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I was reading some posts below and noticed something...

Posted by seeker on 4/2/2008, 11:32 pm
161.31.83.103

that I have been thinking for awhile now. First off, I admit I am not the biggest fan of Ultimates 1 and 2. I think they are good comics and action stories with great art, but not as great as some people make them out to be. One of the issues I had was where Millar seemed to give each character such a deep-seated flaw that they became a caricature of sorts if not a question on why they would even be on a team. Millar seemed to each issue try and outdo himself on each character's flaws or perhaps take it too far. But compared to Loeb's Ultimates Millar's look like the pictures of mental health and dare I say it...tame by comparison. In Ultimates 1 and 2 Hawkeye was a cold-blooded black ops killer, but in Ultimates 3 he is a psychotic loose canon with a death wish. (Note: While I can understand why he would be like that I got to ask why have him on the team. Sort of like having Sentry in the Mighty Avengers. Do you really want to put someone like that in stressful situations?) Iron Man before while drunk was at least partially active or at least not so far into the bottle. Valkyrie comes across as the embodiment of the term "blond bimbo." Quicksilver came across as even more "angry" then I recall ever seeing him in previous Ultimates (for no reason). Cap lacks a personality or apparently common sense. Wasp, one of the few previous Ultimate characters who seemed to at least come across as normal yet flawed, doesn't seem to have a clue. Finally, Thor, the one shining light of the Ultimates, comes across even worse then mainstream Hercules ever did. (Seriously, the team is falling apart around him, they were just attacked, and the first thing he wants to do is get laid?????????) This is supposed to be the world's premier superhero team? Maybe it is because Millar did not throw everything in the reader's face to such an obvious degree? Maybe it's because Millar's stories followed a certain amount of internal logic to actually lead up to the different action scenes? Maybe something about his writing style despite Ultimates 1 and 2 being almost along the same lines of Ultimates 3 (violence, crude humor, attempts at snappy one-liners) his came off more polished or at least not so "in your face." I guess what I am trying to say is that that while I disagreed with Millar's work on some levels I still thought it was pretty good and I don't understand where Loeb got many of his characterizations even if all he read was one issue of Ultimates 1 or 2. I like the idea of not taking decompisation, but I think fights should have somewhat of a point. I'm also trying to figure out why he decided to make the title Ultimate Wolverine? Did he never intend to end the series with issue #5, but carry it over to Ultimates 4 (if that ever happens) and Ultimatum? I am still lost on some of Loeb's team decisions. Seriously, why is Hawkeye even on the team when he is that mentally unstable. Why is Wasp leading the team when she has no experience and Cap has the military training and Stark at least is a business man. Letting characters who just suddenly show up such as Black Panther and Valkyrie? (This would be one of those parts that Millar's Ultimates while maybe not upstanding heroes were all for the most part mentally competent enough to actually be on the team and Fury knew who they were. Characters such as Pym who were too unstable were kicked off.) All that, and where is the wisdom in sending Thor, Wolverine, Valkyrie and Hawkeye against Magneto? A bunch of people with metal against a guy who manipulates metal with no plan other than "attack." Sorry if this comes across as a pointless rant, but for a writer with Loeb's record and following at least a decent previous run I am surprised by how far the series fell. Even giving it one or two issues once Wolverine took up half an issue with only two issues to go and too many things to explain I can only assume Loeb plans/planned to draw it out to Ultimates 4.

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Message Thread: I was reading some posts below and noticed something... - seeker 4/2/2008, 11:32 pm « Back to thread

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