Why do people hate Ultimate Marvel?

[Dboi2001]

I wouldn't disagree with that.

Among other problems the Ultimate comics had was popularizing decompressed stories leading to every issue having to be part of some kind of larger story or event.
While there were also some decent reinventions of modernization of certain characters, just as often they'd take a character and just wreck it. Deadpool, goat legged Dr. Doom, crazy homeless looking guy Mr. Sinister, Green Goblin as the Hulk who can fly, Cable just being future Wolverine, the list goes on and on.

Ultimate comics also seemed to have a thing against secret identities and felt the need to make all the costumes "realistic" removing a lot of charm and style many of the characters had.

I haven’t read some of those but I love Ultimate Green Goblin more than 616 Green Goblin. It just came off as more believable that Spider-Man would have a hard time taking him down

I think it’s because marvel a lot of heroes never really focused on secret identities and on top of that the Ultimates being a government organization rather than vigilantes they need to be transparent. As for costumes that’s subjective. I really liked a lot of the redesign my favorite being Giant Man

[Dboi2001]

The normalization of incest, the glorification of sexual harassment, the cannibalism.

You don't see that, my dude? There is absolutely no way Ultimate Marvel would be published the same way today.

I mean 616 has gone down those rabbit holes before. Ultimates 3 was bad I agree. Also if you’re talking about Hulk they depict him as a villain and monster

Your argument makes it seem like Ultimate Marvel was some kind of harmless work that was misunderstood and so on. Well it wasn't. Ultimate Marvel was a popular successful mainstream work in that time and it reflected the aesthetics and "stuff considered cool" elements of its time (2000-2008) and then the moment passed, the culture changed and fans moved on, and Ultimate Marvel proved to have no timeless qualities.

I think people inflate certain issues or things that weren’t even a problem within the context of the story. And yeah the Ultimates are for better or worse very 2000s but I don’t think that’s a problem. Like that’s just comic books in general. For example how was captain America a bigot without the “A is for France.”

As for Ultimate Marvel as a whole

Ultimate Spider-Man = Good.
Ultimate X-Men = Bad.
Ultimates = Terrrible, until Hickman came along.
Ultimate Fantastic Four = Boring.

Aside from Bryan Hitch's artwork, nothing in Ultimates Vol.1 is good. In most respects it's not very different from Jeph Loeb's run later on, or Ultimatum even.

Can you expand on how Ultimates 1 and 2 were terrible? And I enjoyed Ultimate X Men vol 1. Haven’t read F4 yet

[Dboi2001]

Particularly when it comes to characterization where everything being modern and realistic is just characters being dicks to each other for no reason.

Such as?

I also feel that’s modern marvel and dc in a nutshell

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I also feel that’s modern marvel and dc in a nutshell

This kind of "whataboutism" is bad form. Defend Ultimate Marvel based on its own merits rather than going "other works do it" too. That's only valid if other posters bring up these other works as a standard (which they haven't). You started this thread asking "Why people hate Ultimate Marvel?" and launched a pre-emptive defense. So you put Ultimate Marvel and specifically Ultimate Marvel on trial here. Own it.

I haven’t read some of those but I love Ultimate Green Goblin more than 616 Green Goblin. It just came off as more believable that Spider-Man would have a hard time taking him down

This is another problem people have with Ultimate Marvel. It gave people a wrong idea of realism. Ultimate Green Goblin isn't any more believable than 616 Goblin and yet people are defending what is clearly an unpopular and failed version of the character. But it was marketed that way and unfortunately some fans accepted it.

And in any case 616 Green Goblin had devious gadgets, great intelligence, had a mobile fast moving glider that allowed him to evade Spider-Man, and had super-strength on top of that, so it's entirely believable that Spider-Man would have a hard time taking him down, especially given the horrible things 616 Green Goblin has done (such as torturing Spider-Man for weeks in Revenge of the Green Goblin). That's more believable than a giant fireball throwing monster who's barely sentient when transformed and who Spider-Man has beaten down with punches a few times.

I mean 616 has gone down those rabbit holes before.

See again about "whataboutism". You put Ultimate Marvel on trial. So defend it or not on its own merits rather than attacking other comics or other versions and so on. Those other comics are on trial in their own threads and their own forums.

I think people inflate certain issues or things that weren’t even a problem within the context of the story.

No people aren't inflating. You are advocating a perspective that Ultimate Marvel, or rather Millar's Ultimates is some perfect comic that people are criticizing because they don't get it. So any criticism is responded with -- "people are inflating...it wasn't problematic at the time...this later comic which nobody read made it all good." Those are not defenses in good faith.

For example how was captain America a bigot without the “A is for France.”

That scene is a full splash page in the final fight with the main bad guy at the end of the first major story arc of The Ultimates. It's basically Millar's version of Cap grabbing Mjolnir in ENDGAME. This isn't some minor detail that can be excluded.

Try and understand, storytelling is not some thing where all beats and moments are equal or have the same weight and meaning and significance. Major emotional scenes in big climactic action scenes count for more and register for more than the quiet scenes. As such, if people dislike or reject Ultimate Cap, and The Ultimates for that scene alone....they are not wrong to do so. They are perfectly justified and within their rights as members of the audience.

You need to respect that and live with it.

[Iron Maiden]

The normalization of incest, the glorification of sexual harassment, the cannibalism.

You don't see that, my dude? There is absolutely no way Ultimate Marvel would be published the same way today.

Your argument makes it seem like Ultimate Marvel was some kind of harmless work that was misunderstood and so on. Well it wasn't. Ultimate Marvel was a popular successful mainstream work in that time and it reflected the aesthetics and "stuff considered cool" elements of its time (2000-2008) and then the moment passed, the culture changed and fans moved on, and Ultimate Marvel proved to have no timeless qualities.



The single best thing he ever wrote for Marvel is MARVEL KNIGHTS:SPIDER-MAN but unfortunately that didn't get him notice, attention, and fame. It's a shame for a talented writer that his most influential work is his worst stuff.

As for Ultimate Marvel as a whole

Ultimate Spider-Man = Good.
Ultimate X-Men = Bad.
Ultimates = Terrrible, until Hickman came along.
Ultimate Fantastic Four = Boring.

Aside from Bryan Hitch's artwork, nothing in Ultimates Vol.1 is good. In most respects it's not very different from Jeph Loeb's run later on, or Ultimatum even.

And don't forget goat-legged Ultimate Doom, then again, lets do forget him When Warren Ellis took over the second arc of the UFF I was really looking forward to it. But I think the concept Warren Ellis had for Ultimate Doom just was hard to get one's head around. He had turned the MU origin on its head by making Victor the scion of a wealthy family who then after the transporter accident ended up living in one of Europe's shanty towns and created a legion of followers. The goat legs disappear for a while in the arc with the Zombie FF but return again near the end with a completely loopy version of the character. Didn't Ultimate Doom show up during the incursions too but I can't recall what happened to him. Miles tangled with him but I don't recall any real follow up on that. Maybe God Emperor Doom banished him

Johnny was assumed to be gay IIRC but maybe that was just the weird hair style that Greg Land gave him. Eventually Sue and Ben fall in love in the UFF, another flip on the FF comics where Ben was angry at losing out on a chance to gain Sue's affection, something that was dropped pretty quickly. Later Stan and Jack introduced Alicia anyway. The relationship with Sue and Reed got truly bizarre at the end also when she kind of forced Reed into getting her pregnant IIRC.

[Thundershot]

I liked it at first. It was a new take on things. USM was by far the best. UXM tried to quickly introduce an ultimate version of every 616 X-Man rather than just have great stories about the existing characters. Then when they decided to shake things up, they went batshit crazy and had the Blob eat the Wasp and killed off characters left and right...

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And don't forget goat-legged Ultimate Doom, then again, lets do forget him When Warren Ellis took over the second arc of the UFF I was really looking forward to it. But I think the concept Warren Ellis had for Ultimate Doom just was hard to get one's head around. He had turned the MU origin on its head by making Victor the scion of a wealthy family who then after the transporter accident ended up living in one of Europe's shanty towns and created a legion of followers. The goat legs disappear for a while in the arc with the Zombie FF but return again near the end with a completely loopy version of the character. Didn't Ultimate Doom show up during the incursions too but I can't recall what happened to him. Miles tangled with him but I don't recall any real follow up on that. Maybe God Emperor Doom banished him

Johnny was assumed to be gay IIRC but maybe that was just the weird hair style that Greg Land gave him. Eventually Sue and Ben fall in love in the UFF, another flip on the FF comics where Ben was angry at losing out on a chance to gain Sue's affection, something that was dropped pretty quickly. Later Stan and Jack introduced Alicia anyway. The relationship with Sue and Reed got truly bizarre at the end also when she kind of forced Reed into getting her pregnant IIRC.

Ultimate Doom was terrible. But then I don't know if there's a single Ultimate version of any villain (USM, UXM, Ult, UFF) worth salvaging. Well Ultimate Loki had his moments I suppose. The most enduring villain was The Maker.

The Ultimate Fantastic Four comics had a problem in that it was too similar to The Ultimates in looks, theme, and setting. The problem with Ultimate Marvel was that SHIELD was behind everything and everyone. So in Ultimate FF, the Baxter Building was a SHIELD owned and SHIELD aligned project. What that meant was that everything became a SHIELD story and Nick Fury story, and that made everything feel same-y after the time. You'd have the same images of the Triskellion the same beats of Nick Fury insulting and going alpha-male over people, and then doing something horrible only for that to be justified and glamorized, and then everyone strikes cool poses like the latest action movies (where old classic marvel looked like dated action movies) and it stunk. Everyone worked for Ultimate Fury eventually. Millar's Ultimates was serious and humorless (except for the unintentional kind). The UFF was also serious and humorless. Obviously the failure of Ultimate Fantastic Four to catch on ultimately allowed license to do radical stuff with it like having Ultimate Reed go evil as The Maker, and having Sue and Ben Grimm hook up.

Ultimate Fantastic Four is illustrative of some of the failures of the overall Ult. Marvel project. For all the talk and guff about the idea that Ultimate Marvel was a ground-up 21st Century take on these characters, for the most part you still had at the outset mostly the same WASP looking take on heroes. There were exceptions, Nick Fury being the biggest, but if you look at the Fantastic Four where given a golden opportunity to redo the Fantastic Four in the 21st Century rather than try and introduce diversity like even the ill-advised 2015 tried to do, they basically did the same team of 4 from the same background as the first, only with a Ben Grimm that no longer seemed to be Jewish (!). They transplanted a family dynamic based in the 50s on college-teen kids living in a special private school and it felt sillier than anyhing before. It basically showed that Ultimate Marvel was all surface and flash, just a coating of contemporaneity without any deep thought to it. It wasn't until Miles Morales that they actually did something to what it originally promised.

[Dboi2001]

I was only bringing those things up because I just think it’s not rational to dislike the Ultimates based on a few bad decisions just like 616 marvel made bad decisions. But sure I’ll pretend the Ultimates is the only thing that exists even though I think it’s more than fair to compare the two

This is another problem people have with Ultimate Marvel. It gave people a wrong idea of realism. Ultimate Green Goblin isn't any more believable than 616 Goblin and yet people are defending what is clearly an unpopular and failed version of the character. But it was marketed that way and unfortunately some fans accepted it.

Remember Ultimate Spider-Man came out before the entire Ultimates line was fully thought out with the only thing marvel had thought out was it would be a compressed retelling of classic marvel stories. Regardless it’s purely subjective. You like 616 Goblin better I like Ultimates Goblin and it has nothing to do with realism. I just think his design and Norman’s character are much more interesting than the normal version which is for the most part just a guy in a normal in a goofy suit. Like people **** on the Raimi suit for looking like a power ranger but at least that look like something that would be developed by a high tech company. Like the prototype mask looked cool but under what context would a latex mask make sense? Plus nearly every spider man villain are just normal guys in suits. I get normal is a bit stronger than normal but for the most part he’s a regular guy with technology just like Rhino or Vulture or Doc Ock or Kraven

No people aren't inflating. You are advocating a perspective that Ultimate Marvel, or rather Millar's Ultimates is some perfect comic that people are criticizing because they don't get it. So any criticism is responded with -- "people are inflating...it wasn't problematic at the time...this later comic which nobody read made it all good." Those are not defenses in good faith.

I never said they were perfect but complaints like “Captain America is a bigot” or “Thor is a crazy guy” ignores the rest of the story and context. Cap never demonstrates bigotry and Thor only looks crazy because Loki was manipulating reality to make him look crazy. Even Hank abusing Jan furthered the plot and lead to the best arc it wasn’t just shock for the sake of shock. Like if Captain America was a bigot why would he talk to Sam Wilson about how he hated that black people were abused in his time?

Try and understand, storytelling is not some thing where all beats and moments are equal or have the same weight and meaning and significance. Major emotional scenes in big climactic action scenes count for more and register for more than the quiet scenes. As such, if people dislike or reject Ultimate Cap, and The Ultimates for that scene alone....they are not wrong to do so. They are perfectly justified and within their rights as members of the audience.

I get that but that doesn’t make it rational. Cap throughout the entire story is not shown to be bigoted. He dates Jan who is Asian, he laments how black people were abused in his time and treats everyone with respect

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Plus nearly every spider man villain are just normal guys in suits. I get normal is a bit stronger than normal but for the most part he’s a regular guy with technology just like Rhino or Vulture or Doc Ock or Kraven

616 Norman Osborn has superpowers thanks to a serum that gives him super-strength and a healing factor that brings him back from death. He's not a "regular guy with technology" nor are Electro, or Sandman, or the Lizard among many others who aren't people in suits but have actual superpowers.

I never said they were perfect but complaints like “Captain America is a bigot” or “Thor is a crazy guy” ignores the rest of the story and context.

No it doesn't ignore the rest of the story at all. You are arbitrarily stretching the definition of story from "the original story arc" which is the reasonable expectation (the first 12 issues of The Ultimates) to the entire Ultimate line and all its tie-ins which is not a fair stretch and flex at all. The fact is that the original volume of Ultimates was the highest selling and most influential run of the comics so one can form a ride-or-die judgment on The Ultimates based on that.

In the original 12 issue story, Ultimate Captain America was framed as stodgy conservative and more rough and aggressive, a projection by the Scotsman Mark Millar of a 40s American Man based on movies and stuff he read and his own prejudices. The "Does this A stand for France" was meant seriously in a big dramatic moment and wasn't subject to any irony or pushback within the original story. That later on in the run, when Ultimate Marvel started declining in sales and property there was some issue where he mocked that, doesn't discount the original judgment in the slightest.

I get that but that doesn’t make it rational.

You can't say people are irrational for disliking Ultimate Marvel. That's not a fair good faith ground for debate. You are making it so that any objections and criticisms by people is because they can't see the light that you alone have.

You also can't expect everyone to form an opinion on Ultimate Marvel based on reading every issue of that line. That's not reasonable or sane.

[Dboi2001]

I’m not having a discussion if you keep conflating what I’ve been writing so I politely ask you to please stop from here on out

616 Norman Osborn has superpowers thanks to a serum that gives him super-strength and a healing factor that brings him back from death. He's not a "regular guy with technology" nor are Electro, or Sandman, or the Lizard among many others who aren't people in suits but have actual superpowers.

I get that but considering that “super strength” is about the same as Rhino who as far as I can remember was a normal guy who was really strong put in a rhino suit. Like I get he is technically super human but besides that he’s just a guy in a costume. Keep in mind this is also a universe where Kingpin exists who has no special abilities. I also didn’t say all spider man villains were normal guys but a good portion of them are so anything to make them more distinct and unique besides “he’s really strong” I’m all in for

No it doesn't ignore the rest of the story at all. You are arbitrarily stretching the definition of story from "the original story arc" which is the reasonable expectation (the first 12 issues of The Ultimates) to the entire Ultimate line and all its tie-ins which is not a fair stretch and flex at all. The fact is that the original volume of Ultimates was the highest selling and most influential run of the comics so one can form a ride-or-die judgment on The Ultimates based on that.

Maybe I should’ve narrowed it down to just the Ultimates 1 and 2 by Millar since I obviously haven’t read everything and I’m most familiar with Millar’s Ultimates. However in Ultimates 1 and 2 he was not being bigoted. But how about name me any example from anything Ultimate Marvel related of Cap being bigoted

In the original 12 issue story, Ultimate Captain America was framed as stodgy conservative and more rough and aggressive, a projection by the Scotsman Mark Millar of a 40s American Man based on movies and stuff he read and his own prejudices.

How exactly? Because he wanted to live in his old apartment even when it was run down? I really never got the impression that between Ultimates 1 or 2 he was a conservative. Unless you mean things like him not like staying out late at clubs with Jan

The "Does this A stand for France" was meant seriously in a big dramatic moment and wasn't subject to any irony or pushback within the original story. That later on in the run, when Ultimate Marvel started declining in sales and property there was some issue where he mocked that, doesn't discount the original judgment in the slightest.

Except Millar himself acknowledges it was a stupid thing in his own book. Literally one issue after the big fight Fury mentioned the France thing and Cap admit it was a stupid thing to say. Do you need a scan for proof? If you want to say it doesn’t absolve the original moment then I’ll concede you have a point but at least Cap admitted it was stupid

You can't say people are irrational for disliking Ultimate Marvel.

You can dislike Ultimates for whatever reason but not all reasoning will be rational. If I disliked Watchmen because I didn’t like Dr Manhattan being naked all the time that isn’t a rational reason. If you want to argue that the characters were poorly written throughout the entire run and that’s why you don’t like it that’s fine but don’t limit it to one moments even if it was a big moment. Disliking the Ultimates for things like the France quote is as rational as me saying Marvel is bad because Ms Marvel gave birth to her own rapist. It was a stupid thing but also one moment

[Dboi2001]

So is there any other reason you dislike Ultimate Dr Doom besides having goat legs? I thought ultimate Dr Doom looked awesome and meant to make him look more demonic

[Snoop Dogg]

The problem with Ultimate Doctor Doom is that he never did anything because nothing ever happened in that boring book that changed writers every year and was so boring you could adapt most of its ideas into mainline FF stories.

Zombie arc was good, though.

Ultimate Spider-Man is the crown jewel of the imprint, Ultimates was significant, and Ultimates 2 is king ****.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If you want to argue that the characters were poorly written throughout the entire run and that’s why you don’t like it that’s fine

Good. The truth is that the Ultimate Marvel is no longer in the mainstream and the fears that some fans had about it supplanting or overriding the classic idea or that it infects adaptations hasn't proven true. The MCU for instance jettisoned and overturned all the concepts that defined Ultimate Marvel quite quickly. The scene with Captain America and Blob biting the Wasp's ribcage and the Lannisterization of the Maximoff twins are symbolic of a concept that was always off. Because compared to these, Ultimate Marvel hardly has any big positive moment and glorious moment showing these characters in a manner worth admiring.

Let me give you a rundown of the reason people usually dislike Ultimate Marvel
-- In Ultimate Marvel, everything ties to SHIELD, everything becomes a SHIELD story, or a Nick Fury story. The defense might be a simplification of continuity and streamlining, in practice it becomes an oversimplification and homogenization where multiple titles start feeling same-y (Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four). Everything becomes about how Nick Fury secretly had this super secret plan. That takes spotlight away from the people who should be main characters, like the superheroes. I was thrilled when the MCU had its version of SHIELD gutted and destroyed in WINTER SOLDIER because it was a total rejection of the core identity and contribution of Ultimate Marvel in the eyes of Marvel's biggest audience. SHIELD sucks.
-- The characters are all made harder and more unlikable. And don't try and say this isn't true, or that we misunderstand the story. Please just stop that.
--- Wolverine in the Ultimate Marvel continuity is a sexual predator, he seduced a Jean Grey who was years younger than him, and then later tried to kill Cyclops to comfort her. When he switched bodies with Peter Parker, he apparently tried to take advantage of Peter's relationship with Ultimate Mary Jane which doesn't seem to go far but amounts to attempted statutory rape. Let's not get into how he rubs the deaths of Hawkeye's family in his face in Ultimates 3 ("Didn't you used to have kids?").
--- Tony Stark for all his avuncular front in Ultimate Marvel, thinks of nothing of sleeping with his interns and sending assistants to pick conquests by identifying girls off the street. This kind of behavior would get him #MeToo'd stat today and definitely will not fly.
--- Ultimate Captain America hardly seems to smile in Ultimate Marvel and has none of the warmth and friendliness that 616 Cap has. Most of the time he's frowning and serious, and he's a pile of cliches about masculine leadership. Ultimate Black Widow is evil, just pure evil and a walking Russophobic stereotype.
--- Bruce Banner is what we now call "incel" and his Hulk has nothing to recommend. Hank Pym is a creep and a willing traitor who allies with Liberators to invade America and who keeps getting an endless amount of second chances despite all the horrible things he does (which makes him an emblem of the privilege white men have when doing bad behavior for which they are not held accountable), where the original was a neurotic self-destructive mess. The original Hank Pym was a cautionary tale and a tragic story of a good man who destroys the good things in his life. Ultimate Hank is just an a--hole.
--- Doctor Strange is a celebrity sleazebag who seduces wealthy clients and is mostly a charlatan who doesn't seem to be half as capable as the original version.
--- Ultimate Thor is all things considered the nicest of the Ultimates but he's also the least explored corner and mostly quite boring and uninteresting. It also became redundant because the grounded believable contemporary and 21st Century take on Thor ultimately happened in 616 continuity, in the JMS runs and later the Jason Aaron run.

Aside from Ultimate Peter Parker, these are all objectively inferior versions of the original character without any virtues or depth in characterization, without any of the charm of the original characters. There are other reasons of course. I am just scratching the surface of inferiority and mediocrity that defines and plagues Ultimate Marvel.

So is there any other reason you dislike Ultimate Dr Doom besides having goat legs? I thought ultimate Dr Doom looked awesome and meant to make him look more demonic

Doctor Doom shouldn't look "demonic" you know. Ultimate Doom lacks just about everything that made 616 Doom so great. For one thing "Victor Van Damme" is cheesy as a replacement name. Making Doom a descendant of Vlad the Impaler and so on is stupid and offensive. The original Doom was a descendant of Romani, and Ultimate Marvel removes that and makes him the descendant of a man (revisionism notwithstanding) who was a Catholic supremacist and religious fanatic. Ultimate Doom has none of the complexities and elegance that defines 616 Doom, he lacks the heroic and tragic aspects, the many shades of gray that typifies his appeal.

[Agent Z]

I wouldn't disagree with that.

Among other problems the Ultimate comics had was popularizing decompressed stories leading to every issue having to be part of some kind of larger story or event.
While there were also some decent reinventions of modernization of certain characters, just as often they'd take a character and just wreck it. Deadpool, goat legged Dr. Doom, crazy homeless looking guy Mr. Sinister, Green Goblin as the Hulk who can fly, Cable just being future Wolverine, the list goes on and on.

Ultimate comics also seemed to have a thing against secret identities and felt the need to make all the costumes "realistic" removing a lot of charm and style many of the characters had.

Secret identities were becoming less and less common in the main MU even before the Ultimate Universe and the "realistic" costumes were simply updates for modern times.

[your_name_here]

I must be in a minority who really liked this version of the Green Goblin. Physical brute strength was great against Parker.