the Summers family tree for being such a mess. i liked the fact tat Ultimate Sinister wasn't super convoluted, plus I liked the fact that he was evil and dangerous, yet pathetic at same time, he was like a comic version of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.

Which is not nearly as cool as 616 Sinister is.