Ultimate Comics Thread - Part 1

[Thread Manager]

This is a continuation thread, the old thread is [split]318350[/split]

 

[Aztec]

Use this thread to discuss the hype surrounding Mark Millar's return to The Ultimates. The Ultimates 1 & 2, written by Millar, are widely considered to be among the best comic storylines in the last decade, so his return deserves some good discussion here.

Yes I know there's a thread with "Ultimate Avengers" in the title but the actual thread is about Dark Avengers and has NOTHING to do with the new Millar series

Here are four articles/interviews with Mark Millar on the upcoming 2009 series:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090809-UltimateAvengers.html

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/111008markmillarultimateavengers.html

http://tinyurl.com/b5eypx

http://comics.ign.com/articles/908/908687p1.html

Confirmed Facts:
-Ultimates 1 & 2 was a "26 issue origin story" to Ultimate Avengers
-It will take place after Ultimatum
-It will focus more on supervillains
-It will also focus on the "Black Ultimates" who are assassins working for SHIELD like Hawkeye and Black Widow in The Ultimates
-It will take the Ultimate line back to its roots (translation: Away from Loeb's raping of the series)
-The Ultimates, Ultimate Spiderman, Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four will all be involved periodically
-Hawkeye's origin will be revealed
-It will be an "event book" with four separate 6 issue stories

Confirmed New Heroes:
Ghost Rider
Blade
The Punisher
War Machine
new Black Widow
African American Hulk
new Captain America

Confirmed New Villains:
Red Skull
Kang
Dracula
Doctor Doom

After just finishing The Ultimates 1 & 2, and absolutely loving them, I am pumped for this new series. I hope Millar keeps the same tone and pacing for this as those two arcs. Besides who doesn't love Red Skull?

 

[chris moore]

Previews for both Ultimate Thor and Ultimates up today. While I really like the Thor series, just reading the preview pages of Ultimates makes me think there's little to no crosstalk among the writers as Loeb in one simple line from Thor seemingly contradicts what was revealed in the preview pages of a book coming out the same bloody day

 

[Drz]

Hickman had access to the Loeb scripts and actually said this issue is suppose to have something cool that he liked from Loeb's run, or maybe that was regarding issue 4. Loeb was doing his own story, but Hickman had access to his scripts.

For those interested here are the previews:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=7642&disp=table

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=7643&disp=table

 

[Watchman]

Why the **** would you spoil who Dr. Blake was? ****ing preview.

 

[Venom160]

Glad to see you can still count on Marvel to **** up something as simple as a preview.

 

[The Squirrel]

Does Loeb's run on Ultimates still suck?

 

[Drz]

Does Loeb's run on Ultimates still suck?

New Ultimates concluded now and it was still on very negative, but you know it's sad to admit it was an actual improvement, but hey now the Ultimates is just Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Thor. I hate the way Carol Danvers was written, the useless kid who died of cancer "motivating Tony into making Ultimates" while it was Nick who made them and so forth. It was a below mediocore Thor story ultimately, but Loeb leaves a few interesting plotpoints, but i doubt anyone will care for them.

Still this makes way for Millar's Avengers vs. New Ultimates, and in August we can see the new Ultimate Marvel status quo, and i can't wait to see who will helm the Ultimates title, maybe Bendis? Everything he does "wrong" in Mainstream Marvel, he does right on Ultimate atleast. I'd love tos ee Jason Aaron and Jonathan Hickman do more Ultimate Marvel stuff, since this is Millar's momentary swansong for Marvel characters as he focuses on Millarworld for a few years now.

So yeah... Ultimate Thor concluded today and it was epic in all proportions. From the beginning to start Jonathan Hickman and Carlos Pachero drew out an beatifully A talent worth story that not only shows how truly amazing character Ultimate Thor is, he also fleshes out the whole Ultimate Asgard, Loki, introduces us Odin, The warriors three, Balder the Brave and demonstrates us why ultimately Thor was willing to accept Nick Fury's offer to join the Ultimates and accept his role in a superhero team lead by a paranoid control freak that he despises and doubts incredibly.

If you love Thor, read this, if you love great comics, read this! If you dislike Ultimate Marvel? Ignore the hate and read this story and come to love the ultimate Thor!

 

[kguillou]

I heard that Hickman actually tries to fix the discrepancies between Millar's version of Thor in Ultimates 1&2 and Loeb's version in Vol. 3 and so on. Is that true?

 

[NightBeetle]

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #153 Preview

 

[kguillou]

Oh Bendis dialogue at its finest. lol Seriously, pretty cool preview, I am really excited for this new direction they're taking Peter....that is if they dont kill him.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

Is the Ultimate Comics Spiderman worth getting? I dropped the title after Ultimatum and have been considering picking up the back issues just because I'm curious.

...but that preview makes me think that it's a bad idea.

 

[El Bastardo]

Does Loeb's run on Ultimates still suck?

Yes. The final issue might have been one of the worst, dear lord.

I heard that Hickman actually tries to fix the discrepancies between Millar's version of Thor in Ultimates 1&2 and Loeb's version in Vol. 3 and so on. Is that true?

Kind of, but it's not really a main point. Hickman just tells a good yarn that fleshes the character out and fits everything so as to avoid any canonical issues. And it's an excellent little mini.

 

[Drz]

Is the Ultimate Comics Spiderman worth getting? I dropped the title after Ultimatum and have been considering picking up the back issues just because I'm curious.

...but that preview makes me think that it's a bad idea.

Check it out. Lafuente's Spidey has a big head at first but that stops like around issue 3 or was it as early as 2? It's going to be exciting seeing the new status quo in August. I'm hoping the Avengers will stick around with Hawkeye as team leader, perhaps written by Jason Aaron with team composing of Punisher, Ghost Rider, Tyrone Cash, Red Wasp, Blade and War Machine.

Ultimates should go to someone like Hicman or Bendis. I'd like to see Bendis develope more on the Tony+Carol relationship.

 

[Saved]

The artwork in that preview's pretty good, if it's Lafuente, he's improved a lot. Iron Man's sentence in the last panel is overtly awkward and could use a revision, though.

 

[kguillou]

Man, i am really really digging this whole "Spiderman avengers training" thing. This is why i highly doubt that Bendis is gonna kill Spidey. I mean why bother introducing this cool concept if your gonna kill the character off? Plus if spidey dies, nobody's gona read the book anymore.

 

[Drz]

The Ultimates are back! I loved every single panel of Avengers vs. New Ultimates! There's so much to talk about! I like the addition of the new Ultimized Scott Lang as the new Giant (and maybe Ant?) Man. This comic picks off Ultimate style right at the beginning with Afghanistan, China and Russia still being at USA's throaths with the american goverment leading with the superhero race, and you know this really is argubely Mark Millar's Ultimates 3 story, i digged up this old interview via newsarama: 2008 interview regarding War Heroes

Newsarama: So fess up Mark, is this your sequel to The Ultimates or what?

Mark Millar: Absolutely. This is what my Ultimates 3 would have been if Bryan and I had stuck around. Don't get me wrong... I love what Jeph and Joe Mad have done with Ultimates 3 and am very pleased to see them do their own thing. It's a gutsy move and far more interesting than seeing them doing a rehash of what we did. But my own plan, if we were going to stick around, was to split Ultimates into two books. One of these would be Ultimate Avengers and show the team as an independent unit funded by Stark International and living in his townhouse (as set up at the end of Ultimates 2). The other book would be called Ultimates 3 and focus on the Ultimate Reserves we introduced in Ultimates 2.

Nick Fury always had this huge plan, right from the start, where he wanted to replace soldiers with super-soldiers and he started this off with a PR exercise starring Captain America and a popular businessman. But his long term aim was to cut costs and make the army more efficient. Ultimates 3 was a massive expansion of this with literally thousands of super-soldiers fighting America's wars overseas, but it wouldn't have been right for the Ultimate universe. What I wanted to do quickly became a self-contained story and so I stored all those little ideas and developed them into something else. This is the origin of War Heroes. It's my sequel in many ways to Ultimates 1 and Ultimates 2.

We got the super soldier race kicking off with the Ultimates stopping a Hydra train and yeah the issue ends with a badass shot of the boss who hired them, or is even leading them perhaps?! Still it's always the smallest of things that make a comic book enjoyable. Captain America visiting Afghanistan troops in Thanks Giving and giving them turkeys? AWESOME. Thor using the jacket once again and even having a pony tail (a nod to Thunderstrike? Awesome!) along with Millar showing Monica Chang as a independent asian woman with her own son Julius, whos the father tho? Is the name based off Samuel L Jackson's portrayal of Jules in Pulp Fiction? Or Julius Caesar?

Gregory Stark was the biggest surprise in the issue since we've known he's somehow "broken" Gregory Stark, we know he has little to no apparent respect to Carol Danvers and he seem to have hated Tony Stark beyond anything, yet here he is showing care for his brother, or is it all an act?

What i gotta share also is that incase someone doesn't follow Millar on either facebook or twitter, here's why Thor isn't speaking all shakesperian: http://twitter.com/mrmarkmillar

Tony explains in #4 that the Shakespearean dialect really ****ed him off and he's donating $10m a year to Greenpeace as long as he stops.

How AWESOME is that? It's both hilarious and bittersweet as it took Thor to be annoying for Stark to make him give funds to Greenpeace.

Now alot of credit obviously goes to Leinil Francis Yu, his poses and "camera" views really made this comic feel like a good action movie, and i am pumped for whats more to come.

 

[kguillou]

Since you read it Drz, maybe u can answer this, why did Thor, Cap and all them let those guys on the train just die and they ran into Thor's hammer? I read that in the preview and it baffled me that they just let them die.

 

[Venom160]

That seemed pretty much in character to me. Never seen them real concerned about a couple random minions dying.

 

[kguillou]

Man, i dont remember the Ultimates being this *****ebaggy.

 

[El Bastardo]

The dudes on the train were terrorists.

It's not like The Ultimates had ****ing tea and biscuits with the terrorists they fought in Millar's previous volumes.

 

[Spade]

The Ultimates were more likable than they've ever been. I've never read a Millar-scripted issue before this where I had reason to care about the main cast. If the whole mini-series is like this, I'd be very happy.

 

[kguillou]

The dudes on the train were terrorists.

It's not like The Ultimates had ****ing tea and biscuits with the terrorists they fought in Millar's previous volumes.

Aah ok. That makes more sense now. I thought they were just random train conductors, thats why i was so baffled. lol

 

[Drz]

May Ultimate Comics covers:

More Blade is always awesome, but i want that Avengers issue as a Poster!

 

[NightBeetle]

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #155 Preview