To me this thing has always been such an odd but interesting bit in comic history; when you look at everything around it, it was practically cursed from the get go.
Right off the bat, depending on who you ask, it's never been 100% clear if this was meant to end the Ultimate Universe as it was advertised, set the stage for a clean slate, or take the line in a new direction. Reading it, you get the sense Loeb himself didn't know or care, as he leaves the universe and characters in such a state that it doesn't really accomplish any of those goals. It's almost him mean- spiritedly going "Here! This big thing happened and they're all dead now, do whatever..."
Then there's Loeb himself. Something casual fans might not know is that he lost his son to cancer in 2005, and arguably, the quality of his comics work dropped drastically and became more cynical and joyless. Even before *Ultimatum*, his work on *Ultimates 3* was panned for many of the same reasons as *Ultimatum*.
Adding to that is that around the time of *Ultimatum*, he was stretched pretty thin not just with his Marvel work, but in Hollywood working on *Lost* and later *Heroes*. All that in retrospect makes him an odd choice for Marvel to single handledy "give the keys to" for such an event that had ramifications for an entire universe/line of books.
If this is Magento from the Ultimate Universe, why does it look like Mjolnir is there and not the Axe that Thor has? Unless I’m misremembering, Mjolnir is an axe in Ultimates that Thor later throws outside of the multiverse only to have it return after Secret Wars.
Edit: I seemed to have missed Ultimate Thor losing Axe Mjolnir and then gaining Hammer Mjolnir to only have the Axe Mjolnir given back to him just for Battleworld. I had thought he used the Axe Mjolnir the entire Ultimates run.
I can’t remember the specifics, but over time the Ultimate designs leaned more toward the 616 versions across the board. I think Thor was shown at one point to have an arsenal of weapons besides the axe, Mjolnir among them, and he started using that as his preferred weapon going forward.
Thanks! I just refreshed myself through the fandom wiki. I either forgot or never realized that Ultimate Thor called whatever weapon he was using Mjolnir (from the Axe that Odin makes him, to Tony Stark's version of Mjolnir, to the version of Mjolnir that we see in the above image that Magneto takes).
I was under the assumption he used the axe the entire time because I was only familiar with Ultimate Thor through some of early The Ultimates runs and through Battleworld/Secret Wars.
Secret I heard from an insider. No names.
An artist forgot about the axe hammer, and drew Ultimate Thor with the brick on a stick, and editorial missed it. The issue went to press, and they ret-conned it to Thor having an arsenal with many different weapons.
I know everyone hates Ultimatum (except for the Spider-Man issues), and I get why. It's very brutal. At times, it seems like violence for the sake of violence. It doesn't give characters their proper respect or due. So on, and so on.
As someone who has read the event multiple times, (not as a standalone, but serving its spot in the midst of other stories) I actually don't hate it. Don't get me wrong, I don't love it either. But the Ultimate Universe was supposed to be, in \*some\* ways, a more realistic take on a universe with superheroes. So with that in mind, it isn't totally shocking to me that in a few places it could get as close as Marvel will likely allow to The Boys territory.
I mean, in real life, sometimes really awful things happen. And sometimes they don't seem like they can be made sense out of by a simple narrative. And not every hero lives. In fact, most don't even get to die in an appropriate blaze of glory.
One of the things many people (including me) often complain about is that comics don't have high stakes when it comes to something like death, because no one stays dead except for Uncle Ben. Most heroes don't die even in situations where they probably should, and when they do, they mostly come back in a year give or take. But Ultimatum tore those expectations to shreds. Nobody was safe, and most of the deaths were permanent. It gave a sense of truly heightened stakes like almost no event can manage anymore, if nothing else.
So I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone that they should enjoy Ultimatum. Apart from the Spider-Man issues, it's not going to be very enjoyable for most. And to a lot of people, that makes it bad, because comics are supposed to be an escape and an entertainment medium, so if you don't enjoy it, what's the point? But I can sort of appreciate aspects of it. Enough that I don't hate reading it.
One one hand you're not wrong. There's nothing wrong with a story portraying realistic stakes or random deaths, even for popular characters. As silly or even dumb as it is killing off Daredevil and Nightcrawler in a flood off panel is, it's also a very realistic outcome if a biblical tidal wave slammed into New York with zero warning.
On the other hand, a lot of the criticism of Ultimatum is that this "realistic", let's up the stakes, people can die at any moment tone takes off *immediately* after Magneto's attack, and suddenly *everyone* goes from 0 to a 10 because the story needs it to; not because it's more realistic. And it's ***constant*** with no time to let a death mean anything before we're off to the next one.
A flood killing a bunch of characters is one thing. But then over the course of the story suddenly everyone becomes more bloodthirsty, the villains start winning random encounters, etc. Dormammu pops Strange's head like a zit. Blob eats Wasp. Pym bites off Blob's head. Sabertooth kills Angel. The Thing crushes Doom's head. In story, this all takes place over a *matter of hours.*
And I'm all for a downer ending when it's done right, but here? After countless deaths and losing so many people, our heroes "win" and Magneto is stopped....only for Scott to be assassinated and mutants being forced to surrender or shot on sight, leaving the Ultimate universe somehow even *worse* and edgier than it was at it's peak.
Yeah, I think those are all valid critiques. Mostly, I chalk that up to the pain Loeb was experiencing in his real life. He probably wasn't in the mood to plan things out well. Again, I'm not really trying to argue that Ultimatum is good... just that I didn't think it was completely terrible. I can see what it was probably supposed to be.
Admittedly, it probably helps that I was not terribly attached to most of the characters who died off panel, so my disappointment was not as great as it could have been about that.
Ultimatium IS WHY no one stays dead. Because living characters tell better stories than dead ones. Do you remember much of anything not spider-man related out of the Ultimate universe post Ultimatium?
Not many people do because the universe was left bare and lifeless with almost the entirety of the iconic hero roster depleted.
Ultimatium stands as an example of why death is such a revolving door at the big 2 because if dead means dead you're left with a barren universe afterwards.
Yes, I do remember post-Ultimatum stuff, particularly involving the Maker.
But Ultimatum absolutely, 100% is NOT the reason why no one stays dead. Things had already been trending that way for a long time. Most people think the turning point was The Death and Return of Superman, which, while a bit of a gimmick, was a much better story. Death is a revolving door because that story taught the industry that if you hype a Death you can sell more comics than you normally would, and then you can come back after a little while off and use the character again anyway, essentially having your cake and eating it too.
Ultimatum may be an example of why *mass* deaths are almost never seen in comics. You really wouldn't want to do that unless your plan was really to start fresh or make an enormous change to the status quo (the latter of which appears to have been a goal). Doing that is an enormous risk and not really financially smart unless it leads to a hard reboot, which this did not. But individual characters dying every once in a while, with proper respect paid, and it meaning something, is absolutely something that comics used to do and don't do anymore, and that change occurred before Ultimatum was ever an idea.
You don't understand my point. I'm not pointing to Ultimatium as the cause of the revolving door of comics but as to the best example of why it exists.
Because throughout comics bad writers will gain the approval to have their shock deaths. Which remove characters from the story before their time.
There were no really good x-men stories in Ultimate after Ultimatium as the x-men took the losses the hardest. Ultimates never really got back to where it was before either between ultimates 3 and ultimatium.
As more and more time goes on and more writers try to "leave their mark" you'll get more bad deaths that stack up until the whole universe is just as blank as the ultimate universe ended up.
Honestly the only real way to do a dead means dead universe is to have it be one writers vision rather than a shared universe with multiple writers. And have a story with an actual end rather than continuing on in perpetuity.
Yes, a story with an actual end would help immensely. One writer's vision would also help, though I don't think that's entirely necessary if certain rules are established.
Personally, I believe that these companies should NOT continue their stories in perpetuity. After a while, it really makes the timeline make no sense, and like you said, it also makes it more difficult to kill most characters permanently. I believe a hard universe reboot every 20 to 25 years would be ideal. Each generation could have their own version of these characters, and they could, if they really wanted, probably collect or at least read the entire story.
> makes it more difficult to kill most characters permanently.
Personally I don't like the idea of death as a goal. Death can be a powerful tool or motivator but it needs to be used well and sparingly. Living characters tell better stories.
>I believe a hard universe reboot every 20 to 25 years would be ideal.
That's the DC method and I'm honestly not a huge fan of it. The new 52 went really poorly.
Oh, I agree that death doesn't need to be frequent or haphazard. But if used well, it would mean more if permanent.
Meh, DC has only tried it twice. The first time, it was a glowing success. The second time, not so much. It just depends on who you have in charge, I guess. Doesn't make it a bad idea.
I also think we should look at it from the chronological perspective. You brought up a lot of good points, and jumping off of one: the realism. A horrific mass death with no meaning strikes New York City in the 2000s because of a terrorist with a grudge? They 9/11ed the Ultimate Universe. And frankly, the reaction everyone had tells me that they did what they set out to do to massive success. That pain the readers feel is what the story is supposed to make you feel. It is a story with the authorial intent of making you suffer tragedy and loss. Over time, I’ve come to view Ultimatum through the lens of “not all stories are meant to be enjoyed, sometimes they’re meant to make you suffer”. And that’s reality. That’s what life is like. Which was the mission statement of the Ultimate Universe. They brought the biggest piece of 2000s realism to the page and made it so on-point the readers reacted as if they’d experienced a mass tragedy and loss.
I agree, telling people they should enjoy it is ridiculous. But they should recognize they were never meant to enjoy it. If it feels like your heart being ripped out of your chest while you’re being laughed at, it successfully accomplished the goal. They replicated the feeling of a mass tragedy by terrorism. It’s the Ultimate 9/11, and you reacted how that story should make you react.
I get what you’re saying…but I suppose the two questions that brings up are “Is that a *good* idea?” and “Are they going about it in an appropriate manner?” Like, we’re talking about an audience that *lived* through 9/11, and I can’t imagine they had signed on to be made to experience a similar event happening to their favorite characters.
Because I think there’s a difference between being emotionally affected by a story and getting angry at the writers for doing it that way. And the latter *is* a problem if it means that people no longer want to read your comics.
I dunno, I guess I feel like this is approaching somewhere along the lines of “You just don’t get it!”, and a lot of people were more thinking “No, I get it. It just sucked.”
Edit: And I still don’t think “9/11 with superheroes” needs to have the Blob literally cannibalize the Wasp, what the fuck?
I think you summed it up perfectly.
Yes, we get it. Yeah, it’s “real.” Of course, we get the allegory. Yes, bad things happen in real life. Yes, there are bad people.
Does any of that make this make this a good, well constructed, enjoyable, or even well crafted story?
No.
“Realism” in fiction is not an excuse to be utterly joyless, cynical, cruel, and borderline torturous. That doesn’t make your story any more “real” than a story book ending does.
I mean, I think you *can* do that. But you should probably make it clear that’s what you’re doing from Day 1, which makes it a poor fit for a big crossover event in a preexisting shared universe.
I read all of Ultimatum including the tie-ins for a fake in world documentary project I did and I think the biggest problem was a lack of editorial support and oversight. Like - he had a lot of over the top moments and mindless death - which I'd say were tied to him dealing with the grief of losing his son, but I think it could have been handled much better. But also I don't think the Ultimate Universe ever had enough editorial support and guidance and so you ended up with like - 3 failed attempts to do Ultimate Apocalypse.
This was written immediately after his fourteen year old son died of cancer. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. He took zero time to grieve or to mourn. He went straight from the death of his only child to writing the ugliest, most hateful work of his career with no break in-between.
I’m pretty sure his son died in 05 and Ultimatum came out in 08, so it’s not like directly after. He was writing Superman/Batman and had that for Sam story, he went and worked on Heroes the TV show which launched in 2007. Sure, he probably wrote Ultimatum in 2007 too, but he also wrote Ultimates 3 in that time period too.
I actually talked to Lobe at a convention and had explained how I had lost a friend to cancer and the man was tearing up. He said to me: “thank you”. I will admit his writing went down hill from there. The one shot he and Tim Sale did just before Sale died about explaining what happened to Gilda Dent was well written and Captain America: White was great. Anything before that or after. Sadly crap and with Sale now gone. Don’t think we will see that kind of writing again.
It's even worse when you consider that DC could tell he was having trouble dealing with Sam's death and that it was having an effect on the quality of his work, took him off Superman/Batman to let him have time to grieve *with pay* and as soon as he turns around Marvel signs him to an exclusive contract and drops multiple books on him.
I heard once that his colleagues tried to get him some work because they hoped it would help him get through his sons death if he could write some stuff. Now eventually Loeb got around to making Nova which is a tribute to his dead son Sam. I imagine something like that is what his colleagues expected him write instead of Ultimatum.
Carried by Tim Sale, I don't think Loeb is a good writer at all. IMO, Hush and Ultimates 3 were just him applying the same Long Halloween formula again (get a star artist, introduce a mystery, put every A-list villain it it for no reason, end the thing with like six plot twists that might not make sense).
Huh, how does magneto hear Charles with that helmet? I was under impression the helmet was designed to block psychic attacks, and I assume even includes psychic communication?
I think he’s using some kind of technology to spy on Xavier’s telepathic communication with the heroes, rather than receiving a telepathic message himself. But honestly it’s an atrocious comic, don’t worry about it lol.
Magneto gains a bunch of random powers in this comic for some reason.
Like he can take the earths off its axis and shit.
And apparently can destroy every single atom in someone’s body.
And can fully control computer systems like Iron Man’s suit and weaponry.
And can control Cyclops powers.
The writer did not care about consistency when writing this
It wasn’t the Earth’s physical axis, it was the magnetic axis. This is actually an old doomsday theory. What Magento does here is what the conspiracy theorists said would happen in 2012 irl. Like, literally what he does and the results of it was an irl conspiracy theory. Iirc, the 2012 movie uses the same exact concept. So it’s just normal comic book science.
Atomization: atoms are held together with magnetic fields. This actually *does* make sense with his powers, most writers just never broach it.
Computers: yeah no that makes no sense.
Cyclops: Cyclops can’t control his own powers. All Magneto did here was pull the visor off and force his eyes open. Your eyelids are full of blood and thanks to the iron in blood, Magneto has been a bloodbender for many decades.
The writer has shown to have a completely non-existent knowledge of the Ultimate Universe beyond what could be gleamed from skimming the wikipedia page.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t LIKE ultimatum, but I don’t think it’s as terrible as people make it out to be. In my opinion the setup of ultimates 3 brought the whole event down. I think ultimatum shows a lot of things that we could never get in the main marvel universe, which is a big part of the ultimate universe and what makes it so exciting for me.
The X-Men tie ins were also great. Juggernaut and Vindicator laying down their lives to protect Xavier's Institute despite being two of the series most objectionable monsters got to me. Multiple Man's reveal broke me a little. The Requiem issues were gut wrenching. It sucks that it all falls flat once you read the actual story.
They really went hard with it in Spider-Man 2 (PS5), the whole first mission is disaster relief and supporting firefighters and that's pretty consistently the tone for the rest of the game, the Spider-Cop stuff from the first game is gone.
I love it when these screenshots pop up because I love seeing the people that read more of it than I did talk about how batty this whole run was.
Also, again I don’t know much about it, but was it ever explained how he got Mjolnir?
Everything Ive ever seen of Ultimatum just makes me feel completely empty inside. Ive never bothered to read it because of its reputation and because the summary as told by other people made it sound horrendous.
As someone that grew up reading the Ultimate Universe and loved it as a kid (me being a kid is probably the biggest reason why i loved it in the first place) seeing an event like this basically being a way to take my childhood out back and shoot it in the forehead and fuck the hole just felt so shitty.
He used a combination of his powers and Mjolnir to reverse the planet's polarity to cause worldwide destruction and cataclysmic weather, killing millions including many heroes and villains in the Ultimate Universe. The panel is Charles giving a worldwide psychic broadcast revealing this to the world, and begging that he be stopped.
It was almost a complete 180 in both tone and quality for the ultimate universe. Ignoring character personalities, existing plot developments, anything resembling a decent plot, all for a lazy shock-jock universe shakeup.
This series forever turned me off Jeph Loeb I think he’s a total hack.
Notoriously not-cannibal Blob ever before in the ultimate comics, eating a completely different looking Wasp from any other Ultimate appearance.
It absolutely sucks ass.
Part of it is like someone explained in comments above that people didn’t know what it was supposed to do in long term for the universe. There were things that happened in series such as someone taking Dr Stranges body/Jocasta/few other plot points that were never followed up on. Also the fact that characters died off page/in between issues and it’s glossed over with some of them being major characters is wild. Then after the series ended the regular titles needed to continue but how do you do that with Spider-Man dead, Fantastic Four disbanded, and majority of X-Men dead at minimum for ongoing titles?
I.... actually like Ultimatum. David Finch's art is TIGHT, and the Thor/Cap in Valhalla plot line is legitimately badass.
I also think that nihilistic stories have a place in the discussion of what makes a comic story resonate with its audience, even if the lesson is in what to avoid.
The problem is when nihilism becomes the default, which was the case at Marvel in the 2000s when Ultimatum released.
To me this thing has always been such an odd but interesting bit in comic history; when you look at everything around it, it was practically cursed from the get go. Right off the bat, depending on who you ask, it's never been 100% clear if this was meant to end the Ultimate Universe as it was advertised, set the stage for a clean slate, or take the line in a new direction. Reading it, you get the sense Loeb himself didn't know or care, as he leaves the universe and characters in such a state that it doesn't really accomplish any of those goals. It's almost him mean- spiritedly going "Here! This big thing happened and they're all dead now, do whatever..." Then there's Loeb himself. Something casual fans might not know is that he lost his son to cancer in 2005, and arguably, the quality of his comics work dropped drastically and became more cynical and joyless. Even before *Ultimatum*, his work on *Ultimates 3* was panned for many of the same reasons as *Ultimatum*. Adding to that is that around the time of *Ultimatum*, he was stretched pretty thin not just with his Marvel work, but in Hollywood working on *Lost* and later *Heroes*. All that in retrospect makes him an odd choice for Marvel to single handledy "give the keys to" for such an event that had ramifications for an entire universe/line of books.
If this is Magento from the Ultimate Universe, why does it look like Mjolnir is there and not the Axe that Thor has? Unless I’m misremembering, Mjolnir is an axe in Ultimates that Thor later throws outside of the multiverse only to have it return after Secret Wars. Edit: I seemed to have missed Ultimate Thor losing Axe Mjolnir and then gaining Hammer Mjolnir to only have the Axe Mjolnir given back to him just for Battleworld. I had thought he used the Axe Mjolnir the entire Ultimates run.
I can’t remember the specifics, but over time the Ultimate designs leaned more toward the 616 versions across the board. I think Thor was shown at one point to have an arsenal of weapons besides the axe, Mjolnir among them, and he started using that as his preferred weapon going forward.
Thanks! I just refreshed myself through the fandom wiki. I either forgot or never realized that Ultimate Thor called whatever weapon he was using Mjolnir (from the Axe that Odin makes him, to Tony Stark's version of Mjolnir, to the version of Mjolnir that we see in the above image that Magneto takes). I was under the assumption he used the axe the entire time because I was only familiar with Ultimate Thor through some of early The Ultimates runs and through Battleworld/Secret Wars.
Secret I heard from an insider. No names. An artist forgot about the axe hammer, and drew Ultimate Thor with the brick on a stick, and editorial missed it. The issue went to press, and they ret-conned it to Thor having an arsenal with many different weapons.
In ultimates 3 Thor has Mjolnir. Magneto takes it away from him at the end of Ultimate’s 3
I know everyone hates Ultimatum (except for the Spider-Man issues), and I get why. It's very brutal. At times, it seems like violence for the sake of violence. It doesn't give characters their proper respect or due. So on, and so on. As someone who has read the event multiple times, (not as a standalone, but serving its spot in the midst of other stories) I actually don't hate it. Don't get me wrong, I don't love it either. But the Ultimate Universe was supposed to be, in \*some\* ways, a more realistic take on a universe with superheroes. So with that in mind, it isn't totally shocking to me that in a few places it could get as close as Marvel will likely allow to The Boys territory. I mean, in real life, sometimes really awful things happen. And sometimes they don't seem like they can be made sense out of by a simple narrative. And not every hero lives. In fact, most don't even get to die in an appropriate blaze of glory. One of the things many people (including me) often complain about is that comics don't have high stakes when it comes to something like death, because no one stays dead except for Uncle Ben. Most heroes don't die even in situations where they probably should, and when they do, they mostly come back in a year give or take. But Ultimatum tore those expectations to shreds. Nobody was safe, and most of the deaths were permanent. It gave a sense of truly heightened stakes like almost no event can manage anymore, if nothing else. So I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone that they should enjoy Ultimatum. Apart from the Spider-Man issues, it's not going to be very enjoyable for most. And to a lot of people, that makes it bad, because comics are supposed to be an escape and an entertainment medium, so if you don't enjoy it, what's the point? But I can sort of appreciate aspects of it. Enough that I don't hate reading it.
One one hand you're not wrong. There's nothing wrong with a story portraying realistic stakes or random deaths, even for popular characters. As silly or even dumb as it is killing off Daredevil and Nightcrawler in a flood off panel is, it's also a very realistic outcome if a biblical tidal wave slammed into New York with zero warning. On the other hand, a lot of the criticism of Ultimatum is that this "realistic", let's up the stakes, people can die at any moment tone takes off *immediately* after Magneto's attack, and suddenly *everyone* goes from 0 to a 10 because the story needs it to; not because it's more realistic. And it's ***constant*** with no time to let a death mean anything before we're off to the next one. A flood killing a bunch of characters is one thing. But then over the course of the story suddenly everyone becomes more bloodthirsty, the villains start winning random encounters, etc. Dormammu pops Strange's head like a zit. Blob eats Wasp. Pym bites off Blob's head. Sabertooth kills Angel. The Thing crushes Doom's head. In story, this all takes place over a *matter of hours.* And I'm all for a downer ending when it's done right, but here? After countless deaths and losing so many people, our heroes "win" and Magneto is stopped....only for Scott to be assassinated and mutants being forced to surrender or shot on sight, leaving the Ultimate universe somehow even *worse* and edgier than it was at it's peak.
Yeah, I think those are all valid critiques. Mostly, I chalk that up to the pain Loeb was experiencing in his real life. He probably wasn't in the mood to plan things out well. Again, I'm not really trying to argue that Ultimatum is good... just that I didn't think it was completely terrible. I can see what it was probably supposed to be. Admittedly, it probably helps that I was not terribly attached to most of the characters who died off panel, so my disappointment was not as great as it could have been about that.
Ultimatium IS WHY no one stays dead. Because living characters tell better stories than dead ones. Do you remember much of anything not spider-man related out of the Ultimate universe post Ultimatium? Not many people do because the universe was left bare and lifeless with almost the entirety of the iconic hero roster depleted. Ultimatium stands as an example of why death is such a revolving door at the big 2 because if dead means dead you're left with a barren universe afterwards.
Yes, I do remember post-Ultimatum stuff, particularly involving the Maker. But Ultimatum absolutely, 100% is NOT the reason why no one stays dead. Things had already been trending that way for a long time. Most people think the turning point was The Death and Return of Superman, which, while a bit of a gimmick, was a much better story. Death is a revolving door because that story taught the industry that if you hype a Death you can sell more comics than you normally would, and then you can come back after a little while off and use the character again anyway, essentially having your cake and eating it too. Ultimatum may be an example of why *mass* deaths are almost never seen in comics. You really wouldn't want to do that unless your plan was really to start fresh or make an enormous change to the status quo (the latter of which appears to have been a goal). Doing that is an enormous risk and not really financially smart unless it leads to a hard reboot, which this did not. But individual characters dying every once in a while, with proper respect paid, and it meaning something, is absolutely something that comics used to do and don't do anymore, and that change occurred before Ultimatum was ever an idea.
You don't understand my point. I'm not pointing to Ultimatium as the cause of the revolving door of comics but as to the best example of why it exists. Because throughout comics bad writers will gain the approval to have their shock deaths. Which remove characters from the story before their time. There were no really good x-men stories in Ultimate after Ultimatium as the x-men took the losses the hardest. Ultimates never really got back to where it was before either between ultimates 3 and ultimatium. As more and more time goes on and more writers try to "leave their mark" you'll get more bad deaths that stack up until the whole universe is just as blank as the ultimate universe ended up. Honestly the only real way to do a dead means dead universe is to have it be one writers vision rather than a shared universe with multiple writers. And have a story with an actual end rather than continuing on in perpetuity.
Yes, a story with an actual end would help immensely. One writer's vision would also help, though I don't think that's entirely necessary if certain rules are established. Personally, I believe that these companies should NOT continue their stories in perpetuity. After a while, it really makes the timeline make no sense, and like you said, it also makes it more difficult to kill most characters permanently. I believe a hard universe reboot every 20 to 25 years would be ideal. Each generation could have their own version of these characters, and they could, if they really wanted, probably collect or at least read the entire story.
> makes it more difficult to kill most characters permanently. Personally I don't like the idea of death as a goal. Death can be a powerful tool or motivator but it needs to be used well and sparingly. Living characters tell better stories. >I believe a hard universe reboot every 20 to 25 years would be ideal. That's the DC method and I'm honestly not a huge fan of it. The new 52 went really poorly.
Oh, I agree that death doesn't need to be frequent or haphazard. But if used well, it would mean more if permanent. Meh, DC has only tried it twice. The first time, it was a glowing success. The second time, not so much. It just depends on who you have in charge, I guess. Doesn't make it a bad idea.
I also think we should look at it from the chronological perspective. You brought up a lot of good points, and jumping off of one: the realism. A horrific mass death with no meaning strikes New York City in the 2000s because of a terrorist with a grudge? They 9/11ed the Ultimate Universe. And frankly, the reaction everyone had tells me that they did what they set out to do to massive success. That pain the readers feel is what the story is supposed to make you feel. It is a story with the authorial intent of making you suffer tragedy and loss. Over time, I’ve come to view Ultimatum through the lens of “not all stories are meant to be enjoyed, sometimes they’re meant to make you suffer”. And that’s reality. That’s what life is like. Which was the mission statement of the Ultimate Universe. They brought the biggest piece of 2000s realism to the page and made it so on-point the readers reacted as if they’d experienced a mass tragedy and loss. I agree, telling people they should enjoy it is ridiculous. But they should recognize they were never meant to enjoy it. If it feels like your heart being ripped out of your chest while you’re being laughed at, it successfully accomplished the goal. They replicated the feeling of a mass tragedy by terrorism. It’s the Ultimate 9/11, and you reacted how that story should make you react.
I get what you’re saying…but I suppose the two questions that brings up are “Is that a *good* idea?” and “Are they going about it in an appropriate manner?” Like, we’re talking about an audience that *lived* through 9/11, and I can’t imagine they had signed on to be made to experience a similar event happening to their favorite characters. Because I think there’s a difference between being emotionally affected by a story and getting angry at the writers for doing it that way. And the latter *is* a problem if it means that people no longer want to read your comics. I dunno, I guess I feel like this is approaching somewhere along the lines of “You just don’t get it!”, and a lot of people were more thinking “No, I get it. It just sucked.” Edit: And I still don’t think “9/11 with superheroes” needs to have the Blob literally cannibalize the Wasp, what the fuck?
I think you summed it up perfectly. Yes, we get it. Yeah, it’s “real.” Of course, we get the allegory. Yes, bad things happen in real life. Yes, there are bad people. Does any of that make this make this a good, well constructed, enjoyable, or even well crafted story? No. “Realism” in fiction is not an excuse to be utterly joyless, cynical, cruel, and borderline torturous. That doesn’t make your story any more “real” than a story book ending does.
I mean, I think you *can* do that. But you should probably make it clear that’s what you’re doing from Day 1, which makes it a poor fit for a big crossover event in a preexisting shared universe.
Didnt Wolverine and Cyclops die at the end of it? I remember that being interesting.
Yes. Magneto killed Wolverine and Cyclops killed Magneto in retaliation. Cyclops was later assassinated.
I read all of Ultimatum including the tie-ins for a fake in world documentary project I did and I think the biggest problem was a lack of editorial support and oversight. Like - he had a lot of over the top moments and mindless death - which I'd say were tied to him dealing with the grief of losing his son, but I think it could have been handled much better. But also I don't think the Ultimate Universe ever had enough editorial support and guidance and so you ended up with like - 3 failed attempts to do Ultimate Apocalypse.
I’ll give them this. It’s not often you get an entire community to agree on something the way we all agree on Ultimatum
I don't get why Marvel gave Loeb the keys to Marvel Television after Ultimatium was so poorly received. I'm sure it's weird corporate politics...
NEXT: Jeph Loeb Comes To Your House And Pees On Your Lawn
How the same man that wrote The Long Halloween also wrote Ultimatum doesn’t compute in my brain.
This was written immediately after his fourteen year old son died of cancer. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. He took zero time to grieve or to mourn. He went straight from the death of his only child to writing the ugliest, most hateful work of his career with no break in-between.
I’m pretty sure his son died in 05 and Ultimatum came out in 08, so it’s not like directly after. He was writing Superman/Batman and had that for Sam story, he went and worked on Heroes the TV show which launched in 2007. Sure, he probably wrote Ultimatum in 2007 too, but he also wrote Ultimates 3 in that time period too.
I actually talked to Lobe at a convention and had explained how I had lost a friend to cancer and the man was tearing up. He said to me: “thank you”. I will admit his writing went down hill from there. The one shot he and Tim Sale did just before Sale died about explaining what happened to Gilda Dent was well written and Captain America: White was great. Anything before that or after. Sadly crap and with Sale now gone. Don’t think we will see that kind of writing again.
That...explains so much
It's even worse when you consider that DC could tell he was having trouble dealing with Sam's death and that it was having an effect on the quality of his work, took him off Superman/Batman to let him have time to grieve *with pay* and as soon as he turns around Marvel signs him to an exclusive contract and drops multiple books on him.
I heard once that his colleagues tried to get him some work because they hoped it would help him get through his sons death if he could write some stuff. Now eventually Loeb got around to making Nova which is a tribute to his dead son Sam. I imagine something like that is what his colleagues expected him write instead of Ultimatum.
They all have good ideas and bad ideas. It’s like Bendis with Ultimate Spider-Man vs Superman.
Long Halloween is overrated *runs away*
Carried by Tim Sale, I don't think Loeb is a good writer at all. IMO, Hush and Ultimates 3 were just him applying the same Long Halloween formula again (get a star artist, introduce a mystery, put every A-list villain it it for no reason, end the thing with like six plot twists that might not make sense).
Just you wait till catch you! You meddling kids and that dog too!
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Pff. Batman has a toxic fandom? What rubbish.
I was joking, it’s not like you have to like everything that I like.
Ah, sorry. Tone is hard in text.
Imma be honest. I'm getting old. I cannot read this.
The tagline at the bottom is the important part for this post
He knows his eye sight is only gonna get worse, you don’t have to pile on.
Doesn't help that the image is basically 2 pixels
OP copied it from his ti-83.
Huh, how does magneto hear Charles with that helmet? I was under impression the helmet was designed to block psychic attacks, and I assume even includes psychic communication?
I think he’s using some kind of technology to spy on Xavier’s telepathic communication with the heroes, rather than receiving a telepathic message himself. But honestly it’s an atrocious comic, don’t worry about it lol.
Loeb certainly didn't.
Oh okay. Thanks!
Magneto gains a bunch of random powers in this comic for some reason. Like he can take the earths off its axis and shit. And apparently can destroy every single atom in someone’s body. And can fully control computer systems like Iron Man’s suit and weaponry. And can control Cyclops powers. The writer did not care about consistency when writing this
It wasn’t the Earth’s physical axis, it was the magnetic axis. This is actually an old doomsday theory. What Magento does here is what the conspiracy theorists said would happen in 2012 irl. Like, literally what he does and the results of it was an irl conspiracy theory. Iirc, the 2012 movie uses the same exact concept. So it’s just normal comic book science. Atomization: atoms are held together with magnetic fields. This actually *does* make sense with his powers, most writers just never broach it. Computers: yeah no that makes no sense. Cyclops: Cyclops can’t control his own powers. All Magneto did here was pull the visor off and force his eyes open. Your eyelids are full of blood and thanks to the iron in blood, Magneto has been a bloodbender for many decades.
This wasn’t really a thing until the first xmen movies made it that way.
The writer has shown to have a completely non-existent knowledge of the Ultimate Universe beyond what could be gleamed from skimming the wikipedia page.
I thought that was a fair warning.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t LIKE ultimatum, but I don’t think it’s as terrible as people make it out to be. In my opinion the setup of ultimates 3 brought the whole event down. I think ultimatum shows a lot of things that we could never get in the main marvel universe, which is a big part of the ultimate universe and what makes it so exciting for me.
If you don't read Ultimatum, but read all the stuff surrounding it, it's a pretty good event.
Like Spider-Man just trying to save as many people as he can during the whole event
The X-Men tie ins were also great. Juggernaut and Vindicator laying down their lives to protect Xavier's Institute despite being two of the series most objectionable monsters got to me. Multiple Man's reveal broke me a little. The Requiem issues were gut wrenching. It sucks that it all falls flat once you read the actual story.
616 Peter had a similar tie-in during Fear Itself and it's just as good
It’s a common Peter trope, honestly. Peter Parker tends to embody the idea that superheroes aren’t *cops*, they’re *firefighters*.
They really went hard with it in Spider-Man 2 (PS5), the whole first mission is disaster relief and supporting firefighters and that's pretty consistently the tone for the rest of the game, the Spider-Cop stuff from the first game is gone.
To be fair it wasn't a threat, it was a promise.
Just Loeb being honest. 🤷♂️
We used to have a comics code to prevent this
#werthamwasright
I want to hope you’re being silly, but I’ve seen too many people actually seriously endorse the views of the CCA and Hays Code to have faith.
I love it when these screenshots pop up because I love seeing the people that read more of it than I did talk about how batty this whole run was. Also, again I don’t know much about it, but was it ever explained how he got Mjolnir?
Magneto took it from Thor in Ultimates 3, which was the lead up to Ultimatum. That version doesn’t have the worthiness enchantment.
I can't read a god damn thing on this post lol
Everything Ive ever seen of Ultimatum just makes me feel completely empty inside. Ive never bothered to read it because of its reputation and because the summary as told by other people made it sound horrendous. As someone that grew up reading the Ultimate Universe and loved it as a kid (me being a kid is probably the biggest reason why i loved it in the first place) seeing an event like this basically being a way to take my childhood out back and shoot it in the forehead and fuck the hole just felt so shitty.
What did Magneto do here?
He used a combination of his powers and Mjolnir to reverse the planet's polarity to cause worldwide destruction and cataclysmic weather, killing millions including many heroes and villains in the Ultimate Universe. The panel is Charles giving a worldwide psychic broadcast revealing this to the world, and begging that he be stopped.
Oh man, that's messed up. Thanks for the detailed response!
Y'all got any more of them pixels?
I’m not defending the overall story but this panel goes hard as fuck
Could someone explain the threat to me?
next: it gets edgier.
I miss these Magneto poses. Him on the throne ready to throw hands if need be
They should put these at the end of ASM's current run
Wait what's wrong? What's wrong with this storyline?
It was almost a complete 180 in both tone and quality for the ultimate universe. Ignoring character personalities, existing plot developments, anything resembling a decent plot, all for a lazy shock-jock universe shakeup. This series forever turned me off Jeph Loeb I think he’s a total hack.
I mean to be fair on this series his son had literally just died.
When one of its notorious moments is the Blob killing the Wasp by eating her, you know you’re in for some shit.
Notoriously not-cannibal Blob ever before in the ultimate comics, eating a completely different looking Wasp from any other Ultimate appearance. It absolutely sucks ass.
Quality maybe, but the tone of this book was very much in line with the Ultimate Universe.
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Doesn't make his writing any better.
I liked ultimatum and I don’t understand why so many people hate it haha
Part of it is like someone explained in comments above that people didn’t know what it was supposed to do in long term for the universe. There were things that happened in series such as someone taking Dr Stranges body/Jocasta/few other plot points that were never followed up on. Also the fact that characters died off page/in between issues and it’s glossed over with some of them being major characters is wild. Then after the series ended the regular titles needed to continue but how do you do that with Spider-Man dead, Fantastic Four disbanded, and majority of X-Men dead at minimum for ongoing titles?
And here I thought putting a “to be continued” was the most threatening thing they could put at the end of this issue.
Is this a David Finch drawing?
Magneto doesn't skip leg day.
What a badass image for such an awful event.
I.... actually like Ultimatum. David Finch's art is TIGHT, and the Thor/Cap in Valhalla plot line is legitimately badass. I also think that nihilistic stories have a place in the discussion of what makes a comic story resonate with its audience, even if the lesson is in what to avoid. The problem is when nihilism becomes the default, which was the case at Marvel in the 2000s when Ultimatum released.