Ultimates #9 Spoilers/Discussion

[Robbie_Jee]

But I still don't see what's wrong with the pacing. It's really not that fast, unless you compare it to a book like Ultimate Spider-man.

Actually for most of Hickman's run the pacing has been relentlessly fast paced. And I don't see how the new spiderman book is slower paced than it ever used to be. Cats and Kings for example, an eight issue USM arc was very slow and drawn out, but Bendis' current arc is actually one of the better arcs he's written. Issue by issue we've seen the Prowler gradually become more villainess and threatening. It's an exciting arc and it's the usual Bendis greatness. What's not to love? Whereas in the recent issue of The Ultimates we didn't even see the climax of the issue before unfold due to it's super quick pacing. I'd much prefer it if Hickman's run was drawn out for longer, if only to see more character conversations and other details in between. He's too thorough in how he edits his issues. Or at least that's my opinon.

It's like, I see some scenes in the book and they're amazing, but I always feel underwhelmed by the amount that's on offer within the scene. I feel like Hickman should be giving Ribic more things to draw, especially in a book with so much going on all the time. If that 'Zorn black hole thingy' was drawn out for longer, it's climax would've been even sweeter. That, you can't deny.

There's been a lot of slower and drawn out moments, it just doesn't take eight pages for them to happen.

That's a bit of an exaggeration to what it is I expect from the pacing. But I agree that there have been slower moments. Issues 4-7 were excellently well paced and they helped to make the story feel a lot more 'whole'. But now the Children vs People battle is (for the most part) all over and done with. And within just a few pages too. I hate to sound so negative, but it just seems so wasteful to me.

I've read plenty of books that are way faster paced than this.

Perhaps you're more used to it then.

All-Star Superman, for instance (really, all of Morrison's work), jumps around like crazy. I'm sure I could come up with more examples, but I'm in the middle of that right now, so it stands out to me the most.

It all depends on how thorough and substantial it all feels. And by that I don't mean for individual issues or 'bang for your buck' etc; I mean for the story arc as a whole.

Despite a lot of stuff happening, it's not hard to follow at all, which is the only concern I ever have for fast paced books. I don't see why a new reader would be turned off by the pace. The only thing, in my opinion, that might turn away a new reader is that they don't know the characters because they haven't read any Ultimates before, but that's not really a huge problem. Not everything can be written for the new readers.

Actually by the sounds of many of the video reviews I've seen and podcasts I've heard about the UU and it's relaunch is that the Ultimates has been way too crazy to get into and a lot of newcomers were straight away put off by that. Even the sales reflect this, despite how awesome the book may be.

[taylor51]

Man, I just re-read Doomsday because of my earlier question, and boy what a ride. I've still gotta disagree with ya on the pacing Plawsky. Boy does that book shine in light of what Hickman's done. Back when it was published, I was a bit ticked with Doom #4. The ending felt super abrupt with nothing to follow it, but as a prologue to Republic Is Burning? I've got goosebumps man!!

Reed's connection to humanity has always been the Fantastic Four; that's true of any of his incarnations, especially so in the MU where he's got a family too. You take that away from him? He becomes a heartless monster, an unforgiving force of raw intelligence completely devoid of empathy. You pair that core character conflict with the Ultimate Reed who HATES the world Nick Fury represents, where government/military control, corporate exploitation and social mistrust of science prevents him from fixing the world? Man, everything that's happened to him is right in line with what anyone's worst case scenario could be. I LOVE what's being done with Reed!

And Ultimate Doomsday knocks it outta the park as the "Part I." Reed starts his plan that we eventually see take shape in The Ultimates. He raids Project Pegasus to preserve the artifacts of what he views as a doomed society, either for cultural reasons or to study them at a later occasion. Then he moves forward from the Negative Zone until Sue finds him out. And really, I don't think he would have gone as far as he has now, because I think that he still thought of himself as the hero back then; he clearly meant to invite Ben to whatever he was planning (I'm thinking maybe something similar to what Cable did with Providence in the MU). But then Ultimate Doom #4 rolls around and all bets are off. He's DONE with this world. Cut the cord; 1000 years of time dilation and now at this point, all he cares about is eradicating our world and replacing it with something better.

And the best part about the whole thing is that really, what Reed has created IS brilliant; the only problem is, he views the collateral damage he has caused and likely intends to cause as The City expands over the whole planet as acceptable, maybe even desirable. Like, I almost get the feeling that he deliberately chose this course of action over less violent alternatives BECAUSE of the devastation it would cause. The contempt he shows literally everyone on the planet is impressive, to say the least.

Man... Bendis and Hickman. Rocking it.

[PhilUrich'sFlamingSword]

Man, I just re-read Doomsday because of my earlier question, and boy what a ride. I've still gotta disagree with ya on the pacing Plawsky. Boy does that book shine in light of what Hickman's done. Back when it was published, I was a bit ticked with Doom #4. The ending felt super abrupt with nothing to follow it, but as a prologue to Republic Is Burning? I've got goosebumps man!!

Reed's connection to humanity has always been the Fantastic Four; that's true of any of his incarnations, especially so in the MU where he's got a family too. You take that away from him? He becomes a heartless monster, an unforgiving force of raw intelligence completely devoid of empathy. You pair that core character conflict with the Ultimate Reed who HATES the world Nick Fury represents, where government/military control, corporate exploitation and social mistrust of science prevents him from fixing the world? Man, everything that's happened to him is right in line with what anyone's worst case scenario could be. I LOVE what's being done with Reed!

And Ultimate Doomsday knocks it outta the park as the "Part I." Reed starts his plan that we eventually see take shape in The Ultimates. He raids Project Pegasus to preserve the artifacts of what he views as a doomed society, either for cultural reasons or to study them at a later occasion. Then he moves forward from the Negative Zone until Sue finds him out. And really, I don't think he would have gone as far as he has now, because I think that he still thought of himself as the hero back then; he clearly meant to invite Ben to whatever he was planning (I'm thinking maybe something similar to what Cable did with Providence in the MU). But then Ultimate Doom #4 rolls around and all bets are off. He's DONE with this world. Cut the cord; 1000 years of time dilation and now at this point, all he cares about is eradicating our world and replacing it with something better.

And the best part about the whole thing is that really, what Reed has created IS brilliant; the only problem is, he views the collateral damage he has caused and likely intends to cause as The City expands over the whole planet as acceptable, maybe even desirable. Like, I almost get the feeling that he deliberately chose this course of action over less violent alternatives BECAUSE of the devastation it would cause. The contempt he shows literally everyone on the planet is impressive, to say the least.

Man... Bendis and Hickman. Rocking it.

Dude, you summed up my thoughts on the current State Of Reed perfectly. Bendis, I believe, convincingly showed us, through strategic use of flashbacks to Reed's life, how he came to view the world in the negative light in which he currently sees it. The ending to the series was admittedly weak, abrupt, and anti-climactic as well, as we never even found out what Reed's actual endgame in that 'alien-attack' scenerio was, beyond some vague platitudes about not wanting to live in a world that had been implicit in the 'systematic rape of science,' or some such buzz-worthy phrase. I'm with some others on speculating that, upon hearing what Bendis was planning, Hickman asked him to change the ending somewhat to leave Reed alive and in a place where he'd be more determined than ever, and so Bendis wrote an open-ended, quasi anti-climactic ending intentionally, knowing that Hickman would soon continue the story and kick it into a higher gear than he ever could have originally conceived. When viewed in that light, the Ultimate Doomsday Trilogy is kind of like the prologue to the revamped Ultimate Universe, and the story is unquestionably stronger when seen through that lense. Man, I so hope that once Reed and the Children are 'defeated' at the end of this arc (I still believe it will be in some way we didn't see coming) that Reed is still alive, still determined to conquer the world. And then...and then....Victor Van Damme can return, and all hell would break loose...

[CaptainMarvell]

Man, I so hope that once Reed and the Children are 'defeated' at the end of this arc (I still believe it will be in some way we didn't see coming) that Reed is still alive, still determined to conquer the world. And then...and then....Victor Van Damme can return, and all hell would break loose...

Yeah, I hope he's still alive too. Reed and Victor working together would be incredible! I still think the only person that can beat Reed though is Reed. As surprising as it was to see Reed was the villain all along in Doomsday, it would just as surprising to see The Maker Reed get outsmarted by... Reed. Clone, alternate reality, council of Reed, or just the REAL F4 Reed from the previous issues of Ult F4 and the Maker is an imposter. (How about the drama of the real Reed coming back to see the love of his life with his best friend?) At this point, its obvious he'll have to be outsmarted because he destroyed Asgard, whooped the Ultimates and beat the hell out of the People. Nobody is getting a big gun and just blowing them away, so someone is going to have to come up with some genius plan to beat him and nobody comes up with genius plans like Reed Richards.

[PhilUrich'sFlamingSword]

Yeah, I hope he's still alive too. Reed and Victor working together would be incredible! I still think the only person that can beat Reed though is Reed. As surprising as it was to see Reed was the villain all along in Doomsday, it would just as surprising to see The Maker Reed get outsmarted by... Reed. Clone, alternate reality, council of Reed, or just the REAL F4 Reed from the previous issues of Ult F4 and the Maker is an imposter. (How about the drama of the real Reed coming back to see the love of his life with his best friend?) At this point, its obvious he'll have to be outsmarted because he destroyed Asgard, whooped the Ultimates and beat the hell out of the People. Nobody is getting a big gun and just blowing them away, so someone is going to have to come up with some genius plan to beat him and nobody comes up with genius plans like Reed Richards.

I think it's exceptionally unlikely that The Maker is anything but Reed Richards himself. Hickman described this as his 'dream job' for a reason - because the Ultimates offers an opportunity to take established characters in radically different directions than would ever be allowed by 616 editorial. Hickman obviously enjoys the concept of how close 616 Reed always potentially is to becoming disconnected entirely from humanity due to his intellect, and becoming something akin to one of the Council of Reeds alternate versions. But in the Ultimate Universe, he can outright take a previously heroic Reed Richards with ten years of continuity behind him and believably turn him into the ultimate villain, and, in my opinion, not only the best villain the Ultimate Universe has yet seen, but one of the best new villains in the past ten years in all of comics, period. So yeah, all of that was a long way of saying that, given Hickman's track record, comments, and the generally unconventional and shocking nature of this volume of the Ultimates as a whole, it would be a wildly out of nowhere plot twist at this point to reveal that The Maker is anybody but the Reed we all read for seventy-five issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four. Sometimes, when you have a mind that can see the world only in terms of limitless possibilities and endless equations, a mind that operates so far above us mortals, that mind grows beyond thinking in terms of the strictures of traditional morality, understanding it as artificial laws imposed by others and holding no real intrinsic penalty upon being broken. Terms like 'good' and 'evil' fall away and lose all meaning, replaced with 'progress,' and 'efficiency.' See what I'm getting at? Reed is like Ozymandias in Watchmen...he never stood a chance of being a traditional super-hero, because he's simply too smart to delude himself that he's making any sort of lasting difference in the world, and what's more, he can conceive of a myriad of ways to do something great, something lasting, something that most people could barely wrap their heads around, let alone understand. He's my favorite villain this universe has ever seen, that's for sure, and he's not even played his endgame yet. So yeah....I'm pretty sure it's Reed. I'm pretty sure the villain being Reed was one of the main draws for Hickman taking the title in the first place.