PopSyndicate.com

In this issue, one of the people on this cover will die…

Let’s be honest: I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the Ultimate Marvel Universe at first. I thought it was just another way for Marvel to milk their two biggest cash-cows, namely Spider-Man and the X-Men, for more money by reinventing them and putting them in a more contemporary setting. But then as soon as Ultimate X-Men by Millar and Kubert came out, I was pretty hooked. That was actually the very first comic I ever subscribed to (I think primarily because it was on special or something), but I always thought it was a darn good title. Ultimate Spider-Man I ended up getting into because I really liked Bendis’ take on the more modern Peter Parker, and the way he can just write the hell out of Spidey’s classic banter. Then The Ultimates came out, and that was the crème de la crème. Millar and Hitch’s work on that title was some of the best comic work to come out in the last few years. But then things started to go all kinds of wrong, and those things started with Jeph Loeb. When he did The Ultimates 3, he took a well-established, wonderfully crafted series and turned it into a dull, witless and uninspired piece of garbage. Ultimate X-Men had changed hands a few too many times for me to maintain any semblance of interest. Ultimate Spider-Man kept Bendis, but lost Bagley. So I wasn’t down with the Ultimate Universe for a while. Then I heard that said universe was coming to something of an end as the series Ultimatum came out. And lots of heroes have been kicking the bucket, and Ultimatum #3 promises even more bloodshed. But the question is not who is going to die, but why?

In the past two issues, massive destruction has been smacking the hell out of the planet. Most of New York City is underwater. Millions are dead. And the big bad here is Magneto. He’s somehow caused massive flooding and freezing of parts of Eastern Europe. If I were to name off the heroes that are already dead before this issue hit the stands, it would fill the review. But, for the sake of clarity, I’ll just name the ones that are really important to this issue: Dazzler, Nightcrawler, and Beast all drowned in the NYC flood; The Wasp was partially eaten by The Blob (and when did he start eating people?); Valkyrie died… somehow;  Professor Xavier had his neck snapped by Magneto himself.  Now, while the X-Men are dealing with the losses of their comrades, and discovering the death of Professor X, Thor and the comatose Captain America are in Valhalla dealing fighting the hordes of the dead to get Valkryie back from the clutches of Hela, goddess of death. Also Multiple Man is apparently being held hostage by Magneto and is being forced to create thousands of Madroxes to be used as suicide bombers for Magneto (one of whom tries to stand up to Magneto but Mags bashes him far away with Thor’s hammer… how did he get that, by the by?) and the rest are storming the Triskelion hoping to blow it up. And in perhaps the strangest moments in recent comic history, Giant-Man, with the newly psychotic Hawkeye find The Blob with Wasp’s body and in retaliation for Jan’s death, Hank bites off The Blob’s head and spits it out. Gross. And another couple of heroes make the ‘ultimate’ sacrifice.

I can only imagine how fun this mini-series must be for Loeb to write and especially for artist David Finch to draw. How many times do you get to write/draw heroes dying by the truckload? Not many. So, in a way, I can see how this series makes sense to the creators. But unfortunately for the rest of us, we just don’t know what the hell is going on here. There’s so much grand mayhem occurring with so many different characters, we’re not quite certain who we’re supposed to be caring about the most. Admittedly, it was a ballsy move to kill Professor X, but this whole series acts on the conceit that ‘no one is safe’. But there are people that we know have to make it. Now, if Quesada and Loeb REALLY wanted to shake things up, they’d kill someone like Spider-Man or Wolverine or Captain America… but that’s not going to happen. No one’s going to go that far off the beaten path. I know these big death event comics are supposed to shake up the status quo, but there’s got to be a more effective plot, with better and less clichéd dialogue. The only thing I can absolutely not complain about is Finch’s art. I’ve thought he was a master of framing and style and widescreen action since I first saw his stuff, and this series has been no exception. I just wish that for once, Jeph Loeb would prove me wrong about his stuff lately and really do something that has impact.

At least something that has impact beyond shock level, which is basically all Ultimatum looks like it’s going to be.

Ultimatum #3
“Chapter Three: Heaven on Earth”
Written by Jeph Loeb
Pencils by David Finch
Inks by Danny Miki
Colors by Aspen’s Peter Steigerwald with Steve Firchow
Letters by RS and Comicraft

2