The Ultimates: Homeland Security

[kingamy]

Question for y'all...

I used to be in to Marvel comics when I was younger, unmarried, and had money. I've been out of the loop for 8-10 years now, but know the characters fairly well still.

What's the general point of these "Ultimates"? They sound, on the surface, like somthing I might be interested in.

Are they single books, limited run series, or full series?

Maybe is there a link I could follow for more info? (I got out of comics just before I got into the internet )

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Desdichado]

There's four "Ultimate" series, Spider-man, X-men, Fantastic Four and the Ultimates themselves (who are kinda the Avengers.) The point of them was to take established comic book characters, and hit "reset" so to speak with the continuity. Telling the same basic story's again, but updated, without all the baggage of 30+ years of past continuity. Let the characters be teenagers again, like they were initially.

The art and writing is typically top-notch, and the Ultimate universe is somewhat more gritty and dark than the standard one. The Ultimates especially is dark, as Mog Effloe mentioned; spouse abuse between the Wasp and her husband, a cannibalistic Hulk, a severely psychologically disturbed Betty Ross, Tony Stark's playboyism isn't played up as part of this role; it's a real problem, Nick Shield is a manipulative bastard. I disagree that Captain America is "nasty" in this series, although his use (abuse) of Bruce Banner/The Hulk wasn't all about truth, justice and the American way, by any means.

X-men is still dark, but not as much. Spider-man is probably the most traditional in terms of atmosphere of the bunch, but its still got Kingpin and the original Green Goblin doing things that the comics code would never have approved of. All in all, it's a set of series for the fans, recognizing that people who have been reading Spider-man, the X-men, etc. for all these years are now grown up and want more sophisticated stories with more sophisticated characters, but ones that are still true to their roots.

And like I said, the Fantastic Four I'm not really familiar with. They are regular series, Spider-man and X-men have run for a few years now and have a good 50-60 episodes each. The Ultimates is much more sporadic, and of course FF is new. The good news is, they are being bound as trade paperbacks just a few months after they get a good 6-7 issues put together, so you can collect them without collecting all the individual issues if you like.

 

[pensiv]

The Ultimates is actually on hold as a series. Who knows if and when the next storyline will come out.

 

[blindrage]

The Ultimates is actually on hold as a series. Who knows if and when the next storyline will come out.

They are going to have six issues in the kitty before they print them. Something about the delays have us readers p.o. for some reason.
And someone is right about Betty Ross. The girl is a nutbar and the reason why Banner is messed up in the head. The fact she wants to sleep with Banner/Hulk after she saw him eating the leader of the alien army makes me kinda sick. She is just wrong.

 

[billd91]

The art and writing is typically top-notch, and the Ultimate universe is somewhat more gritty and dark than the standard one. The Ultimates especially is dark, as Mog Effloe mentioned; spouse abuse between the Wasp and her husband, a cannibalistic Hulk, a severely psychologically disturbed Betty Ross, Tony Stark's playboyism isn't played up as part of this role; it's a real problem, Nick Shield is a manipulative bastard. I disagree that Captain America is "nasty" in this series, although his use (abuse) of Bruce Banner/The Hulk wasn't all about truth, justice and the American way, by any means.

One thing to remember is that Cap is an anachronism. As Wasp pointed out a couple times, his behavior is very different from what would normally be expected out of today's sensibilities. For Cap, WWII is a very recent memory and a certain amount of institutional callousness had to be endured. Compare losing 1000 or so men in one day on a beach landing with how we mope about casualties in Iraq. In WWII, the US had to get used to that kind of scale. Cap is still used to it.
Keep in mind also that Cap's generation and the generation of leaders at the time of WWII tended to use violent intervention for foreign policy from the Dominican Republic to Vietnam, dallied with Nazis in the formation of covert intelligence services, sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia to preserve a wartime alliance with the Soviets, and were far less likely to prescribe anger counseling over a good, old-fashioned butt-kicking. When you come through a massive war against a regime like the Nazi regime, you find that a certain amount of moral flexibility and expedience is important to meeting more important goals. It's the experience of getting burned by the intervention in Vietnam and the social upheaval that went with it that has helped us change as a society to the point where some of these things aren't as publically acceptible any more. Cap has no connection with that particular zeitgeist and thus seems, to a more modern eye, nasty.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

>>double post<<

 

[Mog Elffoe]

I actually don't have a problem with Captain America in The Ultimates, except when characters or even other readers say that his strategies are 'brilliant' because, thus far, while certainly effective, they are anything but. I expect Cap to have an anachronistic kind of John Wayne-esque approach, and I'm kind of bugged when he's isn't portrayed that way, even in regular continuity. I loved it when he kicked the crap out of Giant Man for hospitalizing the Wasp.

As far as the series' 'nastiness' goes my major gripe is with the Hulk eating people. Sorry, but he can't be a hero I can root for in any fashion after eating people. That really, really bugs me. Also, Millar usually presents military types as being unsavory, unscrupulous, or both. I'm not in the military myself or anything, but it comes across clear to me that Millar is biased against the U.S. and also military types in general. For the most part, I do like his Nick Fury--he's ALWAYS been manipulative, even in regular continuity. It just seems to me that a disproportionate number of these often throwaway background characters are unnecessarily sleazy and thuggish.

 

[DanMcS]

I actually don't have a problem with Captain America in The Ultimates, except when characters or even other readers say that his strategies are 'brilliant' because, thus far, while certainly effective, they are anything but.

Since I'm the reader being quoted here, I'll point out that I said the writing was brilliant, not the plan. The plan entertained me, which was really all I was looking for.

Very sad to hear about the hiatus. They're trying to drive me to Ultimate Spider-Man, aren't they, the finks.

But it's so pretty, and there are a lot of them, I could read USM for quite a while without running out, as opposed to my two lonely paperbacks of the Ultimates...

Hey, might as well ask here... At comic shops, I've seen paperbacks called "Ultimate Team-Up" and "Ultimate Five", something like that. Where do these fit in the stories, and who do they feature? Are these just one-offs of short runs Marvel did in the Ultimate universe, or are they poorly titled issues that fit in with the Ultimate Spider-Man storyline or something?

 

[Mog Elffoe]

For my money, Ultimate Spider-Man is the best superhero book on the market. I wholeheartedly recommend it. Nick Fury from The Ultimates makes regular cameo appearances as well.

The Ultimate Team-Up books are worth picking up as well. They're all written by Bendis, but each Spider-Man team up features a different artist (Matt Wagner, Phil Hester, Ted McKeever, Mike Allred, etc.). Continuity-wise, they figure in around issue 6-24 or so of Ultimate Spidey. Some stories are definitely better than others, but I enjoyed them overall. I'm not sure how the Fantastic Four team up fits in Ultimate continuity at all, actually. It is a fun story, though.

 

[kingamy]

I remember a particular story I enjoyed, from the What If? series back in the early 90s. It was a two-parter where the earth was destroyed while the Avengers were off-planet. The Avengers went off to take their revenge against whoever it was that blew it up (it's been a while, I forget some of the specifics). I'll never forget one scene, where the bad guys are after Captain America, and Hawkeye, out of arrows, trades uniforms with Cap and sacrifices himself so the team can escape. I also remember a blinded Hercules sacrificing himself against a mob so the others could get away. Dark, gritty, wonderful...

It's nice to see that there are some stories in a simlar vein out there again. I think I might head down to the local comic shop and check it out.

Thanks for the tip, gang,

Mike