Captain Tagon
First Post
For those of you that have read Marvel's new House of M #1, any thoughts?
House of M #1
stevelabny
Explorer
It sucked.
Decompression sucks.
I'm glad they remembered that Simon and Pietro existed. I'm sad that Simon gave stock "upset-guy" dialogue and had nothing important to do or say.
Prof X was WAAAAAY out of character.
Why are these freaks listening to Emma at all? Oh, right, probably the same reason they let super-villain Magneto take Wanda away at the end of Disassembled. They're all morons.
Hey, look three pages of awkward shots of Spidey looking at a glowing thing and the worst last page tease ever.
Decompression sucks.
I'm glad they remembered that Simon and Pietro existed. I'm sad that Simon gave stock "upset-guy" dialogue and had nothing important to do or say.
Prof X was WAAAAAY out of character.
Why are these freaks listening to Emma at all? Oh, right, probably the same reason they let super-villain Magneto take Wanda away at the end of Disassembled. They're all morons.
Hey, look three pages of awkward shots of Spidey looking at a glowing thing and the worst last page tease ever.
Cthulhudrew
First Post
Flipped through it, read several reviews, decided not to pick it up. As another reviwer put it at one point, the Avengers' decision over whether to ice the Kree Supreme Intelligence or not got a lot more drama and indecisiveness than this issue did. Ugh.
stevelabny
Explorer
the spoilerific play by play
[sblock]
two ugly covers.
the first 4 pages consist of Wanda (the Scarlet Witch) dreaming about giving birth to her kids and Prof X telling her to put the world back because the children never existed.
As she stops the dream-memories, she cries out that she killed the Avengers and her husband.
That Marvel continues to refer to the android Vision as dead disturbs me. He's an android. Rebuild him. You've done it before. He is not dead.
Two more pages of Magneto feeling guilty while Prof X says he doesn't know how much longer he can use his powers to keep Wanda subdued.
Cut to: Warbird/Ms.Marvel/Carol Danvers/whatever she's going by this week, Falcon and Wonder Man Simon Williams arriving at new Avengers HQ. I don't pretend to know why Marvel started playing fast and loose with NYC geography, and I'm probably the only who cares, but it bothers me that 1> the new Avengers HQ was originally said to be in Coney Island and 2> now Coney Island looks like mid-town Manhattan with its impressive skyline.
These three ex-Avengers show up, spout some exposition about quitting the team (again, not true, the team disbanded mutually) and without any warm welcomes between former Avengers, we immediately cut to the Astonishing X-Men arriving on the scene. The X-men are shocked to see the New Avengers (minus Spider-Woman) , Warbird, Falcon, Wonderman, Yellowjacket, Wasp, She-Hulk, Doc Strange and Prof X.
Prof X and the X-Men seem to have an icy relationship (why? Is this a result of the current unfinished X storyline?) but hey, I'm still trying to figure out why She-Hulk is standing around
seeing as she actually was upset enough to de-hulk and resign after Disassembnled.
To increase my confusion, Prof X wants to talk about "the fate of Wanda" putting forth the notion that maybe they should kill her. YIKES. Since when is Prof X about killing the out of control mutant?
Three pages of Pietro (Quicksilver) looking over Wanda's sleeping body and telling Magneto that since the Avengers/X-Men are meeting, they obviously intend to kill her. Now I know Pietro's the type to jump to conclusions and assumptions, but this is a bit severe even for him. This is the Avengers, there's NO WAY they would consider it. He's asking Magneto to do something, but Mags is so pathetic now he's not even sure they're wrong.
Back at the meeting, Emma Frost says "Put her down." , Cap says he won't even think about it and Simon finally gets a line of dialogue about his ex-gf, love of his life, who brough him back from having his ions scattered, and says "NO!" To show his anger, he says "NO!" again. The writing is so good, I could weep. That was sarcasm. Surprisingly, Cap is also in character enough to not want her dead either.
Wolverine says that maybe they'll have to kill her. Cap says there has to be another way. Emma then asks Xavier if he has one and when he says no, she turns to Dr. Strange and he gives a very hesitant "I'm still looking" because he knows the alternative.
Ok, look..its bad enough when the X-men let super-villain and rhymes-with-witch Emma Frost onto their team and she gets to slowly corrupt their morals. This is the AVENGERS. This doesn't fly. I know Hawkeye isn't around, but why haven't Cap or even Wondy just picked Emma up and tossed her outside. This is incomprehensible to me.
Emma wants to vote, but Cap shoots the stupid idea down. (As a quick head count. Xavier is confused. Emma wants to kill her. Wolverine says they might have to. Cap, Simon, Shadowcat, Spider-man, Iron Man are against the idea. And everyone else is so lost in the shuffle they don't even get a line of dialogue. Its probably safe to guess all the Avengers will be against the idea, so will Colossus..and that tool Cyclops will side with his gf Emma, because he's a tool. And probably being mind-controlled.) Why are they even having this discussion? I dunno.
Wasp and Warbird decide they want to see and talk to Wanda before they decide.
So everyone heads off to Genosha. But Wanda's not there anymore! (Did sneaky Magneto take her away?)
Then, suddenly, Prof X disappears.
UInfazed, the teams continue their search.
They walk into this church like thing where suddenly we get some really awkwardly drawn panels of Spidey looking at something. Which then turns into the giant glow directly in front of his face. By page three of this waste of space, the glow is a whole page.
Then on the last page of the book, Peter wakes up next to a blond girl that we're supposed to assume is Gwen Stacy and goes to check on their screaming baby.
TO BE CONTINUED.
In summary, Wanda's still crazy. Prof X says "maybe we should kill her". The Avengers actually waste time listening to Emma Frost. Quicksilver tries to convince Magneto to do something to save Wanda. The Avengers and X-Men go to Genosha, where Prof X disappears and Spidey stares at a glowing thing until he wakes up in another alternate timeline.
7 more issues, we can prolly look forward to more meaningless conversations where only 3 people get to exchange dialogue, and giant panels of glowing things. In absolute mayhem, people will slip into wacky alternate realities. And at the end, the "616" MU (616 = the real Marvel U) will come face to face with the Ultimate MU. And we'll get a second, lamer, mini-series. Or at least, thats my guess.
Even if by some miracle, the Ultimate and other marvel universes are wiped out, and Avengers disassembled is erased in the process, and a REAL Avengers book comes out the other side, this story is soooo bad, that I don't think I'll be happy.
[/sblock]
[sblock]
two ugly covers.
the first 4 pages consist of Wanda (the Scarlet Witch) dreaming about giving birth to her kids and Prof X telling her to put the world back because the children never existed.
As she stops the dream-memories, she cries out that she killed the Avengers and her husband.
That Marvel continues to refer to the android Vision as dead disturbs me. He's an android. Rebuild him. You've done it before. He is not dead.
Two more pages of Magneto feeling guilty while Prof X says he doesn't know how much longer he can use his powers to keep Wanda subdued.
Cut to: Warbird/Ms.Marvel/Carol Danvers/whatever she's going by this week, Falcon and Wonder Man Simon Williams arriving at new Avengers HQ. I don't pretend to know why Marvel started playing fast and loose with NYC geography, and I'm probably the only who cares, but it bothers me that 1> the new Avengers HQ was originally said to be in Coney Island and 2> now Coney Island looks like mid-town Manhattan with its impressive skyline.
These three ex-Avengers show up, spout some exposition about quitting the team (again, not true, the team disbanded mutually) and without any warm welcomes between former Avengers, we immediately cut to the Astonishing X-Men arriving on the scene. The X-men are shocked to see the New Avengers (minus Spider-Woman) , Warbird, Falcon, Wonderman, Yellowjacket, Wasp, She-Hulk, Doc Strange and Prof X.
Prof X and the X-Men seem to have an icy relationship (why? Is this a result of the current unfinished X storyline?) but hey, I'm still trying to figure out why She-Hulk is standing around
seeing as she actually was upset enough to de-hulk and resign after Disassembnled.
To increase my confusion, Prof X wants to talk about "the fate of Wanda" putting forth the notion that maybe they should kill her. YIKES. Since when is Prof X about killing the out of control mutant?
Three pages of Pietro (Quicksilver) looking over Wanda's sleeping body and telling Magneto that since the Avengers/X-Men are meeting, they obviously intend to kill her. Now I know Pietro's the type to jump to conclusions and assumptions, but this is a bit severe even for him. This is the Avengers, there's NO WAY they would consider it. He's asking Magneto to do something, but Mags is so pathetic now he's not even sure they're wrong.
Back at the meeting, Emma Frost says "Put her down." , Cap says he won't even think about it and Simon finally gets a line of dialogue about his ex-gf, love of his life, who brough him back from having his ions scattered, and says "NO!" To show his anger, he says "NO!" again. The writing is so good, I could weep. That was sarcasm. Surprisingly, Cap is also in character enough to not want her dead either.
Wolverine says that maybe they'll have to kill her. Cap says there has to be another way. Emma then asks Xavier if he has one and when he says no, she turns to Dr. Strange and he gives a very hesitant "I'm still looking" because he knows the alternative.
Ok, look..its bad enough when the X-men let super-villain and rhymes-with-witch Emma Frost onto their team and she gets to slowly corrupt their morals. This is the AVENGERS. This doesn't fly. I know Hawkeye isn't around, but why haven't Cap or even Wondy just picked Emma up and tossed her outside. This is incomprehensible to me.
Emma wants to vote, but Cap shoots the stupid idea down. (As a quick head count. Xavier is confused. Emma wants to kill her. Wolverine says they might have to. Cap, Simon, Shadowcat, Spider-man, Iron Man are against the idea. And everyone else is so lost in the shuffle they don't even get a line of dialogue. Its probably safe to guess all the Avengers will be against the idea, so will Colossus..and that tool Cyclops will side with his gf Emma, because he's a tool. And probably being mind-controlled.) Why are they even having this discussion? I dunno.
Wasp and Warbird decide they want to see and talk to Wanda before they decide.
So everyone heads off to Genosha. But Wanda's not there anymore! (Did sneaky Magneto take her away?)
Then, suddenly, Prof X disappears.
UInfazed, the teams continue their search.
They walk into this church like thing where suddenly we get some really awkwardly drawn panels of Spidey looking at something. Which then turns into the giant glow directly in front of his face. By page three of this waste of space, the glow is a whole page.
Then on the last page of the book, Peter wakes up next to a blond girl that we're supposed to assume is Gwen Stacy and goes to check on their screaming baby.
TO BE CONTINUED.
In summary, Wanda's still crazy. Prof X says "maybe we should kill her". The Avengers actually waste time listening to Emma Frost. Quicksilver tries to convince Magneto to do something to save Wanda. The Avengers and X-Men go to Genosha, where Prof X disappears and Spidey stares at a glowing thing until he wakes up in another alternate timeline.
7 more issues, we can prolly look forward to more meaningless conversations where only 3 people get to exchange dialogue, and giant panels of glowing things. In absolute mayhem, people will slip into wacky alternate realities. And at the end, the "616" MU (616 = the real Marvel U) will come face to face with the Ultimate MU. And we'll get a second, lamer, mini-series. Or at least, thats my guess.
Even if by some miracle, the Ultimate and other marvel universes are wiped out, and Avengers disassembled is erased in the process, and a REAL Avengers book comes out the other side, this story is soooo bad, that I don't think I'll be happy.
[/sblock]
Captain Tagon
First Post
stevelabny said:
Wow...and wow. Some people take this stuff really seriously. What exactly are your problems with the Ultimate universe?
stevelabny
Explorer
my problems with the ultimate universe? warning, thread-jack in progress.
"readers are confused by our books" say the men in charge...so they rather than hire some good writers and artists to fix the pre-existing books. they invented a secondary universe and put the high-profile creators on those books. this makes the regular universe titles look inferior and creates more confusion by having two versions of the same characters.
the excuse of "these characters arent burderned by years of history" is a blatant lie, as they already have 5 years of history, and with each passing year, they get more (surprise!) . Are they going to make a MORE ULTIMATE universe in 5 more years? The whole concept is silly.
also, retelling old stories with a twist, or making darker versions of the same characters isnt innovative or exciting in anyway. the decompression in Ult Spidey is so bad, you could probably use it as a counter-argument against me that these books are actually building a history. The books don't even have the defense of being good.
plus, from day one, I warned everyone that the inevitable crossover between the universes would be a mess. Many naively told me it would never happen. Whether House of M is the cause or not, future covers imply that its just around the corner.
The Ultimate Universe is the death of the regular Universe. It splits sales. It doesn't help sell other MU books (some people only read ULT titles) , it adds to the confusion and it will only get worse when the titles start to cross over. Also, The "success" of the ULT line has caused the death of most continuity at Marvel. (not to mention both companies stopping use of the friendly *asterisk). This of course makes no sense, if the new universe is for the continuity-shy, why lose the continuity in the regular MU. Other ultimate bits have also sneaked over into the MU proper, weakening the product and blurring the line between the two.
Also, as soon as the crossover happens, you just brought all the history of the MU back into play for the ULT U too.
My problem is that I used to be a Marvel fanboy. I love the universe and the characters. Now? While I eagerly await each new DC book, and the DCU's new interconnectedness and continuity, I treat most Marvel books with utter disgust. It shouldn't be like this. Its backwards. Abnormal. And it can be traced back to start of the Ult universe and Quesadas rise to power.
"readers are confused by our books" say the men in charge...so they rather than hire some good writers and artists to fix the pre-existing books. they invented a secondary universe and put the high-profile creators on those books. this makes the regular universe titles look inferior and creates more confusion by having two versions of the same characters.
the excuse of "these characters arent burderned by years of history" is a blatant lie, as they already have 5 years of history, and with each passing year, they get more (surprise!) . Are they going to make a MORE ULTIMATE universe in 5 more years? The whole concept is silly.
also, retelling old stories with a twist, or making darker versions of the same characters isnt innovative or exciting in anyway. the decompression in Ult Spidey is so bad, you could probably use it as a counter-argument against me that these books are actually building a history. The books don't even have the defense of being good.
plus, from day one, I warned everyone that the inevitable crossover between the universes would be a mess. Many naively told me it would never happen. Whether House of M is the cause or not, future covers imply that its just around the corner.
The Ultimate Universe is the death of the regular Universe. It splits sales. It doesn't help sell other MU books (some people only read ULT titles) , it adds to the confusion and it will only get worse when the titles start to cross over. Also, The "success" of the ULT line has caused the death of most continuity at Marvel. (not to mention both companies stopping use of the friendly *asterisk). This of course makes no sense, if the new universe is for the continuity-shy, why lose the continuity in the regular MU. Other ultimate bits have also sneaked over into the MU proper, weakening the product and blurring the line between the two.
Also, as soon as the crossover happens, you just brought all the history of the MU back into play for the ULT U too.
My problem is that I used to be a Marvel fanboy. I love the universe and the characters. Now? While I eagerly await each new DC book, and the DCU's new interconnectedness and continuity, I treat most Marvel books with utter disgust. It shouldn't be like this. Its backwards. Abnormal. And it can be traced back to start of the Ult universe and Quesadas rise to power.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
While I respect your view, Steve, I like the ULT titles. I find nearly all of Marvel's standard books to be trash these days. At least some of the ULT titles are worth reading.
Of course, if they'd put the same artists and writers on the normal books, I might find the same quality in those, so perhaps my preferences prove some of your points, rather than disprove them...
In any case, a friend of mine (who reads nearly every comic in creation, trash or not,) described House of M as "Age of Apocalypse...only Wanda alters reality instead of Legion." Though from the way he described it, (and those here too) it's not nearly as good as that series was, it seems.
Of course, if they'd put the same artists and writers on the normal books, I might find the same quality in those, so perhaps my preferences prove some of your points, rather than disprove them...
In any case, a friend of mine (who reads nearly every comic in creation, trash or not,) described House of M as "Age of Apocalypse...only Wanda alters reality instead of Legion." Though from the way he described it, (and those here too) it's not nearly as good as that series was, it seems.
Kobold Avenger
Legend
Looking through House of M I wasn't impressed with it as I was with Countdown to Infinite Crisis. And I'm someone who mostly stuck with Marvel, and had no idea who Ted Kord the Blue Beetle was until I read Countdown.
They should had something in the 1st issue to jump a little more into the storyline, and then have the wondering what to do after. And then there are least 50 X-Men around at any given time including X-Men in the titles, students in the spotlight, X-Force (they're back despite me wanting to ignore the liefield miniseries), Cable, X-Corporation members, semi-retired X-Men and stragglers; shouldn't a few more of them been around?
They should had something in the 1st issue to jump a little more into the storyline, and then have the wondering what to do after. And then there are least 50 X-Men around at any given time including X-Men in the titles, students in the spotlight, X-Force (they're back despite me wanting to ignore the liefield miniseries), Cable, X-Corporation members, semi-retired X-Men and stragglers; shouldn't a few more of them been around?
Klaus
First Post
stevelabny -> Thanks for the summary, and sorry to force you into remembering all that lame writing! 
I too am not too fond of the Ultimate idea, but for a different reason. Marvel kept selling "Ultimate" as their golden brainchild, when in fact it's a 50-year-old idea, waaaay back from when the Flash stopped being an amateur scientist with Hermes' hat and became a police forensics expert hit by lightning.
I too am not too fond of the Ultimate idea, but for a different reason. Marvel kept selling "Ultimate" as their golden brainchild, when in fact it's a 50-year-old idea, waaaay back from when the Flash stopped being an amateur scientist with Hermes' hat and became a police forensics expert hit by lightning.
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