Ultimate Marvel

[ElfLad]

Yeah, I've been into this lately, especially Ultimate Xmen and Ultimate Spider-man. I think that it was a cool way to get rid of the years of build-up of backstory (Especially X-men. I get dizzy whenever I even pick it up. So we've got Nightcrawler's daughter from another dimension; Wolverine's female clone from Weapon X; Scott and Jean's daughter with nigh-invincible god-powers; Juggernaut's good now; Polaris is slightly evil/psychotic; Sage is the Black Queen; etc. But I digress...) So I really, really like Ultimate Marvel, and I was wondering how the rest of you felt about it.

[Elmer J.]

I got into comics around the time they came out so i now read Ultimate Marvel exclusively. It's not as much the ridding of backstory as the grittier style that gets me. I miss the earlier Ultimate X-men art, it seems a little odd these days. Like the difference between Gambit in "You always remember your first love" and in "Cry Wolf" The Ultimates got me pretty hooked, as well. "Permission to traumatize Banner." Doesn't get much more badass than that. Also, I can picture Spiderman as looking pretty damn cool in Ultimates uniform. Unfortunately, I never have the funds to keep up a comic habit. If I ever become considerably wealthy, I intend to but up a complete set of the collected graphic novels.

I still wish they would have taken it a bit farther, though. It is now my dream to one day produce a set of uber-gritty and relatively scientifically plausible Marvel Graphic Novels.

[gurusloth]

Yeah, the Ultimate Marvel thing is a cool idea that has panned out well. I'm currently getting Ultimates, Ult. Spidey, Ult. FF, Ult. Iron Man, and whatever limited series there are going on (right now Ult. Secret I think). Just read the Ult. Spidey Annual, very cool Ult. X-Men crossover with Kitty Pride and Peter going on a date. It ruled.

[Nique]

Ugh. I can't stand the Ultimate Series;
1) becuase of the name. "Ultimate"? That's some insulting marketing - "ohhhh you see, I MUST buy it... it is "ULTIMATE"!"
2)Great. An essential reboot. Screwing up the continuity of fairly key charecters like Carnage, also (formerly?) known as Cledus Kassidy, not to mention a very horrible retelling of the origins of The Green Goblin himself, is not OK.
3)Super-duper! A reboot in THE MIDST of other spider-man continuitys! Can you say 'unnesscery confusion'?

I hate to say it, but DC did it better with 'Crisis On Infinite Earths'.

I will say this though - I like the artist(s) working on Ultimate Spider-Man. Clean, simple, easy on the eyes and a good-looking Mary Jane Watson. Yummy.

[gurusloth]

Originally Posted by Nique

1) becuase of the name. "Ultimate"? That's some insulting marketing - "ohhhh you see, I MUST buy it... it is "ULTIMATE"!"

Yeah, the name is a bit lame, but at least it's not ... X-TREEM!

2)Great. An essential reboot. Screwing up the continuity of fairly key charecters like Carnage, also (formerly?) known as Cledus Kassidy, not to mention a very horrible retelling of the origins of The Green Goblin himself, is not OK.
3)Super-duper! A reboot in THE MIDST of other spider-man continuitys! Can you say 'unnesscery confusion'?

See, the thing is, it's not a reboot. The original, Cledus-friendly continuity still exists. It's more like a ... retelling. Kinda like 'West Side Story' is a retelling of 'Romeo and Juliet'. They are very different, but basically it's the same story, and both were good.

[Elmer J.]

I agree with Guru, and I like the new Carnage better.
It makes him distinct from Venom.
I am quite disappointed that Harry is the hobgoblin, though.
I always thought of Harry as the true Green goblin, even though his Dad was better at it.

[CrimsonNight]

I like a lot of the new ultimate marvel stuff (I have almost all of the volumes collected of Spidey and the X-men and other assorted stuffs) but I have to say that I'm a little concerned about it.

I can't shake this impending feeling that the series will ultimately become bloated and unintelligble like the main Marvel universe did after the peak of its silver age.

I mean, it just seems like they're adding a whole lot of Ultimate comics with very little reason to do so (other than the financial aspects). It may sell more comics for the short term, but it may ultimately (pun unintended) force marvel to have to create a new universe in another generation with the same (ugh) charecters.

Its very cool for what it is, but I like the Japanese model better. Write a comic series, let it run its course, end it, and start a new wholly different series. Tell a whole and complete story, instead of a story that is intended to last forever with no tangible ending.

I guess I'm saying it's good for right now, but it is bound to become as stagnant as its predecessors.

[gurusloth]

I guess I can see that happening eventually. As Brian (Clevinger) has stated several times, the major problem with an ongoing series of any kind is that in order to tell a compelling story, the characters have to have the freedom to grow and change organically in response to what is happening in the plot, and in an ongoing comic the goal is to keep the characters as 'the same' as possible for as long as possible. Now, some creators have attempted to avoid this pitfall, but at the end of the day some stagnation is hard to avoid. Fortunately, I think that some of the people they have at Marvel now, notably Bendis, are well aware of the threat of stagnation, and I think that the Ultimate line is a direct result of the creators realizing that a fresher, better story could be told if they just started from the beginning rather than attempt to re-vamp pre-existing comics.

I do wish that more comics were shorter lived titles. I don't mind limited series, one-shots or trade paperbacks, in fact some of my favorite comics were limited series (SuperPatriot, Ultra). From a fiscal standpoint, however, the draw of a character that really has legs and can hold an audience's attention is too great to deny.

[CrimsonNight]

I don't deny that my love for Brian Bendis' work is still at a very high point. What he has done with the Spider-man character is perhaps some of the finer story-telling in comics.

I guess, when I look at a story, since I am a writer, I like to look at all of its parts. And though super hero tales are enchanting in their own right, I believe that ultimately they fail because of their nature:

The hero can never win.

The only villians that end up defeated in any permanent fashion are the ones people never want back. All the great nemises must return, and when they do, their defeat is always anti-climactic because they are never truly defeated. There have been some stories that have, more or less tongue-in-cheek, made more than a passing note of this nature of super heros.

The reality is, since that has been done, there's really nothing else to do with villians, except have they create wholly unlikely and unbelieveable alliances (read: Batman "Hush") or just reseruct them as always. The only other option is to create new villians and further compound already unneccasarily complex stories.

I see the same flaws in the Ultimate universe that don't show now, because it is new and fresh, but I think things are starting to wear around the edges. Sales are still strong for sure, but I think there's some more complete stories out there, and when it comes down to it, I enjoy those more.

[traderjoe]

i am totallyh digging ultimate iron man. i just wish marvel could get books out on time.

trader joe