Comics: Ultimate Marvel. *Some minor Spoilers*

[Grimmlokk]

So here we go in the Ultimate nerd thread. This will be a *long* post. I am a huge Ultimate nerd. Love these comics, you should too.

Quick note: I notice the writing and dialogue way way way more than the art in comics. 1st run through I read them almost like a book. So my views are as such. And I haven't read any comics in about a month so I am a *little* behind.


Ultimate Spider-Man: The one that started it all. Widely accepted as awesome and a great reset of the Spider-Man mythos. The writing(lot of Bendis right?) has been top notch in almost every issue. Perfect smart ass attitude for Peter Parker. The Parker/Kingpin parts are especially amazing. The recent bit with the X-men and Savage Land was pretty weak though. They managed to take Deadpool, a character absolutely tailor made for the Ultimate universe(seriously, he's like a character written for the Ultimate universe who's slapped into normal marvel books) and turn him into a boring "X-TREME" character. and Ultimate Carnage was pretty lame. Venom I liked the new origin story. the art has been really nice for most of the run, don't feel like digging through to see which ones have been great or not(very first few were kinda meh), but for the most part it's suited the comic really well. Overall it has been a fantastic first 100 issues.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: The original Marvel superheroes, Ultimatized. I like the new beginning. The original "cosmic cloud" angle was just so damn generic. they made them all teens, including Doom. Put Reed, Sue, and Doom into a government run institute for super genius kids, and that's how their lifelong association came to be. Reed's obsession with the negative zone/alternate universes from a young age sets up more interesting stories than the original story. I loved how they introduced Annihilus, though the climax was meh. Same for Namor. And the marvel zombie storyline was very cool, zombie FF is awesome. most recent couple issues have been a bit...out there, but not bad at all. One point I've liked is they made the Storm family interesting to me. Sue/Johnny have always been a huge weak link for me in the FF story. they're just not interesting. Ultimate wasn't that different at first, but when they brought their mother in it added a lot of depth. Art-wise it's been all over the place. The art during the Namor and zombie stories was flat out amazing. Suitable for framing at points. I'd put it on a level with Alex Ross' work, which is very high praise for me. Not every likes the style but it's flat out gorgeous.

The Ultimates: The Avengers basically. Right now for me this is my second favorite comic series(Invincible is yummy). The art has been amazing from the beginning, absolute top notch. They make almost every page feel epic, which it should. First and foremost they made Captain America an absolute badass again. Recent normal Marvel Cap has been better, but not really a badass until the Civil War was gearing up. Ultimate Cap is fucking ruthless. He is in the right and he fucking knows it, get the fuck out of his way. He kicks Bruce Banner's face in with a combat boot and hits Hank Pym with a few tons of iron pipes because he knows they deserve it. He rules again. Ultimate Thor is interesting here. He's almost a hippie. He hates the GW type government and he's stone cold set against the Ultimates at first because he views them as a filthy government police force. He only joins reluctantly when it can save many many lives. Also they start to really question his sanity and have to take him down at one point which makes for some awesome fights visually. Ultimate Iron Man is good, but he's mostly just normal Iron Man with better looking armor in this series(will get into some minis later which include Ultimate Iron Man itself). Hank/Janet Pym is interesting. absolute dysfunctional relationship here. Hank is a brilliant scientist/complete fuck up. Janet is a closet mutant. When they start fighting and Hank ends up beating the shit out of her I was shocked. And ecstatic. It's great drama and I'm dying to see where Hank ends up after the recent invasion story. Janet is pretty boring on her own, but they've expanded her powers a bit recently which is nice. Ultimate Black Widow is the same as ever. Blah blah blah. Ultimate Hawkeye is fucking awesome. He's basically Bullseye. He's way more awesomer than normal Hawkeye. At one point he killed 9-10 people with his own Fingernails which he worked loose. He is deadly with *anything* he can throw. Like I said, he's Bullseye. Ultimate Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch are good/okay. Witch is Witch, they've built her up faster than the normal universe and have her affecting broad fields of probability much sooner, though she needs a lot of work on it. Quicksilver is pretty badass though. He's much closer to DC's Flash than the normal Quicksilver(pre-House of M) in terms of speed. Recently he grabbed someone and ran fast enough to basically rip them to shreds. Ultimate HULK! He's the fucking Hulk writ large. When he Hulks out initially he's an absolute fucking animal. He eats people and kills with no regard whatsoever for anyone's wellbeing. He's recently back and more in control(though they STILL haven't finished the fucking Wolverine vs. Hulk mini that leads to it) and beyond fucking brutal. Abomination showed up and got fucking dismantled. They've run slightly differently than normal. They did The Ultimates Volume 1 which was the 1st 13 issues, and then Ultimated Volume 2 which is the more recent story which was at 12 last I saw, think it's going 13 as well. They're keeping them very seperated while still being the same overarching story.

Buy the Ultimates. Buy them all. There's only ~25 main issues. It's great.

Ultimate X-Men: It's the X-Men. As teenagers. Again. For about the 4th time. It's really just not special. **SPOILER** Colossus is gay **Spoiler end**. That's really the biggest change. Wolverine is mostly the same, maybe a little more ruthless than normal still though he'll probably soften up eventually. Nightcrawler is still awesome but way too neglected. Recently slightly crazy. Other than that it's just the fucking X-Men as teenagers. Again. For about the 4th time. Their Proteus stuff was pretty good. That's about all I'd recommend really. Bendis' run was good for the story, and now Robert Kirkman is on the series which is promising.

Ultimate minis etc:
Ultimate Six: Sinister Six(6 escped Spider-Man villains get together to take be evil). It's good stuff. I enjoyed it and it fit nicely into the Ultimate Spider-man story without completely altering everything. Also fit the Ultimates in nicely.

Ultimate Galactus: Was a few different little runs. Ultimate Nightmare etc etc. The overall story was kinda cool. Introduction of the Vision(technically it's own series, but was just in the back of other ultimate books) was nicely done. Silver Surfer change from one badass herald to a bunch of...androids?...was pretty fucking lame. Change of Galactus from one big bad motherfucker to more of a sentient swarm type thing was...questionable. Some find Galactus unbearably cheesy, they might like the change. Not me. The final "battle" was shit. Poor ending.

Ultimate Iron Man: I liked. Starts off dealing with Tony's genius dad. Goes into Tony as a little kid. Goes a bit far but makes Tony a more interesting character overall. Basically due to expiriments Tony's got like, brain cells spread all over his body. As such he's constantly in pain,. but also helps him be a genius I think(haven't read in awhile). They put a body armor "paint" on him that helps minimize it but doesn't completely stop it. Eventually he discovers alcohol which helps dull it. On the one hand it helps explain how someone as brilliant and powerful as him can be an alcoholic. On the other hand it's a pussified excuse for him being a fucking drunk, though it has yet to be brought up in Ultimates proper. They also introduce James "Rhodey" Rhodes, guy who ended up controling the Iron Man/War Machine suits at some points in the normal continuity.

Ultimate Adventures: Mini that was voted in/off by fans or some shit. Not sure the story behind it. Follows an orphan kid and a rich guy who adopts him that happens to be a hero in the Batman mold. Trains kid to be his sidekick. has some amusing and entertaining parts(dude fights Cap). Overall very skippable, but if you're heavily into the Marvel mythos it's worth a read.

Ultimate War: X-Men vs. Ultimates. Pretty early on. I found it entertaining. Made the X-Men actually interesting and badass. They really used their powers for once. Wolvering beat the fuck out of Iron Man. Cap fought dirty to beat up Wolverine. Colossus wasn't a little bitch. Iceman was FINALLY the fucking badass he should be. For one issue. In a limited.

Ultimate X4: X-Men/FF crossover. It was pretty lame. There's no reason to get this other than to fill out a collection or if you're a huge fan of one or the other.

Ultimate Daredevil/Elektra: Only Ultimates I have yet to peruse either on paper or in digital form. They're on my hard drive but I've not yet felt any desire to read them(after like 2 years). Someone else who hase read them please chime in. never been a huge fan of either, though Daredevil in the Ultimate Spider-man series is pretty awesome.

Ultimate Team Up: They're like normal Team-Ups. 1st few are awkward because was really only Spider-Man, everyone else was made up on the spot. Nothing essential here, same as normal Team-Up.
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So in closing! I'm a big nerd. You should absolutely 100% *BUY The Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man. If you have any interest in FF at all read Ultimate FF, it's interesting. And if you love the X-Men read them, though I'd definately download and read a few on my PC before spending cash on them.

Cannot stress enough, you should purchase and OWN Ultimate Spider-Man and especially The Ultimates. You can get the TPB(trade paperback) of the 1st 13 issues of Ultimates for like 11$ on Amazon I think, which is an absolute steal. Vol. 2 is like 13$ or so, not sure what all is in there though. Not even sure V2 is done yet. Spider-Man is up to 100 issues and has multiple TPB's and probably bigger issues you can find with lots of them in 1 book. These 2 comics are worth owning and having in your hands, you will re-read them.

edit: Holy fuck, that is a lot of text. props if you get this far.