Comparing the Ultimates: Millar, Loeb, Hickman, Humphries

[Tar22]

[*]HAWKEYE WANTING TO DIE: For a moment I actually thought this complaint was valid, then I saw this in The Ultimates 2.

The fact that Clint felt this way is not the problem; it's that his behavior as written by Loeb is idiotic and cartoony in it's depiction of a man experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ultimates 2 features the above scene: a concerned Janet hugging her teammate after fearing he had died, with a solemn response from Clint; a man who is clearly emotionally torn up. Ultimates 3 features a scene in which Janet, taking note of Clint's erratic behavior, asks "What the hell is wrong with you," in which his reponse is "F**k you."

Yeah, Millar sure did write those characters as jerks...

[sage6paths]

The fact that Clint felt this way is not the problem; it's that his behavior as written by Loeb is idiotic and cartoony in it's depiction of a man experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ultimates 2 features the above scene: a concerned Janet hugging her teammate after fearing he had died, with a solemn response from Clint; a man who is clearly emotionally torn up. Ultimates 3 features a scene in which Janet, taking note of Clint's erratic behavior, asks "What the hell is wrong with you," in which his reponse is "F**k you."

Yeah, Millar sure did write those characters as jerks...

meh millars and loebs pre-ultimatum hawkeye was a jerk. but after that he is so much cooler when he is nice.

[wyokid]

So far I'm seeing a different tone between Hickman and Millar. Hickman's is full of despair but there is still something uplifting about it while Millar's seemed a lot more dark and depressing. I keep getting the sense that something majorly heroic is going to happen in Hickman's while with Millar's I kept sensing that someone was going to die soon.

[Plawsky]

I keep getting the sense that something majorly heroic is going to happen in Hickman's while with Millar's I kept sensing that someone was going to die soon.

If someone dying soon is the opposite of heroic, what does that say about Loeb's run?

[striderhirryu2]

[*]TONY IS DRUNK THE WHOLE TIME: Go flip through The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2, there's hardly a panel where Tony is out of his armor without a drink in his hand.

Tony was Drunk the entire time during Ultimates 1-2 and still highly functional. He was shooting down Crimson Dynamo robots left right and center from his Iron Man satelite but somehow Ultron pulls a fast one on him by leaking a sex tape?

[*]HAWKEYE WANTING TO DIE: For a moment I actually thought this complaint was valid, then I saw this in The Ultimates 2.

There's a difference between melancholy and raving lunatic with guns.

[*]THOR SOUNDS TERRIBLE: Several times in the series Loeb makes a joke about the way Thor sounds and even tries to explain why he is talking like that. I'm actually beginning to think it was an editorial mandate.

Loeb said in a Wizard interview he wanted to change them into something more traditional as opposed to Hitch's "movie hero" designs. What's to say that he stopped at costumes?

[*]VALKYRIE LIKED CAPTAIN AMERICA: Not really. If you read The Ultimates 2 #6 again you'll see that Pym has sex with her and he keeps his helmet on. Valkyrie then asks Hank to dress like Captain America which clearly shows she has a fetish. I mean just look at her original costume, yeesh.

I didn't know anyone complained about that.

[*]THOR LOVES JANE: Nope. If you look at the issues with Jane there is nothing to suggest a romantic relationship. In fact it was more of a fatherly love sort of deal. There was nothing that truly suggested that they were romantically involved.

Millar seems to think differently with how he wrote them in UAvNA

[*]THE WHOLE THING IS JUST A BUG DUMB ACTION COMIC: That's the price when you only have five issues. In fact Millar had only five issues of big dumb action in his books too, the only difference is that he had more issues to do more stuff in as well. Another thing I noticed is that it's not a book to be taken serious with captions like "two seconds ago" and very Bay style dialogue. It's meant to be a dumb action comic and it succeeds quite well at doing so.

Loeb was supposed to have Ultimates 4 with McGuinness coming out co-currently with Ultimates 3 but they left and did Hulk instead and folded the art that was already done into the Ultimate Hulk Annual. I doubt that a story involving pancakes and sex would have added much character depth to anyone.

[*]LOEB RUINED THE ULTIMATES: Pick up the first volume of Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates, do they look ruined to you?

No, thank god.

[*]IT DIDN'T MATCH UP WITH WHAT CAME BEFORE IT: Plot wise it absolutly did. It took threads that were left open from the first two volumes and continued them. They were constantly worried about their public appearance and were at each others throats. Tone? Yes and no. The first two volumes both had several issues where it was just non-stop action, but it also had several issues with no action, again a luxury with more issues. From the time Millar left to when Ultimate Fallout began it reeked of editorial mandates and those are never good.

Loeb is a seller. Marvel lets their sellers do whatever they want. There was definitely no editorial mandates.

[*]LOEB DIDN'T MAKE THE ULTIMATES WHAT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT: There is no "about" when it comes to The Ultimates. In Ultimate Spider-Man they're a kickass team of superheroes who Peter looked up to. Eery writer writes them differently. Hickman's work is incredibly science fiction and has the attitude of the sky being the limit., Loeb's was very fun, dumb, and action packed, and Millar's was more grounded and had commentaries on real life events.

Ultimates was about a superhuman arms race. Loeb ignored that so he could have Sabretooth telling Cap to suck it. USM kept the superhuman arms race theme by Fury telling Peter he's been drafted into the Ultimates once he hits 18 and the implications of Richard Parker's work involving the Venom suit.

[*]LOEB MAKING THE BOOK LIKE THAT WASN'T RIGHT: Uh...yeah, it kind of was. He was the writer on the book, if editorial saw anything majorly wrong they would have stopped him. As I said before, everyone writes The Ultimates differently.

So the current writer is infallible? Gotcha

[*]THE ULTIMATES 3 WAS A HORRIBLE STAIN: That's your opinion, not a fact.

Ultimates 3 was awesome and much better than Millar's: That's an opinion and not a fact. What was the point of that point?

[*]WASP LOOKS ASIAN: That's because she is.

And then once Loeb, Mad and Finch came on board, she wasn't?

[*]VENOM MAKES NO SENSE: Story wise it does makes sense. Granted they could have used anyone else, but who doesn't love an appearance by Spider-Man.

The appearance was totally pointless and just an excuse for Mad to draw Spider-Man and Venom and Mad drew the wrong Venom to boot.

[*]DOOM MAKES NO SENSE: Well it is explained in Ultimatum, but chronologically speaking no. Doom should be in the zombieverse, but whatever.

[*]PYRO WASN'T EVIL: No, he wasn't. He is now though.

Ultimate Iron Man and Ultimate Iron Man 2 was canon. Now it isn't. I know that bothers you, do you shrug it off as easily when Millar does it or is it a Loeb thing?

[wyokid]

If someone dying soon is the opposite of heroic, what does that say about Loeb's run?

I haven't finished re-reading Loeb's Ultimates run.

[WeaponX7373]

Loebs Ultimates was a train wreck of mischaracterization and continuity errors. Off the top of my head you have Loeb's horrible Thor complete with 616 speech patterns, costum, and hammer. You have Tonny getting all bumbed about a sex tape when the real Tonny would have laughed the entire thing off. The man had no shame in the other incarnation he probably would have just bought every copy of it to keep it from circulating. But the worst had to be his version of Grifter oh sorry I mean Hawkeye. Dual pistols check, bandana style mask check, dropping F-bombs on his own team mates check. He ripped off the character so completely all he was missing was the green trench coat.

Then you have this totally out of no where back story for Magneto's and Wolverines first meeting and the fathering of Magneto's children. Where they both sleep with a wicked witch in a magic relm. When Piotr and Wanda's mom was firmly established as a human women and thats why he hates his kids so much. And that Wolverine and Magneto would later work together. And call me crazy but Magneto doesn't strike me as the type of guy who would forgive and forget like that.

[wyokid]

Loebs Ultimates was a train wreck of mischaracterization and continuity errors. Off the top of my head you have Loeb's horrible Thor complete with 616 speech patterns, costum, and hammer. You have Tonny getting all bumbed about a sex tape when the real Tonny would have laughed the entire thing off. The man had no shame in the other incarnation he probably would have just bought every copy of it to keep it from circulating. But the worst had to be his version of Grifter oh sorry I mean Hawkeye. Dual pistols check, bandana style mask check, dropping F-bombs on his own team mates check. He ripped off the character so completely all he was missing was the green trench coat.

Then you have this totally out of no where back story for Magneto's and Wolverines first meeting and the fathering of Magneto's children. Where they both sleep with a wicked witch in a magic relm. When Piotr and Wanda's mom was firmly established as a human women and thats why he hates his kids so much. And that Wolverine and Magneto would later work together. And call me crazy but Magneto doesn't strike me as the type of guy who would forgive and forget like that.

You forgot to compare it to the other two writers. This isn't a "bash on writers" thread, it's a compare thread.

[MrV]

You forgot to compare it to the other two writers. This isn't a "bash on writers" thread, it's a compare thread.

Have to agree with wyokid here.

If the post had included a comparison between Millar VS Loeb or Loeb VS Hickman, then it would have been alright.

Turning all threads into writer bashing places has gotten old already.

I would like to compare Hickman to Millar now.

Millar undeniably had the best grasp on the characters, since he was the creator (except Iron Man, Black Widow, and Nick Fury who were creations of Bendis).

However, I enjoy the way Hickman is writing the characters more because he is giving character development to secondary characters like the EDI and Jane Foster. I really liked Jane and Thor's relationship in the movie, and would love to see it in UU. Other than that, Millar did a good job.

Though the finale of Grand Theft America should have been a much larger event akin to Ultimatum, with the other titles having tie-in issues showing how the Liberator's attack affected them. That would have made it superb and a true modern classic.

This is mainly why I am enjoying more Hickman's run, because he is taking advantage of all opportunities to tell large and epic stories. Millar condensed too much and missed a lot of great opportunities.

I would have loved to see Spidey, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four battle the foot soldiers of the Liberators and then team up with the EDI to help save New York but from their P.O.V.

[Plawsky]

I haven't finished re-reading Loeb's Ultimates run.

Right, but you know what happens. I was merely commenting that, if characters "going to die soon" is somehow unheroic, Loeb's Ultimates might be the least heroic superhero book I've ever read.

[wyokid]

Right, but you know what happens. I was merely commenting that, if characters "going to die soon" is somehow unheroic, Loeb's Ultimates might be the least heroic superhero book I've ever read.

So far I've only re-read The Ultimates 3 and I can agree with this on that book.

[WeaponX7373]

You forgot to compare it to the other two writers. This isn't a "bash on writers" thread, it's a compare thread.

Says the man who has spent most of the thread bashing Millar's run. Besides I haven't read Hickman's version so I am compairing what I know. And I was compairing it to Millar's run it was just a more implied comparison since I said the orginal characters.

[WeaponX7373]

Though the finale of Grand Theft America should have been a much larger event akin to Ultimatum, with the other titles having tie-in issues showing how the Liberator's attack affected them. That would have made it superb and a true modern classic.

This is mainly why I am enjoying more Hickman's run, because he is taking advantage of all opportunities to tell large and epic stories. Millar condensed too much and missed a lot of great opportunities.

I would have loved to see Spidey, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four battle the foot soldiers of the Liberators and then team up with the EDI to help save New York but from their P.O.V.

I agree but you have to remeber the artist attach to this caused some major delays so that kind of tie in wasn't exactly possible unless the entire line went on delay. And I think marvel did the right thing maintaining continuity of the series and not using a fill in penciler.

[MrV]

I agree but you have to remeber the artist attach to this caused some major delays so that kind of tie in wasn't exactly possible unless the entire line went on delay. And I think marvel did the right thing maintaining continuity of the series and not using a fill in penciler.

They could have still done tie-ins for the other titles. The story of the tie-in issues could have been done so it didn't spoil the ending of Ultimates 2.

Here is how it could have worked: Ultimates 2 #11 is released. In the four-five month gap, Bendis and the other writers finish whatever storyline they were doing and release a mini-story arc showing how their books were affected. In the 2-4 months these tie-ins are released we have the hiatus waiting for Ultimates 2 #12. When the next issue of Ultimates 2 is released at last, most likely the mini-arcs in all ongoings will have concluded and would have resumed telling stories that come after the Liberators' invasion, suggesting those stories take place months later.

Example: Bendis finishes the Silver Sable arc. Issues #90-92 tell the mini arc building up to the climax of Ultimates 2, but leaving the ending ambiguous as to not spoil Ultimates 2 #12-13. Maybe the ending of the arc could show the EDI assisting Spidey. After this mini arc Bendis has done his part and beginning with Issue #93 can resume telling his own stories, next in line being the Deadpool story arc and skip the Morbius arc for until after the Clone Saga.

Now even if Bendis has started the Clone Saga when Ultimates 2 #12 is released, his mini arc back in #90-92 still ties in and the ending to Ultimates 2 would not be spoiled at all. Makes sense? :happy:

Also, around the time Ultimates 2 concluded we had all these small story arcs going on in Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. These two titles could have easily done a tie-in mini arc as well, given their story arcs were 3 issues long and the hiatus waiting for Ultimates 2 was longer than 4-5 months at least.

[wyokid]

Unless the next couple of issues focus entirely on the female cast, Hickman's whole run gets a "meh" from me.