Really breaking the Ultimate trade dress there. In the late 2000s, it seemed like no one could tell Jeph Loeb no. He did a lot of really bad comics for both Marvel and DC, and his reward for those bad comics was getting to write more bad comics. And it’s not just me saying that, for once. Among other things, his Batman: Hush with Jim Lee was a massive sales juggernaut until a year-long mystery had a terrible, cop out ending that felt like a cheat, Ultimates 3 was pretty widely considered a disaster, his introduction of Red Hulk was nothing but controversy, and then this happened. By the time this was announced, I knew better than to buy a comic with the words “Jeph Loeb” written on it. So I didn’t. And all anyone could say was I made such a good call. I know a lot about what happens here, but haven’t actually read it. But we have digital now, so prepare for pain! Loeb is joined here by Dave Finch, Danny Miki and Steve Firchow. I was surprised to see David Finch was already a tag on my blog just now. Somehow, I forgot his Avengers work for a minute. I may be too tired for this tonight. We open by kind of surveying the Ultimate U…
That Thor/Valkyrie interaction is very emblematic of Loeb’s run on the Ultimates, from what I understand. We’re in good hands. But wait, there’s other places to go…
Hey, it’s the gang from USM off on their fun night out. That lined up pretty well. This vexed me at the time. Still does, kind of. I’d bought every appearance of Ultimate Peter Parker to a point. I has his whole career on hand. Except for Ultimate Power, which I could not in good conscience spend money on, and now this. But do I want to buy bad comics for completion’s sake? Back then, no. Now… well, you’ve seen this blog. Ah, well. One more place to visit, I guess, before it can all go wrong…
Love the casual implication that A) having tattoos and piercings makes you ugly, and B) Dazzler is trying to be ugly on purpose. A real window into Loeb’s mind. Well, anyway…
Alright, enough consecutive pages. So, the idea here seemed to be that it was time to really shake the Ultimate U up. That because it was not beholden to keeping the IP on the stands every month like the mainline titles, it could get a lot weirder. Which, you know, in the hands of, like, someone trying, could be interesting. So it is that flooding New York is about the least insane thing that’ll happen in the remaining pages of this event. As this attitude got more intense in the subsequent years, Bendis in particular took some pretty interesting swings. Loeb did… this series. As the flood that came out of nowhere intensifies, we see the FF reacting and Johnny caught completely underwater, then Hank growing giant sized at Ultimates Mansion screaming for Jan. In Midtown, that guy who bumped into the X-Men who seemed like he might be Bruce Banner turns out to be Bruce Banner, who nearly drowns until the Hulk takes over. all the while, the Watchers, uh, watch. And our guy?
I have no past experience with Steve Firchow, but this thing he’s doing with the webs on Spider-Man is not good! Weird exchange for them, given their current relationship status. Elsewhere, Angel flies Dazzler out of the water… who may be dead? It’s not clear… and Iron Man does the same for Captain America, perhaps more successfully. At the Baxter Building, Sue tries to hold back to the tide with force fields, but it’s too much for her. She passes out as Thing gets up on the roof, so Reed can tell him she’s barely breathing, and Thing can tell Reed he thinks Johnny and his dad may be dead. Reed stretches into action immediately. But not to try to save Johnny. He’s sure Namor did that, and he suddenly has some kind of submarine or something and is out for revenge. Good stuff, Reed.
Kah-razy drawing of Namor down there, jeez. Finch’s stuff is different from a few years ago, rather more solid and grounded, but he still does some weird faces. We cut away to Latveria to watch Doom find it’s been covered in ice, freezing his subjects to death where they stand. And in Westchester…
These dorks just killed my favorite X-Man off panel! Justice for Ultimate Nightcrawler!
Ultimate Magneto used to have a markedly different, significantly worse costume than the original recipe, but now it’s basically just the original colored wrong, with too many belts. Whether that came from X-Men or is just what Finch decided to do here, I don’t know. “For what they’ve done, the will have to pay the ultimate price” was the tag line for this event, if you can believe that. How Magneto has Thor’s hammer when it doesn’t even exist in the universe is beyond me. Luckily, I don’t care. Well, there you go. Pure chaos, out of nowhere, in a rushed, offhand manner that’s sure to upset readers everywhere. It’s Avengers Disassembled all over again. I’m sure Bendis is glad not to be in the middle of it this time. Speaking of Bendis, we better go see what happened with Aunt May…