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I was going to have a long series of articles that detailed my general feeling on the Ultimate Marvel universe, and it’s correlation between the 616 universe, as well as the differences between the two and how Ultimate Marvel is, truly, a wholly unique take on the Marvel franchises and generally an enjoyable piece of work. Then I read Ultimates 3 and I wish I had rather read something much better, or much worse, or stopped reading it back at the first issue. Before I go through and spend the entire time complaining, I’ll give you a brief rundown on just what “Ultimates” is and why this newest series is a travesty of justice or something along those lines.

With the creation of Ultimate Marvel, they decided they needed to create an Avengers team. Instead of calling it “The Ultimate Avengers”, in keeping with the idea that they just tack on “Ultimate” to everything for differences, they decided to call this “The Ultimates”. The Ultimates are a team of people working for Colonel Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury, of S.H.I.E.L.D. and going about blowing shit up and being generally tough bastards like they do.

The team has had, more or less: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Wasp, Hank Pym, Hawkeye, and maybe a few others I don’t remember because it’s been a while since I’ve read the comic– oh yeah, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch. These people have all been a part of it since about Ultimates 2 which was, obviously, the second book that was involving this superhero team. Mark Millar had been the previous writer of this series, (that is to say the previous two Ultimates books) and was generally pretty good at what he was doing. Miller managed to capture the general aspects of the characters, while at the same time elaborating on them and keeping them separate enough from their 616 counterparts to genuinely make a difference.

Jeph Loeb, however, who I normally like¹ apparently was operating under the impression that what The Ultimates needed was a trip back to the 1990s with all of the worst aspects amplified to the point that I can’t really even understand why they kept him on it. Also, the art was bad. Not just the pencils, but the colors seemed washed out and generally lacking. This felt more like a Ultimate Ultimate Marvel book, as opposed to a regular one.

But anyway, onto the book itself.

Ultimates 3 is a five-issue series, as opposed to the others which were around 12 or 13 issues, not counting an annual. Like the others, this is an immediate follow-up and should be taken into account.

The story opens with everyone watching a sex tape of Tony Stark and The Black Widow– who was recently believed to be killed by Hawkeye following the events of Ultimates 2– and Tony is busy drinking more and more because Jarvis is killed and Tony needs to be an alcoholic. Venom then crashes in, demanding someone, and they all attack. “They” including Wasp, Thor, Hawkeye, and a few others.

This is basically when you know the story is going to be bad. Through all five issues, Hawkeye does nothing but go on about how much he wants to die. Yeah, his family was brutally killed in the previous book, but this is seriously all he talks about. It’s like when Loeb writes Scarecrow and just has him say “HUSH LITTLE BABY, DON’T SAY A WORD” instead of real dialogue. The man even has a bulls-eye painted on his damn mask. And not just anywhere in particular, on his forehead. He’s also abandoned using his bow and arrow, in exchange for a pair of pistols.

Also, The Blank Panther shows up, and isn’t really given an explanation, other than that “Cap[tain America] vouches for him.” He also has no dialogue at all. He just shows up, and then leaves and Captain America goes “Don’t worry about Black Panther”. I’m sure you can see the subtlety at work here.

In another ways to destroy subtlety, Loeb went ahead and blatantly explained that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch had an incestuous relationship. By explained I mean he out-and-out said it. As opposed to before, where it was pretty well obvious, and we didn’t need someone to say “Oh, by the way, brother and sister like to bump uglies.”

Thor has also decided to jump ship into the “I’ve forgotten this isn’t 616″ crowd. Thor now has dropped his usual Ultimate manner of talking like a person and using the odd Shakespearean language that he uses in 616. He’s also got a full beard, as opposed to a goatee, and his hammer looks like the same one from 616 as opposed to how it looked before.

Iron Man’s armor looks like an overly buff 616 version.

I could go on.

In its purest form, this series is really nothing more than a bad concept forced into a universe it didn’t belong in. It resembles 616 too much to originally have been an idea created for Ultimate Marvel, which is only exacerbated by the fact that all of the characters are so out of character for Marvel.

Did I mention that Hawkeye wants to die? Because he does. He does really bad.

The book seems to also be filled with a lot of cameos, almost to the point that it doesn’t feel like the same book. Spider-Man shows up, but only because Venom was there. Then Wolverine shows up and says that he boned Magneto’s wife/girlfriend whatever. It just keeps piling up. It’s also in this monologue that we learn Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have had sex, instead of keeping it tastefully obscured.

Probably the most obnoxious part of the entire thing was whenever Wolverine joined up with the Ultimates, and was going to be on the team with “Black Panther”. Wolverine, who, it has been established, has enhanced senses and the like, says “That’s Black Panther?” and then they go about, and Wolverine is all “wtf dood?”

Then we find out, during a battle, that, lo and behold, it IS Captain America! Which really was dumb, and obvious. I’ve heard that there’s supposed to be an actual Black Panther that ISN’T Steve, but this whole thing was just done very badly.

In the end, Quicksilver is killed by a steel arrow that was shot at Magneto by Hawkeye.

I want you to read that again. And I want you to pay attention to every detail.

Quicksilver is killed by a steel arrow shot at Magneto.

Quicksilver can run so fast he disintegrates other speedsters. He can think faster than other people. Yet he jumps in front of a steel arrow. You could say that this is because he wanted to die after his sister was killed. But, still, it’s Magneto. Magneto, the guy who uses magnetism.

Then Magneto decides to become horribly out of character for Ultimate, and declare that he loved his children– despite the fact that all the evidence in every other comic shows he all but absolutely hated Petros (going so far as to ask Cyclops to call him “Father” whenever he defected to the Brotherhood in Ultimate X-Men). Then he walks off, and says the line for Ultimatum which is the Ultimate Marvel event that starts at some point.

Then we learn that it was all DOOM! Doctor Fucking Doom is behind all of this, apparently. Pulling the strings on Ultron who monologued his entire plan out into a log file for Hank Pym. Because everyone was robots. Venom was a robot. So was a bunch of other people that showed up later on to fight the Ultimates. Because at the end of one of the issues of The Ultimates 2, Scarlet Witch flirted with Ultron, and he was all “I want me some of Quicksilver’s Sister.”

But it was Doom who did it all, apparently. Doom. I’m still pissed about what happened to Ultimate Doom in Ultimate Fantastic Four at the hands of Greg Land.

Anyway, this story is trash. I’m disappointed in Loeb more than I am anything else. He’s one of the best writers out there, or he was. I can only hope that Loeb doesn’t trash the rest of the universe with this event, or else I might have to just pretend it didn’t happen.

Such a shame. Avoid this book unless you just want the completion of the Ultimate universe.

1. After all, Batman: The Long Halloween is one of my favorites [↩]