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Ultimate Fantastic Four #7

13:15 / 18.02.04

WIZARD: THE COMICS MAGAZINE #152
3 EXCLUSIVE PREVIEWS ONLY IN WIZARD!
* Read 6-pages from Astonishing X-Men #1 by writer Joss Whedon (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer) and John Cassaday (Captain America) from Marvel Comics!
* Get a 7-page preview of Catwoman: Roman Holiday #1, from DC Comics, illustrated by artist Tim Sale and written by Jeph Loeb for DC Comics. Loeb and Sale are the team that brought us Batman: Dark Victory, Daredevil: Yellow and Spider-Man: Blue.
* Read a preview of Ultimate Fantastic Four #7 by the new creative team of writer Warren Ellis and artist Stuart Immonen from Marvel Comics.

I've always wanted to see Sue Storm as a chainsmoker…

15:46 / 18.02.04

Surprising indeed, I honestly didn't expect Ellis to return to mainstream superheroes, particularly with Marvel. Hopefully it'll be interesting, and on the level of Planetary, rather than just an attempt to pick some quick cash. I wish the WEF was around now, just to see people praising this as "a bold move" and a complete subversion of the system and such.

16:09 / 18.02.04

and if you get Bad Signal you may have read the rant on Takashi Murakami's handbags.

Matthew Fluxington

16:54 / 18.02.04

Hahaha! Oh Warren, you man of great principle!

19:24 / 18.02.04

*Confusedly looks around the room*

Warrenwhodoin'whaaaa...

za?!!?

*Closes eyes, goes back to sleep*

21:06 / 18.02.04

Uh. He said he'd never do mainstream superheroes again... and then he signs on to the #1 selling superhero comic in the US. Riiiiight.

That said, I will take a look at it, since I don't hate Ellis as much as some on this board. I hate him when he's lazy, mind you, but I'm assuming he's smart enough to not do tossed-off hackjob scripts on what is, again, the best-selling superhero comic in the US (It just stuns me that ULTIMATE FF's doing that well, sorry. Even with a tremendous second-issue drop it held on to the top slot...)

01:36 / 19.02.04

I thought the first 2 ishes were great. The team will still be young enough by #7 that WE will have a chance to be creative.

04:34 / 19.02.04

I hated the 1st issue.
REED, ARE YOU OKAY? YES, MOM. DID YOU HURT YOURSELF? NO, MOM. SOMEBODY BEAT YOU UP? NO, MOM. hope they get the powers by #2...

05:14 / 19.02.04

This is a joke right?

05:37 / 19.02.04

Warren Ellis' latest Bad Signal e-mail reprinted on Millar world.

18:28 / 20.02.04

Thanks for the link. In the Ellis thread that's been buzzing lately, I was starting to worry I was being harsher on him than he actually deserved. But no. I mean, what is that, like 5000 fucking words of rationalization? How egomaniacal do you have to be to presume that people even care enough to read all this long-winded, reference-laden bullshit about why you came to the momentous decision of "yes, by God -- I will write the FANTASTIC FOUR!!" I mean, we're not talking about the fate of western civilization here. Christ, if anybody ever needed to get the fuck over himself....

Haus of Mystery

18:56 / 20.02.04

He looks like a roadie for an english metal band by the way.

22:05 / 20.02.04

On the "how egomaniacal..." point, I will mention that he emails "Bad Signal" out to a list of subscribers. It's mainly pretty rambling, journal stuff. If you don't like Warren Ellis you probably won't see most of it.

I think if you take a job doing a revamp for a company then it's okay to "think out loud" about what it means to do a revamp.

I don't really pay a lot of attention to what the man says, though. I just like (most) of his comics.

17:21 / 21.02.04

Yeah, but come on, it's "thinking out loud" to an audience, no matter how small. Besides which, if my thoughts about myself and my work were anywhere near this grandiose, I would surely keep them to myself. And the whole thing is disingenuous anyhow, considering it was -- what? -- not even a month ago that this person said he was "retiring" from comics. I don't know Ellis personally, but based on what I have read of his work (and his online rambling), I find it a little hard to believe that he was in some way called to this project by anything other than the allure of getting paid. There is absolutely nothing in the original concept that screams "Ellis should write this!" to me, any more than a cinematic adaptation of Family Matters seems to call out for the directorial guiding hand of Quentin Tarantino. If Ellis had been honest and said, "Well, I know I said comics were shit, and I really *wasn't* going to write them, but then Marvel said, 'Hey, Warren, this is Marvel...listen, our sales are slipping and a bunch of our popular writers are signing exclusivity contracts with other companies...ha, yeah...no, no, we've still got Chuck...yeah...well, anyway, here's this thing, and -- well, it's the Fantastic Four, and -- no, no, but...okay, hey...listen...what's this two tugs of a dead dog's cock shit? Who even talks like that? You Brits, I swear, you're all so clever...Warren, calm down! I...no, no, I...well, okay, I guess I'll find someone else for this steaming mass of AIDS-infected dogshit, which shouldn't be too hard, since the first six issues sold like a million -- what? You will? You love the Fantastic Four? Ha, ha! Flame on, right? It's clobberin' time!! Lates, Big E! PEACE!" then I'd have some respect for him, but please let's not try and make out like this has anything to do with artistic integrity.

19:33 / 21.02.04

These questions are very important to me. I wasn't sure where to post them.
1. Did Superman and Batman lie to protect their secret identities, or did most authors have them just being evasive when asked where they went etc.?
2. Does any of Grant's work on JLA have Superman and Batman lying to protect their secret identities?
3. What are Grant's birth date and time?
4. (This one is a bit longer.) In Grant's New X-Men, what scientific fields does Beast seem to be a master of? Probably genetics and particle physics, but what else? I don't remember if he was a physician & could perform surgery or not. Astronomy? Geology? ??thanks.

P.S. I also appreciate replies e-mailed directly to me at three50125go@aol.com.

21:15 / 21.02.04

1. Superman and Bstman DIDN'T lie. Well, that's the short answer. The longer answer involves the special, invisible helmets they wore when they slipped back into their civilian identities. These helmets, which were massive and horned incidentally, projected a psychic field (in the shape of another super-enormous helmet) which served to blunt the critical faculties of anyone in our heroes' immediate vicinity. As a result of this, the question simply never came up and Batman and Superman's secret identities have remained a non-issue.

2. See above.

3. I do not know this. He is the GOAT.

4. He practices a special, mutant science known only as "DEUCE" - or, more accurately, "duecedonics". It is a very exciting new science on the cutting edge.

17:19 / 23.02.04

This is a pail of shit, I'm not buying this. My interest in FF was when Morrison did a mini and I'd gladly buy another one if he wrote it.

//There is absolutely nothing in the original concept that screams "Ellis should write this!" to me//

What about the four in planetary?

10:41 / 24.02.04

Ho-bloody-hum.

So let me understand this. Despite having time to come up with a slew of shocking/hip "Millarworld" titles, Millar couldn't find the inspiration to do more than an arc of UltFF...even _with_ the help of Bendis.

(not that delays in new issues are that new of an idea for him)

So what does he do? Does he call his old mate, the guy who helped him write Authority, the guy who he co-wrote much of his early work with, the guy everyone THOUGHT was going to do FF?

No, he calls Mr. Pervert Suit himself. A man who raved for years against mainstream superheroes, and cast the FF as villains in his best recent work.

A man who threw away all his high & mighty principles after a phone call.

And Warren's first arc? Will it be a bold exploration of the characters and their potential?

"Ellis’ first two story arcs that focus on Dr. Doom and the Negative Zone "

[sarcasm]WOW! A Doctor Doom story! We've NEVER seen that before.[/sarcasm]

Wake me when Seaguy comes out....

19:13 / 24.02.04

ok, start throwing the rocks at me already. but let's give the bastard a rest for a change. I'm one of his most ferocious critics down here [going back to the infamous old IS ELLIS CRAZY OR IS IT ME? thread] and have been lately torn between being disappointed and delighted by his recent comics but everybody's entitled to change their minds, aren't they? Ellis is only [unnecessarily] justifying hs decision in his latest newsletters - more to himself than to everybody else.

to tell the truth it's a shame he was exclusive to DC - and not willing to work on supaheroes - when New Marvel was interesting. and damn, you can't just be a freelance writer in these times, even if you have some cool creator-owned royalties coming to you, unless you serve company properties once in a while to pay the bills [and unfortunately it's kind of ironic that some authors who dismiss work for hire in comics end up having to slave in work for hire in other media, only they pay better].

but anyway, Ellis' work on UFF will be worth a peek at. it can turn out well - or not - due to several reasons, his love for SciFi being one of them. but I don't know, too much vitriol here. of course he gave some [or a lot of] reasons for people to bug him that way, but that's it. let's not forget the guy NEVER said he was retiring from Comics and that his OLD BASTARD MANIFESTO [been reading the CIA collected edition lately] had a one-year lifespam to it.

oh, and UFF was supposed to have being launched a long ago, if Morrison had not left for DC. if you guys catch the news you'll see that both Millar [who claims to have all the Millarworld scripts in the can] and Bendis [who was clearly two-thirds of UFF] have been offered other Marvel books so they had to drop UFF; they were not supposed to be on it in the first place and it's not on stone that they can't be back. the 1st issue was a disappointment but in the 2nd things start to shape up better. Ellis may get the book fresh to toy around - and without worries of characterization problems.

but it was mildy interesting reading Millar say Ellis is his favourite writer. =)

14:11 / 25.02.04

What really happened between Millar and Morrison anyway?

14:24 / 25.02.04

Oh, you know: Marvel staff Christmas party, too much eggnog, miseltoe ... then things got ugly.

Amongst Marvel Zombies, Ellis is still best known for his work on Doom 2099, which was one of the better selling 2099 titles.

(Yeah, I know that's like saying that it was one of the better written Youngblood issues, but I think they at least broke even putting it out.)

The Four in Planetary are a natural connotation.

Rightly or wrongly, Ellis is pegged as a science fiction writer and, to be honest, that's what UFF needs to be. Science fiction.

In my personal opinion, some of Ellis' strongest work was back on Stormwatch where he mixed superheroics, militarism, sci fi and politics. Ultimate Fantastic Four could do worse than channel a bit of this vibe.

17:33 / 25.02.04

What really happened between Millar and Morrison anyway?

I'm afraid we'll have to wait for Morrison's biography, being written by an accomplished british journalist as we speak.

18:36 / 25.02.04

It also perhaps should be pointed out that even if Millar did want Morrison on the book, doing a Marvel book might have been ever-so-slightly against the rules of his exclusivity deal with DC.

16:42 / 18.06.04

I just need to point out again that the Dr. Doom mask design on the final page of this issue is one of THE ugliest, stupidest things I've ever seen. But Ellis & Immonen did a nice job on the rest of it all. Not that this issue was brilliant, but it was decent. And I think the previous Ult. FF issues were pretty much drivel.

Haus of Mystery

19:25 / 18.06.04

Gotsta back you up there. SHIT new look. Don't fuck with the magic. Otherwise an OK issue.

23:17 / 18.06.04

tits and toss. w-out doubt the worst of the ultimates. such a pale imitation. so so so no revelation that vic just has the tiny scar then? no sue and ben had a thing before the change? no, no nothing - just decompressed bollocks. drac's grandson? no mother fixation. bollocks. much as i like him at times, when elly gets it wrong he fucks it worse than anyone else ever could.