What went wrong?

>>79006544
It was shitty edgelord tripe from the start.

>>79006544
Sam Loeb died, we all had to pay the price.

>>79006544
It tried "modernizing" everything, but for some reason they thought "modernizing" meant making everyone an unlikeable asshole (except Thor, whose a hobo hippie, so also unrecognizable).
There's a reason I would never recommend the Ultimates to new readers interested by the movies. Right-wing Cap, Cannibal Hulk, Pym trying to kill Janet by having ants eat her and all that other crap would turn them away.

>>79006715
>Pym trying to kill Janet by having ants eat her
No shit? God.

If you are talking about the Ultimate Universe in general than what happened was Ultimatum. If you are talking about Ultimates 1 and 2 than nothing went wrong. All these shitlords who hate it are feminist, hipster, stoners who love reading the All-New All-Different shit that Marvel is churning now adays. Ultimates was the story for a reboot that was needed. Was it the best. No. But it was a hell of alot better than what was being put on in the 616 during that time and stills holds up against anything that came out today.

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>>79006832
>But it was a hell of alot better than what was being put on in the 616 during that time
Kang Dynasty was great, as was Morrison's X-Men run

>>79006909
Morrison's X-Men is his weakest work, imho.

>>79006544
Instead of avoiding the mistakes of the past in the retelling of canon, they just rushed headlong compressing everything to catch up to modern day story lines and as a result all the bad stuff coagulated together and became kind of obvious

>>79006544
It mistook "dark" and "serious" for edgy.

>>79006832
The only thing I remember enjoying from Marvel during that time was Ultimate Spider-Man.

Granted, USM is really good even today and I was pretty weeded out in college.

>>79007138
just like dc

>>79006544
Ultimates 3

Is Ultimate Captain America good? I heard he's more of a head strong asshole which sounds kinda cool, but people say ultimate spiderman is the only good one.

>>79007567
Read his mini series, seriously it's damn fucking good.

Miller, Bendis and Loeb were given too much creative control over an entire universe of characters

Ultimates 3 was the cancer. Ultimatum was the death. The Death of Spider-Man was the nail in the coffin.

>>79007630
>MillAr, Bendis and Loeb
This was their first and worst mistake.

it was great until ultimates 3

>>79007699
>it was great if you like Michael Bay movies
Fixed.

>>79006544
mark millar licked(and still licks) goats

>>79006544
What went wrong with Ultimates? Pretty much nothing wrong with it. At least for 1&2. As a pym-fan I could perhaps object somewhat, but hey, different continuity, so what?

What went wrong with the Ultimate Universe? They made it a continuity and a shitty one at that. If they'd just kept it all a loosely or not connected series of overblown "What If?"s, it could have stayed a playground for the writers without the restraints of continuity, it might have stayed interesting. Sure, there'd be some stinkers, but some really interesting stuff could have happened as well. Instead it collapsed under the weight of enforced continutiy and instead of breaking free we just had a ton of uneceesarry rehashes.

>>79006777
I don't think he was trying to kill her but Millar really cranked up the wife slapping into crazy levels of abuse

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>>79006941
>Morrison's X-Men is his weakest work
Nah, son.

Nah.

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>>79006544

The funny thing is, after The Death of Spider Man they were clearly trying to actually change the Ultimate Universe. I thought we might finally have a comic series where Status Quo wasn't God. Where the US could fall apart, Captain America could become President, Asgard could be murdered, Western Europe consumed and the Inhumans conquer East Asia. It was actually pretty cool from that perspective.

>>79012699
>I thought we might finally have a comic series where Status Quo wasn't God
This is true. But for whatever reason, Bendis, Loeb, and especially Millar thought this meant making it a universe for movie pitches, instead.

>>79012842
I know some of those ideas - especially all of them in the first 5 issues or whatever - were a bit extreme. But the idea of using the Ultimate Universe to write different kinds of stories (since it was far too late for it to serve as a way to introduce new readers without a mess of continuity) where actions had meaningful impacts and the world actually felt like it was constantly under threat and an unstable place seemed like a great idea.

>>79006552
THIS

It permeated Hank Pym as a spouse abuser despite he fact his mainstream depiction was nowhere near an asshole like Ultimate Hank. Let's not forget Ultimate Hulk being a horny cannibal who was responsible for Ultimate Peter's parents dying.

>>79006909
Kang Dynasty along with Operation: Galactic Storm are the best Avengers stories in my opinion.

>>79012922
>seemed like a great idea.
You're right; I'm agreeing with you.

The problem was that nobody actually did anything with it. Infinite possibilities now that status quo was thrown out the window, and all we got were "The Same Marvel Stories As Before: Everyone is an Asshole Edition."

>>79013006
>Operation: Galactic Storm
>better than Under Siege
>better than Celestial Madonna
>better than Korvac
Kand Dynasty is great, but let's not get carried away.

>>79013019
True, true.

I've been toying with writing a text-based superhero verse with no comic book time, relatively low power levels (like, MCU-Hulk as absolute max) ad some kind of reasonable political, cultural etc reaction to superhumans, progressing from them becoming well known in WWII (although existing before then) all the way up until the present day.

I've got tonnes of ideas for it, I'm just not sure how much research I'm willing to do into the real world to write it.

Ultimates 2 is GOAT

>>79013047
Under Siege is always a great read and those 70's Cosmic arcs made Avengers annuals, but Galactic Storm was pivotal over how bittersweet the ending was. As for Kang Dynasty, it was the greatest moment that a villain had over Earth. I'd even argue it was the last time we actually saw 616 Earth because everything afterwards is this bizarro continuity.

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I could handle everyone being an asshole. The constant then-modern pop culture references are what got me.

>>79013431
And even this is dated...how many kids would know who Freddie Prinze Jr. is or Shannon Elizabeth?
Anybody else miss the late 90's/early 00's? Cuz I sure as hell do

All you underage /co/mrades don't remember just how awesome the "hyperrealism" of Ultimates was at the time. Sure now it comes out as edgy and the references (Shannon Elizabeth lul and Freddie Prince Jr. wut) are dated and cringy. At the time though it was the next best thing to getting an Avengers movie. It was a fun explosion filled series that while didn't have a whole lot of depth didn't need it. It was a Micheal Bay movie in ink.

>>79014775
>"hyperrealism"
>next best thing to getting an Avengers movie
>Micheal Bay movie in ink.
>implying anyone not underage would want that

>>79014826
Yeah at the time I was. But shit man Ultimates isn't high art nor does it pretend to be. What I'm saying at the time it was fun and different. It wasn't bogged down by 40 years of continuity and you didn't have to have a PHD in Marvel U to get what was going on. Reread a lot of the old comics from that time and a lot of them are just dull continuations of earlier stories that resemble soap operas not action movies. Pretending Ultimates is was shitty in it's inception is really disregarding all the stuff that was shit at the time. It's not great compared to some of the stuff out now? Sure but few things ever completely stand the test of time.

>>79014826
>implying any adult think in this manner in the first place

You are not impressing anyone with your maturity when you boldly claim a dislike for Ultimates

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>>79006544
Nothing. It's a great book.

>le edgy fags ITT
Stop posting opinions you know nothing about, tards

>>79015152
>different
It really wasn't though. People had some new personalities (mostly assholes), but it there was little that was really new going on. USM is literally 616 Spider-man stories with Bendis decompression/dialogue. Millar had the world's greatest super team sit around and blatantly pitch movies. Cap being a fascist dick and Hank being even more mentally unstable didn't make up for the lack of creativity.

>>79015271
>missing the point this hard

>>79015410
Have you read any 616 book from the late 90s and early 2000s?

>>79015869
>Busiek Avengers
>Waid Cap
>Priest Black Panther
>Jenkins Inhumans
>Ostrander HfH
>Daredevil relaunch
>probably more that I don't remember the exact dates to

A few of these had some similar flaws of their own, but all of them, especially Inhumans, were attemtpting something more imaginative than anything in 1610.

>>79015969
>Ostrander HfH
I'd love to read this if it ever got a fucking reprint. Why are Ostranders books always impossible to get ahold of?

>>79016049
>Why are Ostranders books always impossible to get ahold of?
He's a cult writer who did most of his work at DC, who isn't keen on reprinting the off-the-grid/non-popular stuff. And it's just a bad case of luck that he would work at Marvel during the time they're trying to pretend never happened.

>>79006715
>Hippie Thor
That was one of the best portrayals of Thor even if it was different.

>Right-Wing Cap
If anything he was a little conservative and traditional since he just got out of the ice but the guy didn't give any indication that he was right wing or that he had a political leaning over the other.

Ditto on Pym though, Marvel writers never could forget the slap.

Ultimate Tony was also a good character he was like MCU Tony with the wit, charisma and funny with the hedonism cranked up to eleven but minus the jerk.

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>>79006777
>>79006715
>>79006552
>Mark Miller hates Pym and portrayed him as a psychopath wife-beater

I was and still am so fucking mad

>>79006715
Strictly speaking about Millar's first two vols, aside from Pym, Hulk, and Fury (but lets face it that's Fury) no one was really an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole.

Tony was nicer than his 616 counterpart, and Ultimate Cap was just loud and abrasive but look at his moments with Gail and Bucky or when he's hanging out with the Ultimates in their downtime, he is also not someone who is a jerk when he's unprovoked (he even takes the France comment back).

>>79007567
I liked the parts with him and Nuke although him being rude to the British soldiers and him being jingoistic was fucking bullshit since in Ultimates he worked with a lot of Brits, including Captain Britain and he didn't insult them.

Also he didn't hate being in France, that was dumb, Aaron just saw that one panel like everyone else and made up his mind about how that character was without actually reading the comic and this goes for a lot of people who hate on the Ultimates.

>>79007699
>>79010607
This

>>79013431
>>79013528
A lot of comics have dated references including the old ones and especially today's ANAD line since you know in 10 years that shit will be extremely dated.

What gets to me is that Fury makes a RDJ reference in the first issues of Ultimates, something about Steve's face not being as smashed as RDJ, I can't recall.

>>79006941
And still one of the best X-men runs.

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>>79006544
Despite trying to be a "uncomplicated" and "modernized" version of the Marvel universe, it became both complicated and a relic. While it did approach a lot of things with a fresh perspective that contextualized old stories in a new setting, to much dumb shit (incest, Ultimatum, almost everything with the X-Men, almost everything with Doom, almost everything with Fury) stuck around. And because the Ultimate line was so small and contained, the dumb shit had to be dealt with it so you couldn't just fucking ignore it. The few interesting ideas they had post-Ultimatum, such as the Maker and a free Mutant nation, were inevitably a fumbled.

Another problem is that it tried to ride the line between campy and serious. Books like Ultimates 3 were goofy as fuck, but then you had "cutting edge stories taken straight from the headlines" right next to you. The line never could decide what it wanted to be.

>>79006544
Ultimate Vol. 3

>>79006544
Not muh Avengers
>Forgetting the point of doing a reboot
The entire point was reimagining heroes as if they debuted in the year 2000, which is a much more cynical time than the 60s. Of course everyone is gonna be cunty, that's the world we live in.

I for one loved it until Ultimates 3, then picked it back up around the time Dr. DoomRichards returned

>deluded millarfags defending a book that Millar himself hates now

>>79013528
>Freddie Prinze Jr.

He's in the new Star Wars show now, right?