Marvel’s Ultimatum – Epic battle or death fest?

  Through out the year of 2009 a comic book series was released under the Ultimate marvel brand called Ultimatum written by a well known write called Jeph Loeb, this storyline would shock and shatter the Ultimate Marvel universe, it also created massive controversy within the marvel audiences that lead many to labelling Loeb as character killer. But it was heralded as the first step into Ultimate marvel’s evolution into a legitimate universe not just an alternate revamp universe but it was also seen as throwing away all of the foundation work that was made before it.

  Since the 60’s Marvel comics have created new fresh and exciting storylines that entice and exhilarate the younger generation of comic books fans (I should know I’m one of them), but when the first X-men and Spiderman movies came out Marvel decided to reinvent and revolutionise the franchise. What was meant to be just a few comic revamps to cash in on the movie hype actually turned into a completely new universe, this didn’t become apparent until the release of The Ultimates series, which was a reinvention of the famous all-star superhero team The Avengers but rechristening them The Ultimates and leaving the original name for a later more dark team of anti heroes. This new rein visioning included having Iron man with brain tumour instead of a pace maker, Thor being a reincarnated god on earth that supports Green Peace, Bruce Banner was made a weak willed scientist who only turns into the Hulk to make up for inadequacies, Captain America was really the only character that they didn’t make any drastic changes except for that he’s very cocky and oh yeah he also faced alien shape shifters posing as Nazis in WW2 (yeah that seems legit). The Ultimates were what established this new found universe, X-men, Spider man, Avengers and then Fantastic Four were the first but more new Marvel overhauls were made including mini’s series that gave more depth to each individual character like Thor, Iron man, daredevil, Hawkeye and Vision. All of these elements were what helped create the new franchise now called Ultimate marvel.

  The majority of the credit goes to the writers of the comic lines; it was revolutionary minds like Mark Millar, Joe Quesada, and Brian Michael Bendis. Mark Millar is today famous for graphic novels that were adapted into movies like Kick Ass 1, 2 and Wanted, his work with DC writing Superman: Red Son and in main stream marvel he wrote the arguably most intense and groundbreaking Civil War, but Millar’s contribution to Ultimate marvel was Ultimate: X-men and The Ultimates, Millar brought a new youth to the X-men by making them younger and more of an actual student appearance but at the same time telling the original storylines but with a new attitude. Mark Millar would later go on to create The Ultimates a more realistic and hard line re-imagining of The Avengers. He was arguably the driving force behind Ultimate Marvel (that’s left to personal opinion). During his time with Marvel Brian Michael Bendis has helped create so many amazing storylines like Secret War, Avengers Disassembled, New Avengers, Secret Invasion, House of M, Dark Avengers and Siege. It was his talent for making huge phenomenal storylines that made him able to re-forge Spider man into a more up to date teenage superhero, showing the trials and tribulations of school life and at the same time manages to throw in superheroes and super villains which is no easy feat. Another writer who was involved with the Ultimate Spiderman line was Joe Quesada, famous for creating the Marvel Knights brand, he controversially married Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in main stream Marvel and made it official which made a lot of the fans unhappy because this would limit Spiderman character growth and his work along side Brian Michael Bendis in writing the Ultimate Spiderman line.

  You’d think a huge event like Ultimatum would have been left in the hands of someone who knew the ultimate universe like Millar and Bendis but they gave the reigns to a well established writer with a strong reputation being well-known for his work for DC like Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory, Legends of the Dark Knight and JLA: Our world at war, his work with Marvel stretches back as the 90’s creating the Age of Apocalypse series, Fallen Son: Death of Captain America and Fall of the Hulks. But it was his work on Ultimatum that got his reputation of Character killer.

  The story of Ultimatum is when the notorious mutant super villain Magneto alters the planets poles causing freak weather event around the world including a giant tsunami that hits New York killing millions and less than a dozen of Ultimate marvel’s character roster, this included half of the X-men including Night crawler, Beast and Dazzler, Valkyrie is lost the flood and Thor goes to Hela god of death and meets Captain America in the process who was also killed in the flood, Wasp savagely eaten by The Blob and then Yellow jacket a.k.a Hank Pym goes on to bite the blobs head off out of anger and revenge, many more die in the process to stop magneto (who which later kills Professor X, ugh). Many were disgusted and angry that Loeb just killed off character so liberally and not giving them any real acknowledgment that they’re dead, which is almost insulting the character and their originator, but also many thought Ultimatum was the best thing that could happen to the franchise, many loved how impactful and hard hitting it was, show the real long term effects a major marvel crossover can have on the world. “Throughout its decade-long history. Marvel’s Ultimate Universe has pulled no punches. Showing that superhero fights did have a human cost. And that no one was safe… Jeph Loeb took that dial and cranked it to 11” David Pepose, Newsarama.com. This statement proves that there are many that saw Loeb trying to show the real devastating consequences to a massive Meta human battle can have on the real world. But some were more open about there dislike to Jeph’s work. “There’s so much wrong here, it’s hard to know where to begin. What “Ultimatum” delivers in scope, it loses in storytelling… At this rate, “Ultimatum” is going to be remembered as little more than a snuff film for Marvel fans.” James Hunt, Comicbookresources.com. this shows that comic book fans do know what they are talking about and will express their opinions especially if you go around killing off their most beloved characters in meaningless ways just for shock factor.

  I think it’s fair to say that Jeph Loeb Most likely knew that he was going to get a lot of backlash by killing off so many characters which in all honesty makes him a brave man knowing this could possibly damage his career and reputation and still go along and do it. But this still doesn’t excuse the horrible usage of gore.  Skeletons, blood and limbs I can handle (I read manga, I’m used to it) but to see a beloved Marvel original having a guts being torn out but a fat cannibal and then seeing that same cannibal having his own head chewed off by another Marvel original, Dr Strange gets his head reverted to red paste and you don’t even truly see how Night Crawler dies you just see his lifeless body lying on the floor with some blood trickling out. The only death that I was satisfied with was Wolverine’s, it was the only death that was built up and had great dialogue including his epic ‘I’m willing to die’ speech, this final stand entails having his body burnt to the bone by friendly fire from Cyclops and Iron man thanks to Magneto’s involvement, but even that doesn’t stop Logan from ramming his claw into the master of magnetism and it all ends with Magneto literally ripping the adamantium of his bones leaving a skeleton shaped pile of ash. There are many good points to this comic series it gave more room for lesser known characters to grow into high profile characters and also went on to create more epic storyline that were only possible due to the events of Ultimatum, some of the other Ultimate marvel writers were not so pleased because it made them change their already written storyline so it would fit with the events of Ultimatum for example, Mark Millar had planned Wolverine to be apart of his Ultimate Avengers line up, it was screw up like that was what made a lot of people mad at Loeb.

  So looking at all of the positives and negatives of this comic series leaves really only one question that’s left to all of the Ultimate and main stream marvel fans. Is Jeph Loeb a ground breaking visionary or just the George R. R Martin of comics?