Tales From the Longbox 31: "Ultimates 3: Ultimately Crappy"

[MockBot]

Automatically generated comment thread for Tales From the Longbox 31: "Ultimates 3: Ultimately Crappy".

[Doctor_Who]

"Wolver-fucker-ine". I'm totally going to start calling him that.

And does anyone else think that if mutants really existed, the term "mutie" would be WAY too silly sounding to ever be offensive, no matter how hatefully some redneck shouts it?

Here's hoping Loeb recovers from his tragedy and finds his muse again. He's done some excellent work in the past (Long Halloween rocks), and I'd hate to lose a writer of that caliber.

[RevengeVirus]

Between this and the new Hulk series I can't help but wonder why Jeff Loeb is trying to get fired from Marvel.

[stonewar]

that Cap/Black panther thing is weird. I didn't read this series obviously, just your article, but in a team that small they never noticed they weren't in the same room a the same time? Its that old sitcom gag. "You're looking for Black panther? I saw him down the hall. Let me go get him for you." (Captain America exits, changes clothes, reenters as Black Panther.)
Plus it appears he changed clothes in the middle of the savage land fight. of course if was doing that old sitcom in and out of rooms he must have got pretty good at the quick change.

[RevengeVirus]

Also, no one's ever explained how Doom got back from the Marvel Zombiverse.

[Angryhydralisk]

Sooooo this is what I've been missing out on reading Marvel comics? My head hurts.

[Graystreet]

Don't lump the Ultimate universe in with genuine Marvel comics. Everything in it has been utterly stupid fad obeying crap. Steve Rogers is a mentally handicapped facist, The Incredible Hulk is a cannibal, so on an so forth. It isn't "edgy" "new" or even slightly entertaining, it is the exact kind of sputum that Image comics spent the entire 90's spitting out at an alarming rate, and that even at the worst of the Clone Saga, Marvel comics stayed superior to.


Mark Miller is an overrated hack that hates comic books, Loeb is an overworked creatively exhausted but talented man, and neither one of them should ever work again for DC or Marvel comics.


EDIT - I forgot to mention, I like the art style though, it's a bit peculiar for a superhero comic book but the artist would work well teamed up with a more mystically oriented book.

[Alcibiades]

In the next comic, we'll get to see DOOM fail, with Magneto now watching him on a secret camera from an undisclosed location, commenting on how things are fitting into his plans, when from behind that we'll see that DOOM is really watching Magneto watch himself and how that's falling into his plans.

Then DOOM will pull off his mask to reveal that he's a robot underneath, which will whirr and open to reveal that it's really Captain America, who will comment that 'He's the best at what he does' and wink at the reader so that we can be foreshadowed that it's really Wolverine.

And in the end it will all turn out as a plan set up by Ant-man while he was stuck in house arrest to create conflicts and danger so that his wife would get beaten up when he wasn't around to make sure she got the slapping around she needed.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

OMG this is a clusterfuck! (and I don't use the term "clusterfuck" very often)

I am sooo glad I never bothered with the "Ultimate" universe

This plays out more like a bad parody then an actual story.

[mburbank]

First of all, damn fine aticle, proto. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Reading your synopsis/interpretation put a fine point on what irritated me most about this book.

I disagree strongly with a previous poster, and think Milar did truly excellent work on his run. His ultimates were fully written charcaters with complictaed, adult motivations and emotions. His Iron man wasn't just a central casting drunk, he was a genius with a terminal condition who was drinking. A hedonist most of the time carefully putting certain aspects of his character up front and daring people to guess what he cared about and how much. It was the only, only, only time I've evr seen iron man written well.

I could go on about how Milar handled other characters, but I won't. My main point is that he wrote them well. Loeb gave everybody, villians and heroes, a cliched pose of grim determination, and then layered on a single trait for each onwe with a clumsy brush. Hawkeye is deathwish guy. Wasp is Now I'm In harge Girl. Cap is I Have a secret plan guy. Thor is angry sex guy. Valkery is hot teenager. Its all so infantile, like a middleschool class role playing and seeing who they cabn shock by how much they know about sex and drugs and other things they've seen in movies.

[Jonny#5]

I'm sure nobody is going to miss the Ultimates when Ultimatum kills 'em off (esp. after this debacle) but I wish they had the common sense to leave Ultimate Spider-man out of it. I't the only Ultimate comic book that's readable!

[Aries]

Great review, Proto. Nobody takes the piss out of things like you. Which reminds me...there's still the matter of ten things you like and hate about Episode 3.

[Mental Pooperscooper]

Alcibiades
You know, its sad just how right you probably are.

[HeroliciousDeBlanc]

So then was there even a real Black panther? And if so, where the hell was he?

[Copper]

Anyone else do a double take during Yellowjacket's monologue about how humans think of the machines as "Toasters, alarm clocks, and vibrators" or was that just me?

[Graystreet]

I don't think a vibrator is a machine.

My wife says hers could replace me anytime, so they're more of a man then me.

[Purple Man]

Another fine roasting; I love the Longboxes. Such a waste of some amazing art here. The Ultimates started out so strong, but that impetus was lost for reasons explained above by Messrs Protoclown and Burbank. Vol 3 was definitely a title too far. Ruining the awesome potential of "Heroes" was one thing, but did he have to do this as well?

Masochist/True Believer that I am, I still collected it of course, and also happen to getting 'Ultimatium' as well. Let me assure you, in only two issues it has produced crap of a magnitude unseen in comic book history - the greatest highlight being the systematic slaughter of most of the Ultimate characters, like when...

...now here's a SPOILER truly worthy of the word...

Ultimate Blob is discovered eating Ultimate Wasp alive. Janet was probably better off with the exploding-Skrulls-thing in SI, eh? It kind of symbolises the X-TREME!!! mindlessness of the 'Ultimates' style in it's ugliest form.

Oh yeah, and:
http://www.4thletter.net/2007/12/ult...-week-day-one/
"Shove your moose in my squirrel, comrade! YUMSKI!"

[JTN]

I don't know why Jeph Loeb has the desire to fit as many outside characters in his stories as he can. In this story alone we have a good Half of the Cast of X-Men, the two most popular characters in the Spider-Man franchise, and of course, Wolverine. I can only guess he wanted to get Howard the Duck, Daredevil, the Punisher, and Batman in there too for good measure, but Marvel Editorial was like, "Woah, Jeph! You're already kind of pushing the envelope with 'I thinketh it cuteth'."

The next time someone asks me what "Gratuitous" means I'm gonna hand them this book. I know the previous chapters of the Ultimates upped the sex factor and adult material per issue, but under Loeb it went from "adult" to "disturbing" and then went straight across the sleaze spectrum to "What the hell? Did Wasp just talk about incest like it was normal?"

ARggggh this book. Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man were really the only things worth reading in the Ultimate universe, and now the same isn't really true for either anymore.

[executioneer]

Originally Posted by Purple Man

Oh yeah, and:
http://www.4thletter.net/2007/12/ult...-week-day-one/

whoa, two achewood references, nice

[HowardC]

I've got to disagree with Mr. Burbank on this one. The ultimate universe was always fairly crappy. Yes the characters emotional issues were more fleshed out than usual, but the problem is those emotional issue were so blatent and obvious. Good writing doesn't help something in "daytime soap opera" format because it's still a frikkin daytime soap opera!

I have a big problem with all of these offshoot variants of main marvel characters cmpletely on principal. I can certainly understand the appeal of "what if" stories like the marvel zombies but what exactly is the point of constantly re-hashing characters into something they are not? Generally they "re-imagine" a character in a comic book in order to have a new character with a ready-made backstory, but in the case of ultimates all the backstory of the REAL marvel heroes is thrown out the window, but makes the whole idea of ultimate books nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy. It's kind of like these movie adaptations of video games and comics that have NOTHING to do with the source material other than in the vaguest of sense. (See the legand of chun-li). The only viable reason to do something like that is to use a brand name to trick faithful fans into watching it.

One wouldn't have to do that if the end product was actually good. This goes with comics as well. If you aren't satisfied with a marvel character's personality/backstory/ect why not, instead of raping a timeless favorite into your own warped image maybe (GASP!) create a NEW character that would be more suited to be in the stories you wish to write about.

It would be nice if the ultimates died a quick death and somehow the real marvel universe would magically not suck again, but at this rate I'll be stuck reading books that aren't integral to the marvel unvierse for the rest of my life as I can never keep up with what reality-altering plot device the hack writer of the week has come up with to ruin my enjoyment of comic books!

[Poxpower]

I just want to know: who is their colorist, how many hours does he work every day and how much are they paying him?

[Rufus the Perturbed]

Jesus Christ, what the fuck is happening with the comic industry? I know comics have never been considered great literature, but seriously, what the fuck? I tried reading the first issue of Ultimates 3 the other day and almost threw up on the damn thing (and I'm truely not exaggerating). Great article, though, Proto. Tales from the Longbox is what made me love this site. You really have a gift for making torturous experiences more enjoyable (and I mean the comics are torturous, not your writing). Are you and Max ever going to do another crossover-type column together? Please consider it.

[Dungeonbrownies]

Rufus,

this is why those foreign comics have managed to infiltrate our culture.
For now, american comic book artists everywhere bow their heads in shame.
It feels just like the auto industry.

[Kilgore Cod]

"(See the legand of chun-li)"

No I will not.

[Nick]

That was horrible.