Why do people hate Ultimate Marvel?

[Mr. White]

Well...I think initially the premise of the Ultimate line (and specifically Spider-Man) was to present a modern interpretation of Marvel characters that wasn't tied to or bogged down by the main 616 continuity. And for Spider-Man as written by Bendis, this worked perfectly.

I think the issue became when the universe started getting expanded and there was a need to radically alter certain characters for the Ultimate line (such as Hulk) so that, rather than present modern interpretations, it became "we can do anything we want here!". And then they started retroactively building up the Ultimate history, so that by 2006 or 2007 it was just as confusing and incoherent to new readers as the main lines were. Which of course came the series of events to try and clean things up but instead only served to frustrate long-time Ultimate fans.

Well said.

[babyblob]

I started to read Ultimate comics line not to long ago. For the most part I am enjoying it. I am not liking The Fantastic Four that much but I am enjoying the other tittles and minis. I am only a little ways indont know how long this wil last but so far I am having fun with it.

[Laufeyson]

I think the problem with the Ultimate line is the bad story that keeps coming into this line. I mean, the ultimate spider-man has the best spider-man storyline with the most consistent run ever. And not to mention it's where Miles Morales born. So, I don't think that the problem is in the character. The character itself holds a very good potential (with no baggage of history behind them, the character can be anything the writer wanted to be), but the story itself is very lacking for the most of part (Ultimatum, Ultimate Fantastic Four, the Ultimate Vol. 3 and many minis of Ultimates).

[Ultimate Captain America]

If you pick up a comic with the Hulk, you want the Hulk to look and act like the Hulk. That was one of the big problems with the Ultimate Universe. Nobody minds the occasional character update, or modernizing a few things here and there, but there's a certain core aspect of the character that needs to remain. Otherwise you're basically slapping a old name on a new character and trying to pass it off as the real thing.

A lot of the Ultimate characters simply weren't enough (or in some cases anything) like the characters people expected them to be. If somebody picks up a book because it's supposed to be a modern take on the Avengers, and none of the characters act or feel like the Avengers, why should the reader come back?

So, ultimately, you confirm my initial statement.

Didn't Magneto turned out to be alive for some weird reason after Ultimatum?, granted i agreed that he wasn't important and no one really see any value on that take (not even 90s Magneto was that disgusting), but i do remember hearing that he survived.

No. We have seen people talking to Magneto, Xavier, Cyclops, and the Scarlet Witch, but they turned out to be just hallucinations.

[Dboi2001]

Ultimate Hulk wasn't treated that way. He was basically presented to us as Banner's even worse alter-ego who is kill happy and murderous in the high four digits and that his rampage is motivated by actively seeking victims to harm...yet at the same time the comic wants us to feel Banner is somewhat sympathetic, and at the same time when Hulk is unleashed against the Chitauri, audiences are enticed to root for him against beings who are no worse than him.

There was a total mishmash of tone. Hulk's rampage and violence was treated at times as black comedy and exploitation...like I think in Ultimate War, some SHIELD personnel were being jerks at Hulk and when he was unleashed when Magneto attacked the Shield Helicarrier, there's an offhand mention of him cannibalizing the personnel who insulted him. It's done in a way that's dark comedy. Again the story doesn't consistently frame or present Hulk's violence in any proper way, and it makes no sense either way.

How was Hulk shown as being heroic? Between Ultimates 1 and 2 how is the Hulk heroic? At best he is a force of nature. The only time I can think when Hulk is more heroic is the final fight in Ultimates 2 when Banner gets some control over Hulk and he isn’t obsessed with eating people or sex but saving the world

The original inspiration for the Hulk was Jekyll and Hyde which in case you’re unfamiliar with it one is a brilliant scientist and the other a mad man. Yes over the years Hulk would be retooled to be more heroic and a force of good but often it is because Banner was able to train hulk that way

[Dboi2001]

I also dislike the idea of connecting so much to the super soldier program. Mutants? failed super soldiers and their descendants. Hank Pym? Worked on the super soldier program. European heroes? Super soldier program. Mr. Sinister? Super soldier program.

I know people harp on the MCU for connecting everything to Tony Stark, but come on, the Ultimate Universe did this to absurd degrees.

No people have an issue with the spider man mythos being tied to Stark. It’s a little obnoxious when every spider man villain is evil because of Stark and doesn’t let a spider man solo movie be a spider man movie constantly dropping references. Like having Peter’s iconic suit be made by Stark and having all these gadgets instead of Peter himself making them is where I draw the line

[Dboi2001]

"Ultimates" did a great revamping of the Avengers concept, I thought. Great makeover for Thor, too. From the first issue, it felt like a big budget movie adaptation of "Avengers". Without it, I don't think we would've gotten the "MCU".

Yet what bothered me about "Ultimates" was how it really wanted to amplify the character's flaws. Hank, Cap, etc.

I think those "amplified" flaws lead to really great characterization. It was really interesting seeing how Cap and Wasp's generation gap lead to things not working out. It makes sense why Captain America would find it hard to adapt. And Hank was actually one of my favorite aspects of Millar's Ultimates and I like him a lot more than 616 Hank

[Dboi2001]

If you pick up a comic with the Hulk, you want the Hulk to look and act like the Hulk. That was one of the big problems with the Ultimate Universe. Nobody minds the occasional character update, or modernizing a few things here and there, but there's a certain core aspect of the character that needs to remain. Otherwise you're basically slapping a old name on a new character and trying to pass it off as the real thing.

A lot of the Ultimate characters simply weren't enough (or in some cases anything) like the characters people expected them to be. If somebody picks up a book because it's supposed to be a modern take on the Avengers, and none of the characters act or feel like the Avengers, why should the reader come back?

There was never an Ultimate Hulk solo series for that very reason. In the Ultimates he acts as a force of nature and something that is truly terrifying. That was the basis for the Lee-Kirby Hulk and yes over time marvel has made efforts to make the hulk more heroic but that’s usually because of development from banner learning to cooperate with the hulk rather than contain which at the end of Ultimates 2 he does

[babyblob]

Like I said I am mostly enjoying The Ultimate Line. But I am really not enjoying Ultimate Fantastic Four. Reed is supposed to be like the smartest guy in the world. Yet he is always doing experiments that lead to trouble. Like world ending trouble. You would think the smartest guy in the world would see his plans pretty much always backfire. Exploring The N-Zone brought the N-Zone aliens back to attack Las Vegas. There was when he brought the Silver Surfer into the ultimate universe. There were the probes he sent into the Supreme universe. Yes they wernt the cause of what happened. But it was through them the supreme universe bad guy released the spores bringing the Squadron Supreme into The Ultimate Universe and endangering many lives. What about bringing The Marvel Zombies into the Ultimate Universe. Yea they didnt do much but they could have wiped out the world. And I wonder what the families of the soldiers that were killed in the Baxter Building think of him because of that. l I really wonder what he will do next to screw up the universe. (Still not done with the series yet.) Fantastic Four is really the only one of the books I dont enjoy.

I really enjoy how Magneto is such a global terrorist with a huge body count. It is more how he should be. I mean the man wants to take over the world. Of course he is going to murder innocent people. . And The Hulk. yea the Hulk being a mass murder as well is something I enjoy. I love how when he is in a rage he just kills whoever is around. Like in the above mentioned Ultimate War, when he escaped and ate not just the nurse who insulted him but the entire nursing staff.. That is how Hulk should be. I mean lets face it, people dying in the Ultimate Universe makes sense. I mean all of these super powered beings fighting each other, of course there are going to be bodies.

[Ultimate Captain America]

To be fair, Reed may be a genius and all that, but he's also a teenager. His plans usually backfired, yes, but that's because he usually neglected the "boring" side of science. You don't make a experiment by jumping into the unknown like a Leeroy Jenkins; you only make a calculated leap after a very long number of studies and tests. Before sending humans to the Negative Zone (or to anywhere that is not Earth) you spend years watching and probing, and the existence of Nihil, the zombies, etc; would have been known long before they would be a threat.

[TheMaker1610]

I liked the Ultimate Universe overall, and enjoyed many of its books and/or storylines over the ages
I cant deny it had its flaws, with most of them being related to the characterizations of its many characters and/or "edgyness"
However, I give them a pass, as those same things made some the UU stories very appealing to me

BUT, I cannot excuse how they handled many things with recklesness and/or outright disrespect SEVERAL TIMES, that killed the line in the long-run
To make it short, these are what I remember to be the biggest transgressors:

-ULTIMATUM:
If you are making THE (UU) cross-over, with REAL stakes and consequences for every single character involved, the least you could do is treat the characters struggles and suffering with respect, AND not treat their deaths as a senseless joke..

(Wasp? Eaten by Blob.
Daredevil? Killed off-screen and never mentioned again.
Dr. Strange? Head explosion, his body being taken away by a mysterious individual, and never mentioned again.
Angel? Savaged by Sabertooth.
Nightcrawler, Dazzler and Beast? Drown to death randomly.
Cyclops? Killed RIGHT AFTER the conflict was over.
Academy of Tomorrow? Killed off-screen just by the sake of it.
Etc, etc, etc.)

When you kill over half of the line's characters, in the most gruesome ways possible, AND with no clear endgame planned before-hand, you may just be diggin' your own grave as well, which is what happened basically..


-ULTIMATE FALLOUT
God, the premise was SO GOOD, and the hype was real. It appeared that the UU finally had a clear direction in mind, and the chances for it going wrong were extremely low.. and ofc that's what happened..

Spencer's X-men had a extremelly good storyline, that went ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE. Wood's run was not bad on itself, but the Spencer-->Wood transcition and story/theme change was jarring.
Hickman's Ultimates was GOLD. I remember being so engaged and being blown away at that was happening there.. The Children of Tomorrow, The Maker, The Kratos Club, SHIELD in dissarray.. So many good things going on that were "resolved" in the most anti-climatic way possible (Just so Humphires could do a UU Civil War-esque story in its placeO

Post-Cataclysm Status-Quo
This era was.. lacking..
I wasnt going to mention it, as there wasnt anything particularly insulting.. until I remembered Fialkov's UFF..
I mean, his Ultimates Run and Cataclysm tie-in issues werent bad (altough it made The Maker dirty), but UFF was an outright travesty !
Unnecesary and convoluted retcons, the WORST possible portlayals of both Sue and "Reed", and a disgusting "Art" (if it even deserves to be called that)


I still hold many fond memories of the UU as Hickman's Ultimates, Bendis' Ultimate Spiderman saga, Millar's Ultimates (yes, shoot me), and so many others books and storylines, but I wonder if the UU would've still been alive if so many transgressions werent commited is such quick succesion

[Dboi2001]

@Iron Maiden btw you’re wrong about Victor Van Damme not being Romani. When he is listing off his family tree he mentioned one of his ancestors was Gypsy. Also Victor Von Doom’s father being loving and dying for him was introduced until 2006. UFF 7 showed Damme’s origin in 2004

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Also Victor Von Doom’s father being loving and dying for him was introduced until 2006.

Like hell it was. Doom's father sacrificing himself to protect Victor from the cold was established in Fantastic Four Annual #2 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Right from the get-go.

Fantastic Four Annual 2 Werner von Doom saves his son.jpg

Quit making assumptions about old comics or relying on casual wikipedia searches. Do the hard graft of actually reading the original comics instead.

Or if you aren't interested, that's fine too. It's one less drop in a larger ocean. After all, far more people have read Kirby-Lee's classic run of Fantastic Four than the whole of Ultimate Marvel. And that will be forever. Comics readers, of superhero stories are smaller now than before. And among the subset of those fans who read older issues, the appeal of Lee-Kirby's FF is far greater than anything in Ultimate Marvel. As time passes that number will only increase and Ultimate Marvel, already 20 years removed from the turn of the milennium which was the source of its success and its appeal, will be the quaint topical curiosity that it already has become.

[Omega Alpha]

Actually, the premise of Ultimatum was a good one. Superhero crossover events often have massive or even complete casualties, but just for shock value, as they are reversed within the story itself (Secret Wars, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Crusade, Secret Wars 2015, etc). If someone dies, it's just one or two guys, and they eventually return anyway. Ultimatum had massive casualties, and there was no magical undoing of it. With only a handful of exceptions (Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, Valkyrie, Dr. Doom), a big number of guys died and stayed dead. Good or bad, alternate or not, that was a crossover event that had to be made at some point.
.

I completely disagree- they killed characters for no reason other than shock value, and most of the dead ones had never really been fully realized or explored. And it's pretty clear that, unlike Bendis with Peter Parker, they had no idea what to do next. The line never recovered from it, in both sales and fan interest.

[dkrook]

I think those "amplified" flaws lead to really great characterization. It was really interesting seeing how Cap and Wasp's generation gap lead to things not working out. It makes sense why Captain America would find it hard to adapt. And Hank was actually one of my favorite aspects of Millar's Ultimates and I like him a lot more than 616 Hank

This is exactly what I thought. We got a very grounded, and good in a different way type of vibe with The Ultimates. I completely picked up on Jekyll and Hyde callback to The Hulk, and loved it! Seeing a more realistic Captain America had me embracing and wanting to see him way more than 616 version. Now that i think about it even the X-Men ended up being something better cause the standard bearers were not off limits to the writers. They were free to give a different voice to the X-Men. Miles was the cherry on top of the whole line.