Ultimate Comics Thread - Part 1

[Drz]

 

[Scarecrow_King]

I hate the Ultimates more than I could express, but I have to admit that that preview intrigues the hell out of me.

 

[CConn]

Pfft, the Ultimates is the best thing around since the invention of the Real Doll.

 

[Venom160]

I'm loving that Ultimates cover for December. Spider-Woman has been a favorite of mine since she first showed up during the clone saga. Heres hopin that this is an indication that we'll be seeing more of her in the ultimate universe.

 

[Drz]

I'm loving that Ultimates cover for December. Spider-Woman has been a favorite of mine since she first showed up during the clone saga. Heres hopin that this is an indication that we'll be seeing more of her in the ultimate universe.

She's a member of the Ultimates, so yes. She will also appear in USM.

 

[GammaAzazel]

The second issue was rather really sad. Does anyone know where this series is going? I haven't seen anything on it.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

i picked up issue 2 of Ultimate Spiderman today. more decompression. It was easier to handle with the first time we got an Ultimate Spiderman origin story, because it was Peter Parker. I already cared about him before we got 5 issues of him without a costume. But this is already wearing thin on me. I like the new Miles kid, and I even like his supporting cast so far. But for the love of God, I'm not going to keep spending 3.99 an issue for a 20 page book filled with nothing but set ups and no delivery. We've gotten 40 pages now of nothing but talking heads for $8. even with the art being as awesome as it is, it's not worth that price tag. ****ing Bendis.

this book is now dropped.

 

[CConn]

I care more about Miles in two decompressed issues, then my 6 years of reading Peter Parker.

Peter's a whiny *****.

 

[CConn]

Oh, and I've decided...Ultimate Ultimates is confusing.

 

[Slick]

Lol just call it The Ultimates that's what I do or are you talking about the book?

 

[Roose Bolton]

loved this week issue of Ultimates. very high concept sci-fi and creepyness, just how I like it.

 

[Drz]

Ultimate Spider-Man #2 now this is what i call an #1! Now the price tag still sucks, but man this was a 10/10 Bendis-Talk issue, yes the whole issue is dedicated to talking heads between Miles, his best friend and the latter half with his father, and the character interaction is just so emotionally connected and the visual art also plays here with us seeing what Miles digs and how he behaves around his friends, so it really is just a perfect issue with getting connected with the character, hot damn.

Ultimates #2: This is what you call an godly EPIC, this is right here the most engaging personal drama epic you can get! Sure it's heavily focused on Thor with alittle attention to European Heroes, Nicholas Fury and Tony Stark, but man does this setup for a great Asgardian Epic, just wow, everyone should be rating this 10/10 because it really packs a huge bunch, just flatout amazing all around. I also really loved Captain Britain's attitude, such a british cockyness and ego, you gotta love heroes who are this brash.

Now i'm very intriqued where Thor and

Spoiler

Modi are being set up, will Thor someday die and Modi becomes Ultimate Marvel's Thunderstrike or Thor 2.0? Lol i know i know we're talking death and legacy characters here, but i just can't help it.

The dialogue between Thor, Hela, Odin, Balder and especially Loki is perfectlly spot on, and the last line delivered by Loki was just heart touching, it's just all a perfect shakesperian epic finale, the big ragnarok, except it's much worse than that, because there is no new cyrcle to be born

Spoiler

until Modi and Mjolnir fix things.

Hickman's Thor perfectly follows everything Millar set up and takes it to the next stage, my god is Jonathan Hickman killing with this, this is the kinda awesomeness you get when you allow the writer to do anything he wants, and it's beatiufl.

10/10

 

[Drz]

 

[CConn]

Lol just call it The Ultimates that's what I do or are you talking about the book?

I'm talking about the book.

Calling it Ultimate Ultimates is just a preview of the confusion that awaits you when you open the book.

 

[chris moore]

I'm not too sure about jumping back in for this latest incarnation. Call them volumes if you want, but every one since #2 has been such a dramatic change that it feels more like an endless series of relaunches after failures by whatever creative team they took a shot with. I mean, duplicate Daredevil for all of three pages? Spider Cannibal that ended up being just a guy? Scott Lang Giant-Man but they still have a bunch of Giant-Men (if you can reproduce the process willy nilly, why bother having another lab guy if you already have a dozen marines who actually have combat experience?).

This time around we have essentially a cross between the creations of "The World" (god in heaven do I loathe that concept over in X-Men) and the Neo. Only apparently ONE thousand years of evolution beats the snot out of thousands of thousands of years of Asgardian evolution. And now it looks like we're gonna have tech-Thor again, just when we had some firm establishment of the Asgardian world and their powers.

I'll stick with Ultimate Hawkeye for sure, if only to see how they reconcile the two or three iterations of him we have and how Corporal Barnes can order around anybody shy of Nick Fury. But Ultimates needs a bit of work to be honest.

 

[Drz]

duplicate Daredevil for all of three pages?

Kid Daredevil should have stayed alive, Kid DD + Miles Morales = Lots of potential, especially considering Bendis loves Daredevil.

Spider Cannibal that ended up being just a guy?

He was a Korean guy, thus he was a direct weapon created for annihilating the Korean forces which was part of Gregory's plan.

Scott Lang Giant-Man but they still have a bunch of Giant-Men (if you can reproduce the process willy nilly, why bother having another lab guy if you already have a dozen marines who actually have combat experience?).

Probably because brains are a good thing to have too.

This time around we have essentially a cross between the creations of "The World" (god in heaven do I loathe that concept over in X-Men) and the Neo. Only apparently ONE thousand years of evolution beats the snot out of thousands of thousands of years of Asgardian evolution. And now it looks like we're gonna have tech-Thor again, just when we had some firm establishment of the Asgardian world and their powers.

Well it was the same writer who established Asgard, and the Asgardians can be brought back thru the All Father's power which reside in both Modi and Mjölnir. But yes part of this was to get to the more original Thor, but imho Thor was always a god in Ultimates 1 and 2, no matter how much you debate about the EDI creating these super science computers and armor.


Bendis talks Ultimate Spidey #2! FULL OF SPOILERS! you've been warned!

Spoiler

CBR News: Here we pick up with Miles running away from a fight between his father and his Uncle Aaron after getting bitten by the spider that gave him his powers. Miles is running through Brooklyn, his home borough. How does it feel to be exploring Brooklyn after spending so much time with Peter Parker in Queens, another New York City's borough.
Brian Michael Bendis: We're going to try harder to make it really look and feel like Brooklyn. Our Queens was kind of a fairy tale version [Laughs] and we're going to try and make the most of the cultural pot that is Brooklyn, which I happen to adore. I was in New York a couple weeks ago and I walked around Brooklyn and just tried to inhale everything and make it part of my being.
It's nice to walk around New York. You feel like you're visiting the set of your comic books.
At the end of issue #1 we saw Miles use one of his new powers, specifically one that Peter didn't have. Here we see Miles use an ability that Pete did have, super agility, to hurdle a TV set. How do Miles' super human physical abilities compare to Peter's? Is he faster or stronger?
I think his strength and agility are the same as Peter's and he has a bit of a spider-sense, but not as a strong. We're trying to lock down our rules about the spider-sense. I did pretty good with it in "Ultimate Spider-Man," but sometimes the spider-sense is misused. In some comics I've seen it used as a metal detector, or all kinds of stuff. I'm going to try to make sure it only goes off when he's in immediate danger and that it only gives him a second's head start. Plus with that second you've got to know where the danger is coming from. That buzz could make you turn around and get hit in the face.
And, as you mentioned, Miles has a couple of powers that Peter didn't have. I've been doing my little spider research and there's all kinds of spiders that do all kinds of different things. There are two powers that are different, both of which you see in this issue. One is the spider-sting. It's a little similar to the venom blast of the Marvel Universe's Spider-Woman, but it's different.
It's sort of like a kick in the balls. You know how when you get kicked there and it takes about four seconds for it to really hurt? It's like, "Wait did he kick me?" And then two seconds later it's like "AUGHH! That's terrible." That's what the spider-sting is like. You get hit and you think nothing happened, but then all of a sudden it's BLEWIE!
His other new power is camouflage. He's not turning invisible. He's camouflaging himself to his surroundings. I saw that there were spiders that do that and boy did it make me happy.
From their dialogue here it seems like Ganke and Miles have know each other for quite awhile, is that correct?
Yeah they've been friends since they were little kids. As we can tell from the last page of this issue, going forward Miles is going to have a lot of trouble acclimating to this life but Ganke's infectious enthusiasm will propel him in the right direction. It's also going to be nice to have somebody who he can share this with; somebody he can talk to about it and help him figure it out. Plus I imagine that Ganke is smarter than Miles. I had a friend growing up who was smarter than me and it forces you to be smart. Here we get Miles' reaction to his dad telling him that both he and Miles' Uncle Aaron had been to jail. Miles seems shocked by this as we'd expect, but does he truly understand and grasp everything that his dad is telling him in the scene?
He does understand what he's being told, but his father doesn't understand the depth of the things that he's saying to him. Because here's Miles, who is at the cusp of being a man, then all of a sudden he has this secret that he may have been ready to tell his father at that moment. Then two things happen: Number one, Miles' father tells him the truth about their family, which involves not just him, but Uncle Aaron, who Miles admires. What that says to Miles -- and for people who are looking for a real difference between him and Peter here it is -- is that Miles wonders if there's self destruction hard wired into his DNA. Is greed or whatever it is that makes people do something wrong even though they know it's wrong part of his genetics? Is whatever it is that's propelling his Uncle Aaron to be the Ultimate Universe's Prowler in him?

Miles doesn't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy. He doesn't know what kind of guy he is and than he finds out that his father wasn't that great a guy even thought he's trying really hard to be one now. Then it's his uncle too. So is this in him? Is this who he is? That's something that Peter never had to struggle with. People who discover that they have alcoholics in their family often wonder, "Am I an alcoholic too? If I drink will I lose it?" So he worries about what kind of person he is. He doesn't know.
Then just as he's taking that in he finds out his father is ant-mutant. He has quite the prejudice streak in him as far as people with powers are concerned, so that creates a situation for Miles to decide to maybe not tell him right now. As big as a whopper as the spider is, the stuff that happens in issue #2 is much more defining for the character because all these things are dumped on him at once. In this scene Miles' dad expresses what appears to be hatred and distrust of mutants and super powered people in general.
He's a survivor of "Ultimatum" and like the rest of the city he feels, "I had a normal life and someone tried to drown me, my neighbors, and my city." It affected all of New York. I don't think Miles' dad realizes it's prejudice. It's a feeling that, "There's something out there that I can't control and it's affecting my life in a bad way. I don't like it." It manifests itself in negative generalities and negative generalities turn into prejudiced statements. These negative generalities harm his family and the world around him. He doesn't even realize he just put his son in the closet with his statement.
I think a lot of people know what that feeling is like. It's like your parents say something, whether it be about your sexual orientation or whatever, and you suddenly feel like you shouldn't say what you really are or how you really feel.

You end the issue with a shot of Miles on his bedroom ceiling, and if memory serves you also ended an issue of Peter Parker's origin story in "Ultimate Spider-Man" with him crawling up to the ceiling.
That was the image that ended "Ultimate Spider-Man" #1 many years ago and I wanted to repeat that image because it most defines the difference between the two characters. When Peter made it to the ceiling he was excited and thought it was awesome. Miles first reaction is, "Oh no!" That was very interesting to me. That left us with some mountains to climb. How is a kid who goes "Oh no!" when he discovers what's happened to him going to end up in the costume next issue? And for those looking to see him in the costume he will be in it shortly.
Speaking of, can you offer up any teases about issue #3?
A lot of people want to know how he goes from his crappy costume in "Ultimate Comics Fallout" #4 to the super cool costume that's on the cover of the book. You're going to find out all of this. You're going to see how Peter's life and death affect him directly and see what his role in all of it is. You're going to see Gwen Stacy. You're going to see Aunt May. You're going to see Peter. You're going to see them in different and surprising ways. You're going to see how Miles interwove himself into the end of Peter's life and you're going to find out how and where he gets the costume from. Plus you'll see Spider-Woman's response to the news of the new Spider-Man.

 

[CConn]

Sounds like a lot is actually going to happen next issue.

 

[Mass Nerder]

Does anyone know if they are going to bring back Ultimate Fantastic Four?

 

[CConn]

Isn't Reed like evil or dead or something?

 

[El Bastardo]

Having just read Ultimates #2 earlier tonight, all I really have to say is, ha, ****ing amazing. That's it, really.

And what's so confusing about it?

 

[Drz]

I don't think anyone is really confused. Some people over CBR we're aksing aout Thor's son who off-screen has been revealed to be living in Asgard, but it's not hard to assume Hela wants her son to have a more living atmosphere to grow up. Still will Modi become the Ultimate Thunderstrike or what?

 

[Roose Bolton]

maybe even Ultimate Beta Ray Bill t:

 

[Artistsean]

Who are the villains in Ultimates #2?
You can send me a message or put it in spoilers or something.
I heard about it but didn't check it out, just wondering.

 

[Roose Bolton]

The villains are a group of highly evolved beings called the Children of Tomorrow.
they were created by

Spoiler

Reed Richards

 

[chris moore]

What's that now? Created by [BLACKOUT]Reed?[/BLACKOUT] Did I miss a key line in the issue? How do we know that?