Ultimates #19 Discussion - SPOILERS

[Monty_Cristo]

strangely, i'm not bothered by them recruiting Cassie. it's everything else about it that bothers me. they couldn't have explained her relation (or lack of relation) to the Scott Lang/Giant-Man that just showed up. it's just extremely sloppy.

[Nitz the Bloody]

I'm American, and I'm also staunchly on the left with my ideologies, but I really like the tone of Humphries' Ultimates. It's not "rah rah America" so much as telling Americans "things have gone to hell, let's all get off our asses and put things back together". It's a convincing way to push the Ultimates towards being more like the Avengers, because under the circumstances they have no more time to be decadent.

And really, the original Ultimates by Millar and Hitch intended the team to ultimately become the Avengers, in function if not form.

[SpeedofLife]

And really, the original Ultimates by Millar and Hitch intended the team to ultimately become the Avengers, in function if not form.

And Loeb took up the cause, but he went too far. Thor's speech, Tony's armor, them working out of the mansion, etc. It was too much like the Avengers.

Loeb was right to being them back under SHIELD's jurisdiction in New Ultimates.

[Nitz the Bloody]

And Loeb took up the cause, but he went too far. Thor's speech, Tony's armor, them working out of the mansion, etc. It was too much like the Avengers.

Loeb was right to being them back under SHIELD's jurisdiction in New Ultimates.

Well, Jeph Loeb's work on Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum (New Ultimates actually being surprisingly good) was a creative failure on a level not seen outside of Tommy Wiseau or Christian Weston Chandler. So the Ultimates reverting to the trappings of their predecessors was the least of that book's problems.

But yeah, it was disappointing to see stuff like Wanda in her "this is what horny American men think a gypsy looks like" costume, or the team just loitering around Tony's mansion on their days off. What I meant was that the Ultimates would go from where they started, as celebrity superhumans posing as heroes, to actual heroes.

[Drz]

And Loeb took up the cause, but he went too far. Thor's speech, Tony's armor, them working out of the mansion, etc. It was too much like the Avengers.

Loeb was right to being them back under SHIELD's jurisdiction in New Ultimates.

Millar's Ultimates 2 concluded with the Ultimates going on their own, it would have made sense for them to have their own Avengers mansion/tower, but Nick Fury would have had his own military brand of Giant Men, Wasps, Punisher-like Captain America, War Machine, Blade and so forth.

[Nitz the Bloody]

Millar's Ultimates 2 concluded with the Ultimates going on their own, it would have made sense for them to have their own Avengers mansion/tower, but Nick Fury would have had his own military brand of Giant Men, Wasps, Punisher-like Captain America, War Machine, Blade and so forth.

Which illustrates the super-grey morality of the Ultimates; while the team objected to being SHIELD's paramilitary posthuman army, how is being billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark's paramilitary posthuman army any better?

[Drz]

Which illustrates the super-grey morality of the Ultimates; while the team objected to being SHIELD's paramilitary posthuman army, how is being billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark's paramilitary posthuman army any better?

See you got alot of story potential right there, if something like Avengers vs. Ultimates happens with a superhuman army rising in Korea and going viva la revolution, what gives Tony Stark the right to do anything about that? I would assume Ultimates 3 (with Hich) would have involved characters like Red Skull, Ghost Rider, Dracula and Kang, so it would have had super villains, it's hard to say how much Ultimate Avengers carries Millar's plot points he wanted for Ultimates 3, but Red Skull is given.

[Nitz the Bloody]

See you got alot of story potential right there, if something like Avengers vs. Ultimates happens with a superhuman army rising in Korea and going viva la revolution, what gives Tony Stark the right to do anything about that? I would assume Ultimates 3 (with Hich) would have involved characters like Red Skull, Ghost Rider, Dracula and Kang, so it would have had super villains, it's hard to say how much Ultimate Avengers carries Millar's plot points he wanted for Ultimates 3, but Red Skull is given.

Wasn't Ultimates 3 going to be the plot that Millar started in the abortive War Heroes, with the military providing super-power pills to every member in active service? That would've been really cool.

The story in Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates was also really good. It's unfortunate that Millar wasted the first three Ultimate Avengers series on more derivative supernatural stuff....

[RobertoDaCosta]

i loved when Cassie Lang (616) was willed, so i hate her being an ultimate now, she's such an annoying character!!
also, where is Scott Lang? he was teased as an Ultimates member and even participated in Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates and was never seen again..
infinity gems & gauntlet? seriously? i already read that stuff in the 616 universe, why should i care about it now? and if it is really an excuse to see Ultimate Thanos, that will be lame! stop just "ultimatizing" characters, that is lack of creativity!
not excited at all for Reconstruction. maybe it's because i work in politics that i dont like watching these issues in comics too...

[Wolverine12]

i loved when Cassie Lang (616) was willed, so i hate her being an ultimate now, she's such an annoying character!!
also, where is Scott Lang? he was teased as an Ultimates member and even participated in Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates and was never seen again..
infinity gems & gauntlet? seriously? i already read that stuff in the 616 universe, why should i care about it now? and if it is really an excuse to see Ultimate Thanos, that will be lame! stop just "ultimatizing" characters, that is lack of creativity!
not excited at all for Reconstruction. maybe it's because i work in politics that i dont like watching these issues in comics too...

Not sure if you read Ultimate Fantastic Four but Thanos was a big bad in that book awhile ago.

[Nitz the Bloody]

i loved when Cassie Lang (616) was willed, so i hate her being an ultimate now, she's such an annoying character!!
also, where is Scott Lang? he was teased as an Ultimates member and even participated in Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates and was never seen again..
infinity gems & gauntlet? seriously? i already read that stuff in the 616 universe, why should i care about it now? and if it is really an excuse to see Ultimate Thanos, that will be lame! stop just "ultimatizing" characters, that is lack of creativity!
not excited at all for Reconstruction. maybe it's because i work in politics that i dont like watching these issues in comics too...

Of course, Ultimates was explicitly launched as a much more political and contemporary reinterpretation of the Avengers...

[RobertoDaCosta]

Not sure if you read Ultimate Fantastic Four but Thanos was a big bad in that book awhile ago.

oh yeah, completely forgot that one! sorry!
not my favorite character at all, but i supposed it's bound to happen since he will be on the Avengers films

[Bookem Danno]

I am a surprised and a bit saddened how many "good" votes this issue received. I will admit it was not Humphries worst issue, but I in no way found this to be anything that I would consider good overall. Are we all content to settle for a mediocre at best comic and call it "good." Maybe I'm just being cynical, I don't know anymore.

This is how I came away from it. Yeah, it had some potential for the start of *sigh* a 6 part arc but, yeah, all the errors and disregard for followthru was bothersome. Also, it felt a little uneven that Cassie got star treatment but Miles only got a 'cab ride home'. And while the Big 3 got a good amount of fair facetime the Iron Patriot fight sequence followed by the jarring transition satellite was visually horrible choreography. The crisis alert status updates was a cute bit. And it was nice to see Sue get a shot at a guest spot.

[jphamlore]

so no one is going to talk about how humphries compltetly ruined the whole thor has become valhalla idea by hickman. That was one of the best scenes of thor when he talks to the ghosts yet according to this chapter hela is still alive and completly ruined that scene. So humphries is telling me all the dead asgardians are now controlled by hela? I understood that the ghosts stopped talking to thor but really what the hell is going on?

Am I the only one to whom it is obvious the Hela portrayed in this issue is in fact dead and is only in Thor's imagination? For one thing, although this Hela blusters about Thor being cursed, she does absolutely nothing physically to him despite his having killed their son. There is also the obvious point that Hela as the lord of the dead could bring her son back alive again if she were still alive and not in Thor's imagination.

Humphries is doggedly sticking with Marvel's policy that in Ultimates, "dead is dead."

[Robbie_Jee]

Hela's Asgardian? I thought she was Valhallan.

I too am not at all bothered by the patriotic cheese of Humphries' recent issues. It's no different than like 40% of all the American films that came out in the 80's and 90's.

If anything makes me cringe, it's the fact that Humphries writes this book like it's made for children. Why is it that in recent years, The Ultimates, the UU's most prestigious and most mature book, becomes the type of crap you see in a Saturday morning cartoon? IMO, eight year olds should not be this book's target demographic.