User blog:Steven Star/Marvel's Ultimatum Review

Pre-Review
To make this, I never meant to uploaded this in the same day as ARC It’s a bit bother that of a bother thing to uploaded a negative review on someone birthday. I wish I can make a picture gift, but I’m mostly tired and stress out, not to mention bum down since Stocking’s now inactive. (She mention to me that her wi-fi bill is nearly coming, shutting her internet.) I’m sorry, ARC, this was not as planned. Another thing is that Empty Slot 4 winner is coming. Trust me, it’s coming. Anyway...



Review
Like pretty much every other comics reader with an Internet connection, I’d heard that “Ultimatum,” the line-wide crossover that destroyed the Marvel’s Ultimate line, was terrible. Despite strong sales that kept it in the top ten for its entire run, the series was almost universally panned, with readers going so far as to declare it one of, if not the, most mind-bendingly terrible comics ever printed. So when I sat down to read the trade for a ComicsAlliance review, I was prepared for the worst.

And as I was reading through, I’ve gotta say: It was better than I thought it was going to be. Now Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that it’s good (oh, god no!), because even from the first few pages it becomes obvious that it’s not, just that it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Of course, considering what this comic have, I been better off punching me in the eye and give me the super space-plague than opening another one of this book.

With actual storytelling apparently put aside for the sake of high spots? Yes, but when you’re reading a line of comics largely based around the work of Mark Millar (MILLAR! :D), that shit is gonna happen. Did things happen without any explanation whatsoever? Yes, but to be fair, to have to read the tie-ins before even reading the first Ultimate title. But was it really the atrocity everyone had claimed it was? Not really…until we reach the Blob. (Warning: Gore)


 * Scene 1
 * Scene 2

Yea, you just saw The Blob eating the Wasp and then being eaten himself in revenge. And it just got worse from there with the over-the-top gore. Implied sexism already been covered to death on the comics, and it’s just as bad in context as I’d heard it was going to be. Having emotional investment in the Ultimate universe characters is the death wish. Not counting Wasp and The Blob, Character like Wolverine, Psylocke, Dr. Doom, Thor, Daredevil, Nightclawer, Emma Frost, Dazzler, even…Dr. Strange (Why? :, all ended up like it’s brutal styles. What’s a fucking way to make room.

As strange as it sounds, we’ve all sort of agreed that while none of these characters are real, some of them areIn short, I don’t think anything quite sums it up like the fact that “Ultimatum” is a comic that doesn’t have an ultimatum in it. Like the series itself, it’s just something that someone thought sounded cool, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

This is just the kind of story written by a teenager that wants to sound like a grownup. For one thing, big ideas are introduced without even a cursory attempt at explaining them. The book starts, for instance, with Magneto, inverting the Earth’s magnetic poles in that grand tradition of dubious comic book science, which not only causes a tidal wave to hit Manhattan (and nowhere else, and only once), it also causes a blizzard in Latveria that comes on so suddenly that people are instantly frozen solid while walking around outside.

This was all done by combining his own powers with Thor’s hammer, but the closest the actual text comes to mentioning this is that Magneto’s got the hammer laying around. Why he’s got it, how he got it, and why Thor didn’t bother to go get his hammer back? Never mentioned. From what I understand, it happened in “Ultimates 3,” but again, the most that happens with it in the story is that he waves it around and blows up a Madrox dupe with it. It’s just there, for no good reason.

Another element of Ultimatum that seems cribbed from the fan-fiction of is the constant, incredibly gory violence that comes at a rate that goes from shocking to hilarious and finally settles back down at sad. I read that there’s a rule for SyFy Channel Original Movies that says they have to kill someone off once every eight minutes to keep viewer interest, and Loeb writes this like he’s going for extra credit. Characters are killed off left and right, and none of them have particularly heroic deaths. They just die for the sake of filling pages. For fuck sake, Professor X, confronted by Magneto and, after a classy exchange where Professor X compares him to Hitler and got snaps his neck for his former best buddy. Yes, that’s it, Professor X doesn’t bother to fight back at all. He doesn’t even use his powers to call for help, or tell anyone that he’s about to be murdered and that if they hurry, they can catch up to the genocidal maniac that they’re all looking for. He just sits there and patiently waits for Magneto to kill him. It’s like he’s read the script for something.

My favorite example of the outright childish nature of this story is the fact that the climactic battle takes place in a room lined with stained glass windows so that no fewer than three characters can each crash through one in rapid succession shouting things like “IT’S OVER!” or “I’LL KILL YOU!” before being effortlessly smacked down. Seriously, three characters do the exact same thing over the span of nine pages, politely waiting their turn to fight while everyone stands around looking at them.

And may we forget Doctor mother-fucking Doom is in Ultimatum for ten minutes for reasons that continue to elude me, and while this doesn’t have much to do with “Ultimatum” or Jeph Loeh.

At the end of this trackwreck, Cyclops dies in what I think was meant to be a shocking twist, except that a character being violently murdered can’t be a shocking twist in a book that is entirely about characters being violently murdered. It’s not even surprising, no more than the horror movie slasher getting up for one last swipe at the main character.

As for the art, well, I’m not a huge fan of Dave Finch myself, but given what he’s drawing, it’s it’s actually hard to judge. I don’t think the panel where the Thing murders Dr. Doom by crushing his head like a grape is well-done, but is there any way that panel would be good? Does a good drawing of that actually exist? It gets way too metaphysical way too quickly.

I don’t mind fanservice in a bunch of series, but…Ultimatum…ugh...Every woman’s spine looks like a parentheses to the point where even in death, when a woman entire abdomen has been ripped out and is being eaten, the Wasp is arching her back to display her chest. And Carol Danvers…well...Half-Kree/Half -Beach Ball anyone?

In short, I don’t think anything quite sums it up like the fact that “Ultimatum” is a comic that doesn’t have an ultimatum in it. Like the series itself, it’s just something that someone thought sounded cool, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets. So congratulations, “Ultimatum”: You are hands down one of the Worst of the Comic series I really even in my world.